Canada Saves Public From Public Domain, Extends Copyright On Sound Recordings Another 20 Years
from the obtained-royal-assent-to-press-more-'greatest-hits'-CDs! dept
Lest it be left behind by other countries bullied into submission by US trade agreements, the Canadian government has now expanded copyright terms for recording artists from 50 years to 70 years. (It was previously passed, but has now received the Official Royal Assent.) While not as obnoxiously long as the terms afforded to songwriters (life plus 50 years… which will probably be life plus 70 before too long…), it's still a needless expansion that does little for living artists while carving another 20-year hole in the public domain.
While one would expect a less-than-balanced perspective from a trade-focused entity, Billboard's "coverage" of the ruling sounds like it was written by the recording industry itself.
Two months after the Conservative government’s Economic Action Plan 2015 for Canada included its intention to amend the Copyright Act from 50 years to 70 years, the bill has been given royal assent and is now law. That ensures that songwriters will enjoy copyright royalties from early works well into their senior years.Yes, it's the much-dreaded "public domain," which has repeatedly traveled several decades back in time to destroy nascent creative efforts. This "severely limited" time frame only extends to sound recordings. Songwriters and composers will continue to be rewarded for their creative efforts for 50 years after they're no longer able to cash royalty checks BECAUSE THEY'RE DEAD.
Now songs such as Buffy Sainte-Marie’s "Universal Soldier" -- released 50 years ago this August -- are no longer in danger of entering the public domain.
Music Canada -- the RIAA of The North -- applauds this decision.
In extending the term of copyright in recorded music, Prime Minister Harper and the Government of Canada have demonstrated a real understanding of music’s importance to the Canadian economy. Thank you. We are thrilled to see Canada brought in line with the international standard of 70 years.Except it's not really a "standard." "Standards" tend to be a bit more static. This "standard" keeps edging up periodically, mainly because of Mickey Mouse, the best unofficial lobbyist the recording and motion picture industries have ever had. It's only a "standard" because the US has kowtowed to the entertainment industry and then passed this bullying along to other countries, using secretive trade agreements and both carrot and stick. A "standard" of $500 weekly protection payments, as "agreed upon" by baseball-bat wielding thugs offering oblique threats would be similarly as "legitimate" as this supposed "international standard."
As Billboard goes on to note, national treasures like Anne Murray, Gordon Lightfoot, Leonard Cohen and Neil Young would have faced the ghastly prospect of (their labels) being unable to exploit recordings from more than fifty years ago without this two-decade protection bump. Well, they likely would have continued to see royalties (life+50), but Music Canada's main patrons, not so much.
This is a win for record labels. It does next to nothing for the names listed above, other than ensure another twenty years of repackaged, decades-old songs -- not exactly the sort of "creative effort" people imagine when they talk about the advantages of copyright protection. All this does is give certain corporations the ability to wring a few more dollars out of recordings made more than 50 years ago. It will have zero impact on creative efforts going forward.
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Filed Under: canada, copyright, copyright term extension, public domain
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Great, we are no longer in danger of others being inspired by their work and producing great new things too! We may also make sure that songs that are stored somewhere far from the listeners have plenty of time to finish rotting and vanishing from history!
I'd ask how these people can't see the insanity of it but I'm convinced they can but they fail to care out of the top of their piles of cash grabbed via regulatory capture.
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1. The people making the laws are heavily influenced by major corporations, not independents or the consumer. They're not paid to consider every side of the story.
2. The major corporations have no interest in the vast majority of history, only what currently attracts revenue. This is a small proportion of their back catalogue, so they only consider a small number of situations.
3. Therefore, adding 20 years of revenue to the stock they're interested in is perfectly acceptable, since the works that would lose out are not profitable to them and therefore worthless either way.
4. Creativity, artistic value, protection of human cultural history and simple fairness (retroactively applying a new rule is unfair by its nature) do not matter to them. It's only insanity if you value any of the above over and above a simple cash number - if money is your motivation rather than art, it's a sane move.
That's the problem. These people are not insane, it's just that they prefer an extra 20 years of revenue from a small percentage of available works as opposed to having all works available to everyone, under the terms under which they were originally created. They don't care about long-term unintended consequences either, they'll be dead or retired by then.
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Not this time. Canada's been consistently spitting in the face of the USTR for years over the stupid 301 (?) report, but this time it appears the gov't of the day just outright gifted Music Canada for no reason. Well, no reason except there's an election coming up and bribes/donations from Music Canada (or anybody, really) are always welcome.
I wonder how they can think they're serving the public when they gut public domain.
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Government hate free as much as the labels, because in the case of the government there is no money changing hands to tax. Without money they cannot cannot rule^h^h^h^h serve the public.
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The music industry cares nothing about the artists nor art
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You know what? Screw 'em. You want your song locked up for 70 years? Fine. We'll all pretend it never existed to begin with if that's what you really want. Just keep it off the radio and outta my face.
