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Europe plans to extend protection for performers and session

Posted by PhilipE on Dec 19, 2008 at 10:52

The European Commission has put forward a proposal to extend the term of protection for performers and sound recordings to 95 years. The aim of the proposal is to bring performers' protection more in line with that already given to authors - 70 years after their death. The European Commission published its proposal back in February 2008; however the European Parliament has yet to give its opinion.

On first sight, Europe’s proposal seems fair, as it will allow performers to earn money for a longer period of time and in any event throughout their lifetime. The European music industry is at a distinct disadvantage as Europe has one of the shortest copyright terms in the world. Fact is that European artists enjoy a higher degree of protection abroad than at home. Europe needs to be more competitive and therefore its copyright laws need to be equivalent with international standards. In the United States granted their extension over ten years ago. Also, new technologies have given old music/artist new life and therefore record labels and artist, should be able enjoy the new sources of revenue provided by these new technologies.

However there are always two sides to a medal, as a recent European Parliament hearing on the extension showed. The first question which needs to be asked, is who will benefit the most of the this extension, most academics have argued that only those who already hold rights and are already receiving significant income, i.e. record companies, collecting societies and the big performers, will receive the lions share of the increased revenue. In a nutshell the extension will benefit incumbent holders of major back-catalogues, be they record companies or ageing rock stars. To many the extension as such does not address the actual problem faced by today’s artists, namely that the money generated from music is not distributed fairly among all artists. The music industries problem is a not question of the extension, but the contractual terms as the how the rights are managed. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have calculated that for the majority of performers the projected extra sales income resulting from the term extension will be from as little as 50¢ each year in the first ten years, to as "much" as €26.79 each year.

The idea behind the extension is not without merit, however if we really want to help musicians, then we need to "follow the money"

» Read on

Do you think the extension is a good idea and will benefit the artists?
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2 replies added

mintmusic1

On 2008-12-20 at 11:57 mintmusic1 said:

clearly another way to keep the money going into the pockets of the rightholders , not the artists

ceilimoss

On 2009-5-12 at 12:51 ceilimoss said:

Do not mix two different problems, Mintmusic. Extension is ok and I'm glad that for once, the EU is aligning on the higher standards, the fact that collecting societies are a hoax is another issue.

I for one decided some years ago to cancel my subscriptions to the Belgian sabam, and just as well!
Clearly, this would not be possible if I was a succesful artist selling tons of records, but for small bands, it's perfectly manageable, and I'm earning a lot more thanks to the numerous Creative Commons platforms my music is now featured on (and which were forbidden to me before since sabam owns you like a master owns a slave) than the pitiful excuse for a revenue the sabam granted me each year...

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