If there's any justice in the world
I have deliberately chosen a song lyric as the title of this post, because I want to publicise the government ruling that UK songwriters and musicians will only remain eligible to receive royalties for fifty years. This is in contrast to ninety years in the US.
I am nothing more than an amateur musician. I have played in bands, I have written some songs, I have even recorded some of them. The discerning punter will bemoan that there is no music worth buying anymore, and yet the rewards of being a musician are being eroded.
Yes, most of us do it for love, not money, but it is still not fair when you do a job and don't get paid for it. Hence my opposition to illegal downloading - you are depriving the artist of their slice of the pie - iTunes is a much fairer way of doing it, with reasonable prices and reliable downloads.
I am not one of those who bemoan every little thing that the government does - I am actually fairly even-minded about the achievements (good and bad) of the Nu-Labour administration; but I have to protest that they have sanctioned a measure that actively prevents talented individuals from reaping the rewards from their hard work.
posted by Rish @ Thursday, July 26, 2007
4 Comments
4 Comments:
Arse. You can't make money off something you wrote in fifty years? Then your marketing is shit. Tough. Or maybe your idea is shit. Even tougher.
The point of copyright is to protect innovation - give the innovators enough time to get rewarded and then free the ideas for others to build from (as no idea exists in a vacuum - "standing on the shoulders of giants" as newton is often misquoted as saying).
Extending copyright is proposed simply to allow publishers to milk stuff that they bought years ago for an extra period of time. It's got nothing to do with recompensing artists - it is all to do with the likes of EMI watching their business model disappearing before their very eyes and desperately searching for ways to cling on.
oh and it's ninety years in the states because Disney lobbied the government so that they could keep raking in money from tales like Snow White, Aladdin and Robin Hood ... in other words, stories they got for free because they were out of copyright and then turned into cash cows (fair enough) that no-one else is allowed to use in the same way (not fair).
And there's more ...
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/25/0228245
My favourite comments:
Sorry, I'm originally from the United States and am therefore confused by this article. It looks a bit like the government in the UK has opted for a well-reasoned, balanced public policy rather than simply doing what a couple large industry cartels were asking them to. How exactly did this happen?
Cliff Richards, the man who made a hit song out of singing the lords prayer to the tune of Auld lang syne... Granted I think that the money went to charity, but he couldn't claim he didn't make money out of it indirectly, as well as it raising his profile again and allowing him to win awards. Do they not know what seemingly (or actually) eternal copyright would mean...
Jesus: ...So, I see you own a copy of the Bible
Cliff: Yes my Lord, I read it all the time. It's the best book in the world.
Jesus: Ah, but the thing is... Me and my dad wrote that... and you never paid us... I heard the other day that that's theft. Hell, if it was just me, I might let it slide, but it was in the commandments and all. Can't have one rule for you and another for those who stole a physical copy of books from shops... time to burn.
The point of copyright is NOT to pay artists. That's a side-effect. The point is to encourage creativity in society. In previous and current incarnations of copyright law, this is done by paying artists royalties for a given period of time.
Plus an economic argument (very dense and full of equations but referenced all over the shop recently): http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070712-research-optimal-copyright-term-is-14-years.html suggesting that the optimal for society in general AS WELL AS the artist is 14 years.
Well, that has obviously struck a nerve! There are a lot of comments on that page that you referenced, mainly negative with regard to extending copyright. But there was also this one, which rather more accurately reflects my own sentiments:
"Except for a few well known artists, who get an advance AND royalties, there are thousands who toil away without pay - until/unless they can sell their work "later". There is a difference between paying for something "now", a sure deal, and taking the risk of getting your money "later". Just because a work is covered by copyright for "a long time" there is no guarantee that it will be worth anything, but without copyright, it FOR SURE will be worth nothing (to the creator).
Almost every copyrighted item that people are bitching about not being "free", is simply "entertainment".
Nobody "needs" to buy mere entertainment, they just "want" it! The very fact that copyrighted material, not counting the media, is an intangible that folks are still willing to pay for argues the very need for a copyright law.
I am not sure what the exact balance WRT copyright law should be, but I am just pointing out there is some need for copyright in the Real World."
It is not just the well-known artists who make money out of recordings, and if people buy lots of what you make over an extended period of time, that attaches value to it - so why shouldn't people continue to be paid for adding value, at least for the duration of their lifetime?
I actually have the most sympathy with the point of view of 50 years, or the death of the artist, whichever is later...
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