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Re: [ARSCLIST] Britain reverses position on copyright extension
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul D" <pdrockton@xxxxxxx>
Copyright laws are designed to allow the Creator to financially benefit
from their work. I'm not sure how you can ethically separate a songwriter
from his royalties for any length of time. Its like finding a gold mine
and only benefitting for 7 years; after which you turn it over for "public
use". You found the gold. You keep it. Period.
Royalty fees are trivial. Like 10 cents per sale on a song.
http://moneywisdom-gold.blogspot.com
Fine, but...
Most countries (the US Of A being the one noted exception...?!) allow
the copyright holder (usually the record company...NOT the artist...!!)
50 years or slightly more to control the copyright on a sound recording.
In almost all cases (Elvis, and possibly Glenn Miller, being the most
notable exceptions...?!) sound recordings over 50 years old have very
little appeal to the "listening public"...particularly since the record
companies, who hold the copyrights, rarely reissue them once they
are no longer "hits!"
Since the recording artists almost never have any ownership of the
copyrights on their recordings (these are legally considered "works
for hire" and thus the copyrights belong to the party who paid to
have the recordings made...!) they would not profit significantly
if the copyright term on their sound recordings was lengthened!
Only BMG, Sony, usw. would stand to gain...and then ONLY if
they chose to reissue their recordings (which is in general not
highly likely...?!)
There are a few folks like myself who DO enjoy listening to
"historic" recordings (this is why I own about 54,000 old 78rpm
phonorecords)...sadly, though, we are few & far between!
Beyond myself, there exist VERY few potential buyers for
"The Greatest Hits Of 1927" at least, not enough to interest
the accounting-driven "suits" in the head offices of the multi-
national conglomerates who own 99.9% of the copyrights;
however, as long as recordings become p.d. in 50-odd years
there are a handful of people who WILL re-issue them...!
(and do, in fact...and I find the CD's at Dollarama...!)
Steven C. Barr