Canadian Public Domain Not Good Enough For German Publisher

from the this-is-not-the-public-domain-you-were-looking-for dept

It's no secret that different countries have different lengths for copyright. That's why there are constant debates over copyright extension, as countries with shorter terms for copyright are pressured by those with longer terms to extend (or, better yet, to leapfrog) copyright terms. Otherwise, you end up with the situation where content in one country is in the public domain, while it's still under copyright elsewhere. In the age of the internet, where borders are somewhat meaningless online, that's going to cause some problems. Witness the situation with the International Music Score Library Project, a wiki-based project in Canada, for publishing public domain music scores online. The site was careful about copyright, making sure that the only content published was in the public domain. Since the site is based in Canada, it focused on Canadian copyright law and what was in the public domain in that country. Apparently, that was seen as problematic to a German publisher, Universal Edition AG, who found that some of the musical scores that are in the public domain in Canada are still under copyright in Germany. Universal Edition then hired a Toronto law firm to send a cease and desist letter, that caused the entire site to be taken down. Yes, even though all of the content was perfectly legal under Canadian law, this German publisher was able to get it taken offline because some of the content was still under copyright in Europe. If this type of thing is allowed to stand, then we reach a point where all copyright online automatically is covered by the absolute most draconian and stringent levels of copyright law, no matter what the law is anywhere else. That doesn't seem either reasonable or fair.

Filed Under: canada, copyright, copyright extension, eu, international music score library project, public domain
Companies: universal edition ag

UK Gov't Recognizes That Songs Performed 50 Years Ago Don't Need Any Additional Incentive To Get Recorded

from the good-for-them dept

Last December, the UK gov't had some folks draw up the so-called "Gowers Report" looking at the question of copyright extension. While the report wasn't great, it certainly did recommend against copyright extension. It appears that the folks in the gov't saw through the online petition many dead musicians signed asking the gov't to ignore the report. That is, the UK gov't has in fact rejected the idea of extending copyrights for performance royalties on songs, so that those recorded 50 years ago no longer have to pay the performers (though, they do still have to pay the songwriters, who have longer copyright protection). Some musicians are up in arms about this, but that's only because they seem to think that copyright is a type of welfare system to support artists based on a single performance they did 50 years ago. It's not. Copyright's sole purpose is to create incentives to have that content created. If the content was created, then clearly the deal that the copyright offered was sufficient. Extending the deal afterwards makes no sense and goes against the very idea of copyright. It's saying that a song that was performed and recorded 50 years ago needs new incentives to have been performed and recorded 50 years ago. It's nice to see (for one of the first times) a gov't finally reject that argument.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright extension, uk