Government proposes copyright extension for sound recordings

According to this Sunday Times article, which I found via Max Barry, the UK government intends to extend the current copyright term for sound recordings from 50 years to 100 years.

James Purnell, the new minister for creative industries, believes the change will allow record companies to generate extra revenue to look for new talent and nurture it. Purnell, who will outline his plans in a speech next week, said: "The music industry is a risky business and finding talent and artists is expensive. There is a view that long-term earners are needed so that the record companies can plough money back into unearthing new talent.

"Bands like Coldplay will make enough money for their company to help them discover around 50 or 100 bands."

I believe that if this change will actually have completely the opposite effect to that which Mr. Purnell believes, in fact record companies will cease to have an incentive to find new talent if they can continue to generate revenue from their back catalogue.

I think in light of Chris Martin's comment "I don't really care about EMI. I think shareholders are the great evil of this modern world." it is ironic that Coldplay should be used as an example for the extension of copyright, the primary effect of which would be to increase the fortunes of future EMI shareholders.

If the government wishes to foster innovation and creativity in the music industry this is not the way to do it. Economically it makes sense for companies to lobby governments to change laws in their favour so that they can continue to profit from their back catalogue which they know to be profitable rather than gamble on new talent that hasn't proven itself to be profitable.

In comparison the current term of protection for patents in the UK is 20 years, this forces technology companies to continually innovate, make new discoveries and invent new technologies in order to remain profitable.

The public benefits from music entering the public domain as it allows other companies to now sell the music and the competition in the industry drives down prices from their artificially high levels. The sound recordings of many artists from the fifties such as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Nat 'King' Cole have now entered the public domain and as such are available on CD at very reasonable prices. These artist's music is still being sold by their original record companies and I'm sure even though the copyright has expired that they continue to generate much revenue.

I believe that the current 50 year term is a reasonable balance between the interests of the record companies and those of the public.

There is further discussion of this article in the follow Slashdot thread: Extending Pop Music Copyrights

If you have any views on this issue you can write to your MP here or write to James Purnell directly via his website here

For further information you may be interested in James Purnell's TheyWorkForYou.com profile

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Final Problem

Welcome to the twelfth of our weekly broadcasts of the 1954 BBC radio series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes starring Sir John Gielgud as Sherlock Holmes and Sir Ralph Richardson as Dr. Watson.

This episode is titled The Final Problem and is based upon the story of the same title by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The original broadcast date was 21st December, 1954.

Stupid laws blocks self-publishing work.

Clay Shirky tells Boing Boing:Stupid (c) laws block me from publishing own work online.

Welcome to the Copyfight. So, at Etech this year, I gave a talk entitled Ontology is Overrated. I want to put a transcript up online, and Mary Hodder, who recorded the talk, graciously agreed to give me a copy of the video.

When she came by NYC last week, she dropped off a DVD, which I then wanted to convert to AVI (the format used by my transcription service.) I installed ffmpeg and tried to convert the material, at which point I got an error message which read "To comply with copyright laws, DVD device input is not allowed." Except, of course, there are no copyright laws at issue here, since I'M THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER.

Got that? I am in possession of a video, of me, shot by a friend, copied to a piece of physical media given to me as a gift. In the video, I am speaking words written by me, and for which I am the clear holder of the copyright. I am working with said video on a machine I own. Every modern legal judgment concerning copyright, from the Berne Convention to the Betamax case, is on my side. AND I CAN'T MAKE A COPY DIRECTLY FROM THE DEVICE. This is because copyright laws do not exist to defend the moral rights of copyright holders -- they exist to help enforce artificial scarcity.

Copyright holders in my position, who want to use Creative Commons licensing to share material, are treated as pathological cases, because we're not behaving in the extortionate manner that current regulations are designed to protect.

I've gotten the copy another way, and the transcript will go up, but this is the state of the world, circa 2005: I can be prevented from copying my own words from my own devices, precisely because I want to share them freely, a use the law is perfectly prepared to regard as irrelevant.

This is just yet another case of technological measures being used to ensure adherance to copyright law. Because it is possible to infringe copyright using such technology the manufacturers have created measures that prevent it but also prevent entirely legal acts also.

Furthermore if today's newly created artistic works are all in a digital format that is designed to prevent infringements they will still remain as such when entering the public domain and the copyright law that is being technologically upheld no longer applies to those digital works. It will probably be illegal to actually disable the DRM to extract the now public domain works due to the DMCA or similar laws in other countries.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Blue Carbuncle

Welcome to the eleventh of our weekly broadcasts of the 1954 BBC radio series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes starring Sir John Gielgud as Sherlock Holmes and Sir Ralph Richardson as Dr. Watson.

This episode is titled The Blue Carbuncle and is based upon the story of the same title by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The original broadcast date was 14th December, 1954.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Six Napoleons

Welcome to the tenth of our weekly broadcasts of the 1954 BBC radio series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes starring Sir John Gielgud as Sherlock Holmes and Sir Ralph Richardson as Dr. Watson.

This episode is titled The Six Napoleons and is based upon the story of the same title by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The original broadcast date was 7th December, 1954.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Solitary Bicyclist

Welcome to the ninth of our weekly broadcasts of the 1954 BBC radio series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes starring Sir John Gielgud as Sherlock Holmes and Sir Ralph Richardson as Dr. Watson.

This episode is titled The Solitary Bicyclist and is based upon the story of the same title by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The original broadcast date was 30th November, 1954.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Norwood Builder

Welcome to the eighth of our weekly broadcasts of the 1954 BBC radio series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes starring Sir John Gielgud as Sherlock Holmes and Sir Ralph Richardson as Dr. Watson.

This episode is titled The Norwood Builder and is based upon the story of the same title by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The original broadcast date was 23rd November, 1954.