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Copyright extension plans stumble
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 30 March 2009
So, the British music industry’s attempts to extend the recording copyright from the current 50 years, possibly to as much as 95 years, were dealt what Music Week have called a “savage blow” on Friday, which is quite a strong adjective, but there you go. I think they were trying to communicate the UK record industry’s anger that the British contingent in Europe, who had promised to push the copyright extension proposals through, were the very people who caused things to stumble last week.
The devil, as always, is in the detail. While, as previously reported, the British government has now said it supports extending the copyright term enjoyed by sound recordings, albeit to 70 rather than the industry-preferred 95 years, it says its motivation to do so is the financial welfare of ageing musicians and not the companies who have a vested interest in recording copyrights, ie record companies.
EU Minister Charlie McCreevy, who put the original extension proposals forward at a European level, included provisions to ensure that musicians in particular benefited from the extension, mainly by increasing the royalties that are automatically paid to artists and session musicians oblivious of contractual arrangements once the initial fifty year term is up (currently in the UK, the only royalties musicians have an automatic right to is a share of broadcast royalties collected by PPL). McCreevy proposes a ‘session fund’ into which a cut of fifty-year plus royalty revenues are paid, which are then distributed to musicians involved in those recordings.
This is all very admirable, but it does mean that the political debate around the extension proposals are more complicated than just agreeing a term length that’s somewhere between 50 and 95 years. And as the UK’s IP Minister David Lammy has made it clear that it is the musicians who he cares about, getting that fund system right is, in his mind, crucial to letting the extension be voted through at all.
Friday’s debate among the so called EU Committee Of Permanent Representatives, or COREPER to its French friends, who need to agree on the proposals before they can go to the decision-making Council Of Ministers, centred on the Session Fund.
According to Music Week, one big issue in that regard is whether the session fund will only apply to existing recordings, or all future recordings too – ie will musicians always get a preferential cut of royalties after fifty years on both existing and all future recordings, or does that extra benefit only apply to those recordings which already exist when the new law passes. Under the latter system any new recordings would enjoy a 70-95 year term without any provision to force record companies to pay a share of royalties into any fund when the initial fifty years are up in 2060.
The UK want the session fund to be permanent but most other European countries, for reasons I’m not entirely sure about, want the fund to be “transitional” and therefore to only apply to existing recordings. Disagreements on that particular issue meant no agreement was reached in COREPER, which means the proposals cannot now proceed, as originally planned, to the Council Of Ministers. In theory it’s just a delay – the proposals haven’t been dropped – but there is a deadline here, because if this matter isn’t resolved before the next round of European elections in June the whole matter will be pushed back months, maybe years (and there is another longer term deadline – the early Beatles and Stones catalogues will start to come out of copyright in 2013/2014). To reach that June deadline, every day counts.
Responding to the news that, by dissenting on the fund issue the UK government had stopped the proposals going forward, a joint statement from the Musicians Union, royalty collecting society PPL, and record label trade bodies BPI and AIM, said: “The British music sector is very disappointed by the absence of agreement on an extension for performers and sound recording rights at the COREPER meeting today, and particularly that our own government, despite its recent positive statements, did not vote in favour of the proposal at this meeting”.
They continued: “The UK music sector has lived up to its commitments by reaching an agreement, as demanded by ministers, that will deliver real benefits to musicians in an extended term. In continuing to hold out for further changes, the government has not heeded the repeated pleas of the very musicians it claims to support, who strongly encouraged it to vote for the proposal today. We call on the government to work with us urgently to match its supportive rhetoric with concrete action, by moving heaven and earth to reach an agreement under this EU Presidency that will deliver an improved term of copyright for performers and music companies”.
Responding, the UK’s Innovation Minister John Denham stressed Friday’s vote hadn’t “killed off the proposals to extend copyright term”, and added that the issue just needed more Europe-wide consideration and debate. He told reporters: “Member States need more time to consider the details of the proposal and reach an agreement. The vote against the proposal today will not end the process. I’ve always been clear that the UK would support an extension to copyright term to deliver real, lasting benefits to performers. We are nearly there. I am personally disappointed that we could not get agreement to go straight to a deal with the [European] Parliament but I remain confident that we can get there. The UK will do all it can”.
It should be noted that the UK’s vote on the permanence, or not, of the session fund was not the only hindrance to the copyright extension proposals last week. While British ministers caused things to stumble in its debate about the fund, several other EU nations – enough to be considered a “blocking minority” – confirmed they would vote against the proposal altogether. These included: Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Belgium, Malta, Netherlands, Finland, Austria, Slovakia, Slovenia and Romania.
Again that doesn’t necessarily stop the proposals from proceeding completely, though it is likely to result in another delay and as I said – tick tock tick tock – it’s looking less and less likely the term extension proposals will be passed this session.
