Hello,
It seems that concerns us.
Regards,
Yann
-------- Message original -------- Sujet: EDRI-gram newsletter - Number 5.10, 23 May 2007 Date: Wed, 23 May 2007 20:44:11 +0300 De: EDRI-gram newsletter edrigram@edri.org Pour: edri-news@edri.org
============================================================
EDRI-gram
biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe
Number 5.10, 23 May 2007
============================================================ Contents ============================================================
1. US official makes PNR demands to the European Parliament 2. UK implements the Data Retention Directive 3. Google is profiling online gamers 4. UK House of Commons culture committee wants copyright extension 5. The Italian Big Brother Awards for 2007 6. Bulgarian actions against online piracy - "collateral damage" 7. Opennet Initiative publishes alarming results on Internet filtering 8. OECD finds the real piracy losses 9. International Declaration on G8 and Intellectual Property launched 10. Romanian open source community gets together 11. Polish people arrested for publishing movie translations 12. Recommended Reading 13. Agenda 14. About
(...) ============================================================ 4. UK House of Commons culture committee wants copyright extension ============================================================
The copyright term for sound recordings is back on the public agenda in UK, after a report from the House of Commons culture committee has recommended its extension from 50 to 70 years, despite the negative feedback received earlier from Andrew Gowers' report or a recent study commissioned by the European Union and made public in January 2007.
The Culture committee report considered that the musicians have a "moral right" to keep control of their creations while alive and that 7000 people will lose in the next years their royalties from the 50s and 60s recordings. Also the report considered there was a non-reasonable difference between the copyright term for songwriters, whose families keep the copyright 70 years after the death of the author and the 50-year rule for sound recordings.
"We recommend that the government should press the European Commission to bring forward proposals for an extension of copyright term for sound recordings to at least 70 years.", concluded the report.
77 UK MPs have signed a parliamentary motion calling for this extension. EDRi-member ORG has publicly opposed the change asking from the people to remind the politicians to debate this issue on the basis of evidence - which points firmly against extension - rather than nostalgia.
The decision of the UK MPs is opposite to Andrew Gowers' report, backed by the Treasury, that recommended not to extend the copyright term for sound recordings.
Moreover, Gowers exclusively revealed to Out-Law Radio last month that, far from leaning towards extension, he almost recommended shortening the term of copyright:
"I could have made a case for reducing it based on the economic arguments," he said. "We certainly considered it, and if you look at the report that came from the academics that we commissioned to examine the arguments and examine the evidence they also argued very robustly that 50 years could be arguably more than enough."
Copyright extension back on Commons' agenda (16.05.2007) http://www.out-law.com//default.aspx?page=8053
Music stars 'must keep copyright' (17.05.2007) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6661283.stm
Copyright extension: Seems our MPs haven't been doing their homework (14.05.2007) http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2007/05/14/copyright-extension-seems-our-mps-...
EDRI-gram: Copyright extension term rejected by EU commissioned report (17.01.2007) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.1/copyright_term
On 5/24/07, Yann Forget yann@forget-me.net wrote:
Hello,
It seems that concerns us.
Regards,
Yann
Not really since the 50 years is rather an oddity and since we are US based we can't make any use of it.
On 24/05/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/24/07, Yann Forget yann@forget-me.net wrote:
It seems that concerns us.
Not really since the 50 years is rather an oddity and since we are US based we can't make any use of it.
Oh yes it does. Ordnance Survey maps for example.
- d.
On 5/24/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Oh yes it does. Ordnance Survey maps for example.
Are not sound recordings. They are not talking about crown copyright so the publication +50 on OS maps would remain.
The sound recording copyright is somewhat non standard under UK law where everything else other than typesetting (20 years probably one of the few copyright lengths I agree with) is life +70.
Selon geni geniice@gmail.com:
The sound recording copyright is somewhat non standard under UK law where everything else other than typesetting (20 years probably one of the few copyright lengths I agree with) is life +70.
Life +70 is in a 1993 European directive, this is standard across Europe modulo oddities like the infamous French wartime and killed-in-action extensions (the former of which were removed by the court of cassation).
I bet that recording +50 for sound (*) is also a European standard.
(*) Sound recordings carry the copyright of the authors (songwriter, lyricist, composer...) and the artists (singers, musicians...) and possibly the producers, but only the first kind is "authors' rights" in French law. The others are "rights related to authors' rights" and have a shorter duration.
On 24/05/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/24/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Oh yes it does. Ordnance Survey maps for example.
Are not sound recordings. They are not talking about crown copyright so the publication +50 on OS maps would remain.
The sound recording copyright is somewhat non standard under UK law where everything else other than typesetting (20 years probably one of the few copyright lengths I agree with) is life +70.
Typesetting and "discovery" are both oddities - if you discovered and published a new Shakespeare script then (apart from being offered three different chairs of literature) you'd get a copyright of something on the order of fifteen-twenty years even though the work, if published, would be out of copyright aeons ago.
On 5/24/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/24/07, Yann Forget yann@forget-me.net wrote:
Hello,
It seems that concerns us.
Regards,
Yann
Not really since the 50 years is rather an oddity and since we are US based we can't make any use of it.
There must be some well-known UK authors/singers/song writers etc opposed to the 70 years rule. We should find and contact them, offering to store their valuable works on the commons under a free license. That would demonstrate how much the public could gain from *less* copyright, without bankrupting the media companies^W^W artists.
Magnus
On 24/05/07, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
On 5/24/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/24/07, Yann Forget yann@forget-me.net wrote:
It seems that concerns us.
Not really since the 50 years is rather an oddity and since we are US based we can't make any use of it.
There must be some well-known UK authors/singers/song writers etc opposed to the 70 years rule. We should find and contact them, offering to store their valuable works on the commons under a free license. That would demonstrate how much the public could gain from *less* copyright, without bankrupting the media companies^W^W artists.
Note that the Open Rights Group (http://www.openrightsgroup.org/) is hot on the topic as well. Not sure we've found loud voices against it.
- d.