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Ex Post Facto
This same "rule" should be applied to patent and copyright extensions.
New copyrights / patents after laws pass extending them would last longer, anything prior remains where it was when applied for.
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Re: Ex Post Facto
To a "State of law" several things like "due process" and "innocent until proven guilty" are necessary, and that all laws must be made public.
Applying laws retroactively is contrary to that. It's actually destroying the base of the state itself. People doing this should arrested for treason.
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They had an agreement 50 years ago. That just changed
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/retroactively
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Re: Re: Ex Post Facto
We need a new word. Treason is generally defined as attacking a state. We need a word that describes attacking the public, and office holders of the regime should be subject to it.
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Re: Ex Post Facto
You know, if we ever manage to keep our representatives from being bribed to betray us, or if the bribers finally go out of business after decades of clawing to stay above water in an irreverent industry.
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I can rest easy after death now
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Re: I can rest easy after death now
Why let some other bastard make money off your work just because you're dead? Perform a few easy, dark rites to Orcus Lord of the Underworld, become a lich, and collect those juicy royalties for next to forever at the current rate of copyright expansion.
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Re: I can rest easy after death now
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fook all actors and musicians
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Re: fook all actors and musicians
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I can sing the songs of Mordechai Gebirtig because the Nazis killed him in a concentration camp. No such luck for Sholem Secundam: he died after Walt Disney, so his songs will never be free for performing.
Should I be thanking the Nazis for this present of music? As long as Gebirtig is not snatched from the Public Domain as well, of course. I should not give the vultures ideas.
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It smacks to me more of socialism gone bad (performers get a cut of the copyright pie) than a logical setup. Sure, live recording isn't the same thing as studio work where you've got sound engineers and expensive equipment to factor in as well -- but that's being run as a business, and costs are up-front. They're going to have MORE business, not less, if the previously-recorded works enter the public domain.
In short, the only people who really benefit from these extended copyrights are those who invest money in purchasing copyright portfolios. And even they're got to have a diverse portfolio and bilk many people out of a living in order to make a decent profit.
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Judges are nothing but corporate whores
The public always get bent over and "serviced".
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Normally
This is an example of why protection is needed. Nobody may be watching Steamboat Willie except for nostalgia, but 60's and 70's rock is still live and providing programming for at least one station in every market. My only hope is that the actual performers get some slice of that pie.
(That's the real need for reform - at what point should the majority of the revenue for a work return to the artists? When have the publishers gotten their pound of flesh?)
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Re: Normally
1) Having the recording fall into the public domain has no impact on a musicians ability to earn money from a live performance.
2) The effect of copyright if a recording stays on the market is to keep on earning the artists some royalties for what was at best a few days work, rehearsing and making the recording. In what other occupation can someone be repeatedly paid for one hours work?
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Assuming the artist gets any royalties. There are a lot of 'cut-outs' from the 60s and 70s (and even earlier); do any of them get royalties? Let alone those whose recordings are still available in any format?
...for what was at best a few days work, rehearsing and making the recording. In what other occupation can someone be repeatedly paid for one hours work?...
Most rehearsing and recording takes longer than a few days, and doesn't always take place in a studio.
But I like that question: who else gets repeat payments for the exact same work?
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Anyone who invests money? That is, if you consider buying stock doing work.
Along with authors, actors, artists, architects, athletes (image rights), software companies, inventors... I'm sure the list goes on.
OP brought up pensions, which is paying people for work they did years ago for the rest of their lives. So, every retired person?
I guess you could throw in every person who is born into wealth and is a trust fund recipient, since their one-time "work" was being born.
But I suppose it just feels better to demonize musicians? Those long-haired hippie millionaires!
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I'd like a royalty from past employers for some of the brilliant IT work I've done for clients in the past. That includes four day sleepless perl hacks which worked flawlessly when rolled out. Some of that was arguably of far more value monetarily to those corps I worked for.
Why are you entitled to special consideration, by law, and I'm not? Some of my work screams artistry far louder than anything Celine Dion or Justin Bieber ever managed. Their stuff was ephemeral; listen to it once and you never want to hear it again. Mine's still out there working for a living, some of it constantly with no breaks on multiple servers in multiple countries around the world.
This !@#$ is ethically right down at the bottom of the barrel with nepotism and golden handshakes (or golden spoons).
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All of this is completely irrelevant. No artist needs "protection" for 70 years, or 50 years for that matter. Nothing is preventing them from generating income form their work. They* made a deal to be "protected" for a limited time and then contribute to the public domain. This deal is being reneged on so don't be surprised when this results in the general public losing even more of the shred of respect remaining for copyright.
*Yes I realise this more about record labels than actual artists.
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...which was created under an agreement that they're to go into the public domain after 50 years. Why do they get to change the deal after the contract ends?
