November 2006
What do we want? Extended copyright protection for Musicians.
It’s Most types of work protected by copyright are protected for a period of 70 years from the date they are created including the protection for lyrics however not so for music.
Performers’ rights in their music only last for 50 years. After this period the work goes out of copyright and can be freely copied.
The government is currently reviewing the copyright landscape and to coincide with this the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) have carried out a survey as to how long the public think such works should be protected for.
Apparently, 62% of people polled believe UK works should be protected for the same amount of time as they are in the US i.e. for 95 years.
However, there are disadvantages to this and the British Library is opposing any extension to copyright as it says such an extension will affect the UK’s national music archive.
Copyright works can only be copied once they are out of copyright, however many works by that stage are too fragile to be copied or have been recorded on formats which are by the time copyright runs out obsolete.
However, the BPI is leading a campaign to extend copyright regardless and has found support amongst artists.
In particular Sir Cliff Richard whose debut hit, “Move It”, goes out of copyright in 2008 has said all musicians want is parity and that many musicians rely on copyright royalties for their pension.
Briffa Comment
It will be interesting to see what the Government decides should be the right period for the protection of such works. However, it is hard to find a policy reason preventing all copyright periods from being the same length and, in particular, the government should be able to placate the British Library’s fears by introducing a compulsory licensing for the copying of songs for national archiving.
Amandeep Singh
aman@briffa.com