On 14 February 2008, EU Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy announced his intention to propose to the European Commission (EC), in the next several months, an extension of the copyright term for performers from 50 to 95 years.
This proposal should be ready for adoption by the Commission before the
summer break of 2008. As a justification to his action, Commissioner
McCreevy stated: "I strongly believe that copyright protection for
Europe's performers represents a moral right to control the use of
their work and earn a living from their performances. It is the
performer who gives life to the composition and while most of us have
no idea who wrote our favourite song – we can usually name the
performer."
The Commissioner also believes the extension would have no negative
impact upon the consumer prices as studies show that the price of sound
recordings that are out of copyright is not necessarily lower than the
ones under copyright and no negative impact upon Europe's external
trade balance as most of the additional revenues collected during the
extended term would remain in Europe for European performers.
The same proposal was made in UK in May 2007 as a result of the lobby
made by some artists such as Cliff Richard and Roger Daltry to the UK
Government. However, in July 2007, the UK Government took the decision
to reject the proposal.
The Recast study of the Dutch Institute for Information Law,
commissioned by the European Commission and issued in November 2007,
dealt with the topic and its conclusions were unfavourable to an
extension of the copyright term for performers.
"Overall one can say that a term extension would indeed benefit those
performing artists that are still popular after 50 years and still
receive payments from collecting societies and/or participate in the
revenues from the sales of their recordings – providing they have not
signed away their rights against a single fee (…) the share of
recordings that are still commercially valuable after 50 years makes up
for only a small part of the overall repertoire. Benefits from a term
extension would therefore only accrue to a limited share of performing
artists. For the larger part of performers that do not derive
substantial revenues after 50 years, a term extension could -depending
on the contractual setting- prevent their recordings from either being
commercially exploited by a secondary party or by themselves; or from
becoming accessible to the general public" reads the report.
The report concludes that: "The authors of this study are not convinced
by the arguments made in favour of a term extension. The term of
protection currently laid down in the Term Directive (50 years from
fixation or other triggering event) is already well above the minimum
standard of the Rome Convention (20 years), and substantially longer
than the terms that previously existed in many Member States. (…)
Perceived from an international perspective the American terms are
anomalous and cannot serve as a legal justification for extending the
terms of related rights in the EU."
In August 2007, the EDRi-member Open Rights Group
also published a very strong opinion against the extension of the
copyright term explaining that the extension of the term would
"discourage innovation, stunt the reissues market, and irrevocably
damage future artists' and the general public's access to their
cultural heritage". In the Group's opinion, the ones to benefit from
the term extension would certainly not be "the vast majority of
recording artists (…) Because artists generally do not receive any
royalty payments until the record label has covered the cost of
production and promotion, this means that 80% of recording artists
receive no royalties from their records. Their only income from
recording is the non-refundable advance against royalties paid to them
by the label so that they can survive whilst working on their album
(…) royalty rates are set by the recording company and agreed in
binding contracts which usually include pages of restrictions on how
the artist can earn money (…) Like any business, record companies are
trying to maximise their income."
Gowers Review also recommended the rejection of the proposal on the
basis of a study carried out by a specialist team at the University of
Cambridge which found only a weak economic increase as a result of the
extension of the term (a 2% gain in the industry revenues) with
increased costs imposed on the wider economy and society.
EU commissioner: Let's extend music copyrights to 95 years. Ars: 50 years is plenty
EU proposes to allow artists to collect royalties for 95 years
Longer Copyright Terms and Poor Performing Artists
Release the Music – Should the term of copyright protection for sound recordings be extended?
Source: EDRI-gram – Extension of the copyright term for performers proposed to the EC
