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Performers likely to get as little as 50¢ a year from increased term of copyright
Posted by Becky in Copyright, Public Domain, Release The Music at September 5th, 2008

50 cent pieceLast month the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) asked for comments on the European Commission’s proposal to almost double the term of copyright protection on sound recordings. The Commission’s proposal [pdf] is flimsy, misleading, and peppered with contradictions. Our submission [pdf] asks the UKIPO to reject it in the strongest terms.

Our submission shows that for the vast majority of performers the projected extra sales income resulting from term extension is likely to be meagre: from as little as 50¢ each year in the first ten years, to as “much” as €26.79 each year. That’s because most of the gains (89.5%) will go to the top 20% of recording artists. Meanwhile the major labels will be dividing up millions in extra handouts every year.

What’s more, performing artists will make no extra revenue from radio airplay and other income streams arising from so-called “secondary remuneration rights”, and may even make less. The Commission assumes that fees paid by users of recordings, e.g. broadcasters, will remain constant. That means the amount of earnings available to performers will not be any bigger - it will just be sliced more thinly and distributed longer to more rightsholders. Performers will not earn any more over their life time, and are likely to earn less, as money will be transferred from the living to the estates of the dead.

The proposal is set to cost hundreds of millions to consumers, with repercussions to the public interest, follow-on innovators and cultural diversity. It serves as a windfall for an industry the Commission would have us believe is immune from simple economic logic. No wonder Europe’s leading copyright thinker - and adviser to the European Commission - has accused the Commission of wilfully misleading the European Parliament, and the citizens of the European Union.