By Sean Whelan, Europe Editor
Ageing rockers and their session musicians may be in line for some extra cash, thanks to Charlie McCreevy.
The EU internal market commissioner is proposing to extend the amount of time music recording stay under copyright protection from the current 50 years, to 95 years.
As part of an extensive lobby, the music industry wheeled out ageing stars like Cliff Richard to point out that some of their early recordings are now losing copyright protection, as they are more than 50 years old.
This means that Sir Cliff does not get paid his performers royalty if a recording from 1957 (or earlier) is played on the radio, sold as CD, downloaded or used in an advert.
Every year the British music industry claims about 7,000 recording artists are affected by the end of copyright after 50 years. It is a similar number in France, and in Germany about 5,000 recordings a year run out of copyright.
But songwriters (like authors) have a better arrangement - their intellectual property (ie their right to an income from their works) runs for their entire lifetime plus a further 70 years, so their descendants can continue to benefit.
Mr McCreevy says it will benefit recording artists in their retirement years, as most rock and roll tracks were 'cut' by people aged 17 to 20 who are now past normal retirement age. Under the new rules Sir Cliff will only lose out if he lives to be 126!
But, under a move he describes as 'morally right and fair', Mr McCreevy is proposing that session musicians should also get a cut of the action.
Normally session musicians, such as backing singers or instrument specialists, get a fixed fee for a recording session, and have no further entitlement to royalties from the recording, no matter how successful it may later become.
In future he wants session musicians to benefit from the extended 45 year copyright period. So they would get their session fee and nothing else for the existing 50 year period. Then during the extra 45 years of cover, they would be paid from a fund collected from the extra copyright earnings of the main recording artist and the record company. the commission suggests about 20% of the additional fees should be paid to the session musicians, who are often amongst the least rewarded in the music industry.
Another novel idea is to add a 'use it or lose it' clause to the extended copyright period. Under this idea if a record company, which owns the copyright in a recorded work, did not want to release that recording for commercial exploitation, the recording artist would be free to take the recording to another record company or commercial organisation and open a new revenue stream. For example, if a record company only wanted to release a CD version of a 55-year-old recording, the recording artist would be free to release that recording through a download service, or license it to an advertising agency or telephone ring tone company.
This would only apply to the extra 45 years of copyright, not to the original copyright period. If the record company did not want to issue the recording at all, in any format, the artist could take over and release it through another company. This would give recording artists some more control over how their recordings are used to earn income.
Record companies will also benefit from the extended copyright period, as their copyright in the recording will also be extended, which is good news for an industry that has been hit hard by new technologies.
It may not be such good news for other media, especially radio stations, who will have to continue paying royalties on their 'golden oldies' collections for a long time to come. The commission argues it should be cost neutral, as most broadcasters pay royalties as a percentage of their advertising revenue, usually between 2% and 5 %, which goes to music rights collecting agencies (IMRO in the case of Ireland).
Charlie McCreevy says the measure will have a redistributive effect, giving more money to artists and for the first time session musicians.
Commission officials say they have chosen 95 years because the US government has changed to a 95 year protection period as well. They fear European artists would migrate to US record companies if they could get extra copyright protection, and this in turn would lead to them making more US oriented music, and reducing the amount of distinctively European music.
Mr McCreevy - who declined to name his favourite bands or types of music (he has no iPod) - plans to publish draft legislation in the summer, probably July.
It would then go the national governments and the European Parliament to be made law, but with European Parliament election next year adding to the normal length of time a bill takes to pass, it will probably be 2010 before these changes become law, which means record made before 1960 wont benefit from the extended copyright period.
On a related theme, Mr McCreevy said he is re-activating consultations on a new directive on copyright levies. These are charges that EU countries can levy on products like blank recordable CDs and DVD, hard drives or MP3 players. The money raised is used to compensate media rights holders for money lost due to home copying.
At the moment the charges are set nationally, and vary widely, with levies on 4GB MP3 players, for example, ranging from nothing up to €15. Levies on some printers run up to €70. A consultation will run until 18 April (via commission website, DG Internal Market), with a public meeting to be arranged in June.