"in some cases, still performing."
So, they're still making money from their work, they're just not being rewarded by work they did 50 years ago by sitting on their asses? I'm fine with that. Nothing about a work being public domain stops the original artist from monetising it, especially live.
"I don't understand why any copyright would not last until the actual death of the artist, at the very least. "
I don't understand why it should. Copyright gives 50 years of monopoly, but it's not a pension fund. If they don't have a retirement fund after 50 years of guaranteed income from a single piece of work, that means they're horrible with money, not that they should be given further handouts.
Plus, you wave away all the other realities being discussed - that orphaned works disappear from history, that the dead you've just dismissed don't benefit at all, that works deemed not commercial enough to release will often have their rights kept with the label who refuses to release them rather than artist who may still be alive, etc.
"This is an example of why protection is needed."
No it's not.
"Nobody may be watching Steamboat Willie except for nostalgia, but 60's and 70's rock is still live and providing programming for at least one station in every market"
....due largely to nostalgia. When the boomers die out, it'll be as relevant to most younger people as the animation you reject offhand, or at least as relevant as music from the 20s and 30s was to that generation.
"hat's the real need for reform - at what point should the majority of the revenue for a work return to the artists? When have the publishers gotten their pound of flesh?"
That's a totally different argument, and one where you'll find different types of support for the artists here. I personally support a copyright of 20 years, with a single option to renew for the original creator only - no selling copyrights to corporations or an estate where profiteering heirs can manipulate culture for their own benefit. But, I'm open to discussion.
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Edit Needed
-> "using secretive trade agreements as both carrot and stick."
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Actually it's 70 years, not life+70
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Re: Actually it's 70 years, not life+70
That's exactly what the article says. The only time it mentions life + 70 is in describing a separate aspect of copyright (for songwriters not recordings).
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Copyright, in its current form, is a joke.
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People 'respect' copyright because when it's trotted out for yet another expansion, it's spun as being 'for the artist and the little creator who would otherwise be taken advantage of', but tell people that emailing a song that you like is a crime, that your friend making a copy of a CD/DVD you loaned them is treated worse than stealing a car, that copyright means that nothing made during a person's lifetime will ever be available for others to use and re-work during their lifetime...
People only respect copyright because they know almost nothing about it, teach them and all that respect will disappear.
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Need expanded Fair Use too
1) Unless you are selling the recording/book/image etc it should be fair use.
This mean the President can sing it, I can perform it publically, I can mix it, but if I am not selling *IT*, then it should be fair use.
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Re: Need expanded Fair Use too
Unfortunately, this so called "Youtube Exception" can be used just about anywhere but YouTube, due to the fact that YouTube is American and does not recognize this aspect that is unique to Canadian copyright law.
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How about easy and cheap access to all other artists' works which you can then tranform and build upon to create new works. In other words, culture.
Or were you hoping to rest on your laurels and continue feeding off works you performed decades ago, verging on a century ago? Why the hell would we want that, of anybody? There's enough freeloaders out there already.
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And that line really tells you all you need to know about how they see copyright. To people like that's it's not, or even meant to be, a fair and balanced deal between the public and the copyright owners, no, it's only meant to benefit the copyright owners, and the public can get bent.
Really, at this point they should at least be honest about their intentions, and push for eternal copyright. Clearly that's what they think it should be, and that's how they act when something inches close to entering the public domain, just wish that maximalists would be honest enough to admit it publicly and stop this pathetic pretending that they care about anyone but themselves.
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Yeah, and if you take the time to actually listen to the song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYEsFQ_gt7c), why the FSCK does it make any sense to lock it up for rightsholders to monetize it?!? It's an artist making a political statement! Why are those morans even invited to this party??!? This is my cultural heritage speaking to me.
Because politicians and rightsholders stealing from us.
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I always read that as "in danger of fulfilling their end of the bargain made when the music was created". That's all you need to know. They were given 50 years to make money, but they want more, consequences be damned.
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Psst. Hey. Over here.
And P.s. It is that fucking simple
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The idea is similar to Boy Scouts.
Be Prepared.
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Wuzzup Canada?
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Meanwhile, in another universe...
As for film and video works of any type, copyright is reduced to 7 years from date of first public release, renewable once for another 7 years on payment of a fee that is 5% of the gross revenue for the original 7 years copyright was in force.
The Canadian government further said there would be a brief transition period of one year before implementation of this policy, after which all works not fitting the above categories would instantly and irrevocably be returned to the public domain, where sane people thought they belonged all along.
Responses from around the world have varied to this point, with consumer groups generally hailing the new copyright laws, along with many governmental bodies. Perhaps surprisingly, many major film studios, though none of those in the United States, the United Kingdom, or western Europe, were supportive of the measure.
But, only in another, saner universe.
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Yeah, nah..
Because I like the "danger" of the public domain.
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