EU extends media groups monopoly and profits

Pa ElGrande

EU strikes the wrong note on copyright

Next week marks 50 years since Sir Cliff Richard recorded Move It, arguably the first British rock 'n' roll record. That landmark will also mean that Cliff's classic is no longer covered by copyright. However, yesterday the EU Commission backed a proposal to extend copyright on sound recordings from 50 years to 95. Dave Rowntree, the drummer with Blur, argues that the EU is making a mistake.

It's being hailed as a spectacular windfall to keep ageing rockers rolling in cash into their second century of crooning. Yesterday the EU Commission threw out the economic evidence and announced that they are to adopt a proposal to extend the term of copyright in sound recordings. It's the latest in a series of naive intellectual property initiatives, adopted without a shred of credible evidence to back them up.
Sir Cliff Richard

Out of copyright? Sir Cliff Richard

Bizarrely, the Commission maintains that the extension will make no difference to the price we pay for music, but is nevertheless still necessary. This claim, from a record industry report prepared by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, was demolished by the British Government's own research led by Andrew Gowers, the former editor of the Financial Times.

In addition to Gowers' independent analysis, the Commission's own advisers and Europe's leading IP research centres recommended against extension - but the Commission ignored them all.

The Commission has attempted to address the problem of the vast amounts of work which are unavailable commercially yet remain under copyright. Their proposal is a 'use it or lose it' clause that will remove copyright from works that are not commercially released. But the devil here is in the detail: for example, we need to be sure that a performer can't make a recording nominally available and so lock it up for a further 45 years during which it won't be available to the public.
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British Top Legal Advisers - Copyright Term Extension is Bad

Many advocates and experts from around the world have had a long and hard fought battle to stop the major copyright industry's push to extend the term of copyright. It's very likely to be welcome news in Britain when this kind of opinion comes from "leading European centres for intellectual property research".


In the last couple of months, copyright term extension in Britain seems to have become a dormant topic. The last major movement in this field came back in early March where a British MP objected to Copyright Term Extension legislation. Now, the Open Rights Group is reporting that top legal advisers are saying that, among other things, "The proposed Copyright Extension Directive will damage European creative endeavour and innovation beyond repair."

Said Gavin from the Open Rights Group, this comes at a time with "the confusion and disillusionment of Ireland’s rejection of the Lisbon Treaty still ringing in the Commissions ears"

The letter (PDF) to José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission contains the following:

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Once again this is not about artists, this is about major entertainment conglomerates, if you have enough money you can buy the laws you want.

Pa ElGrande

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