I was watching the BBC breakfast programme this morning and they had a few guys on to talk about how big-business, specifically the record industry, is currently fighting to have UK copyright extended. It was a very interesting and well-balanced discussion with some interesting points made by both sides.
The “for-guy” as I will call him, was talking about the poor old artists who won’t be making any more royalties from their works. The fact that they’ve already made millions is beside the point of course. The “against-guy” pointed out that it’s record companies who have the most detrimental effect on artist’s revenues and that this is actually a good thing for artists. The specific example he used was the Elvis Presley Estate, who instead of making measly royalties via the record company, would have the freedom to release albums themselves, with the ability to include things such as new exclusive pictures from their archives. Of course they would also be getting all the profit from sales.
I won’t pretend to be as balanced as the BBC. I think it’s stupid to extend copyright past 50 years, as I think this is plenty of time to allow people to make profit from their works (and many will be dead before their works enter the public domain anyway). In the US copyright currently stands at 95 years, which is just stupid. The reason it is so long is mainly down to one company: Disney. They are scared because if Mickey Mouse goes out of copyright, they will lose one of their many sources of income (although I shouldn’t think income from this is significant compared to other sources). That’s why they’ve been fighting to have US copyright extended by 10 years – every 10 years. And because the US government listens to big-business rather than to the people, Disney always get their way.
There is also a “head to head” discussion on this (with the ability for readers to add their comments, some of which are very interesting) on the BBC News site. It is possibly the same guys who were on the show this morning, but I’m not sure. My favourite quote from the “against-guy” is this:
The record industry is fond of referring to its “intellectual property”, but I’m not sure there are too many intellectuals at work in the business.
How true.
Anyhow, if the proposal to extend copyright is even considered, I believe it would have to go through the European Parliament first, giving everyone a chance to voice their opposition via their MEPs.
