Re: [Sheflug] European Commissioner McCreevy on copyright protection

[Richard Ibbotson <richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Forwarded from Mike Preston - Technomonk Industries mike@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
after Mailman ate it...



Tim Dobson wrote:
| This is starting to look worrying :( :
|
| -------- Original Message --------
|
| Date: Wed, 21 May 2008 07:18:23 -0700 (PDT)
| From: Glyn Wintle <glynwintle@xxxxxxxxx>
| To: Open Rights Group open discussion list
| <org-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
|
|
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=3DSPEECH/08/253&f=
ormat=3DHTML&aged=3D0&language=3DEN&guiLanguage=3Den
|
| ...
| Let me start by looking at copyright protection for
| performers. European performers do not enjoy
| sufficient term protection. 95% of them do not earn
| enough from their profession and have to take up
| parallel jobs. I want all performers, whether featured
| artists or session musicians, to be able to earn more
| from their work. This allows them to spend more time
| doing what they do best =C2=96 namely performing.
|
| Authors enjoy copyright protection that lasts for 70
| years after their death. Performers on the other hand
| enjoy protection for 50 years from the time of their
| performance. This means that an increasing number of
| them are seeing their performances fall into the
| public domain during their lifetimes. Not only do they
| no longer have a say in how their performances are
| used, but also their royalty payments and their
| airplay remuneration dry up.
|
| And it usually happens at a time in their lives when
| they are getting older and not working as much. The
| music business is not the type that comes with a
| pension scheme. The principal beneficiaries of our
| proposal are the thousands of anonymous session
| musicians who contributed to sound recordings at that
| time.
|
| That is why I propose is to extend protection for
| performers and sound recordings from the current 50 to
| 95 years. I aim to present a proposal for an amendment
| to the Directive on term protection by this summer.
|
| By doing this we will go some way towards solving a
| number of problems. Firstly, performers will be able
| to control how their performances are used. This will
| allow them to object to their work being abused or
| used in a way they do not agree with. Secondly, they
| will continue to receive royalties and airplay
| remuneration for their entire lifetime, and as for
| authors, their heirs will benefit a little after their
| death.
|
| Extending the term is not enough in itself. I also
| propose that each record company set up a special fund
| specifically devoted to session musicians. The company
| will have to pay a percentage of its increased
| revenues in the extended period into this fund. This
| will mean that the thousands of session musicians will
| increase their earnings.
|
| Another area of work at present in the Intellectual
| Property field is private


So they basically want to bring musicians into line with book
authors...

Okay, this assumes that book authors are protected not too much and
not too little already, not gonna get into that here.

What I want is for all artists, whether portrait, landscape, graffiti
etc to be brought into line with the two former categories. For too
long~ have the general public been able to buy art to hang on their
walls without giving anything back. A musician can make a recording
when they are a teenager and make a small residual income for the
rest of their lives. Where is the equivalent for artists?!?

In addition, graffiti artists have been marginalised by society, we
need to recognise that these poor starving artists deserve to make
money for the rest of their lives for any art they produce, no matter
where, no matter how bad. If a musician can make money for the rest of
his life from a small ditty he wrote about his girlfriend, why not a
graffiti artist that scrawled a similar message on the wall of a tube
station?

Alternatively, why don't we just do a similar thing to Ireland and
allow artists to make most of their money while their alive without
taxing them to the hilt on their income?

My t'pennys worth...



Mike


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