Media 21 Dec 2008 02:56 pm
Observations on music and copyright
My article on music and copyright extension was the lead media feature in the Business & Media section of The Observer today.
It’s an interesting issue. A number of musicians have recorded a video message to UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, urging him to support the proposals. Obviously many of them are concerned about the loss of income from the expiry of copyright on their performances nearly 50 years ago.
On the face of it, they have a compelling argument. Why should music performances only receive copyright for 50 years, while songwriting and other forms of authorship receive 70 years from the date of death of the artist (it used to be 50 years from death but this was extended several years ago)?
On the other hand, surely it’s right that the actual creator of the song should be on a higher footing than the performers? The copyright on performances doesn’t just apply to music but to any performance, including acting and dance, unless the employment contracts say otherwise.
In general I’m wary of the current trend for copyright extension – and I’m in good company with some well-regarded experts arguing that copyright is broken and counter-productive. Personally I’m not against copyright in principle – it’s a useful tool and as a freelance writer, it’s how I get paid. However, the purpose of copyright is to reward artists for their work and to provide an incentive for them to create new work. The reason it’s not valid indefinitely is because there is a competing public interest for work to eventually wind up in the public domain. Imagine if no one could reproduce Shakespeare or create a derivative work based on his plays? It enriches our culture immensely to have this common artistic heritage and the debate on copyright extension is really about how long the public should wait until work enters the public domain.
on 24 Dec 2008 at 3.45 pm 1.Celeste Fitzsimmons said …
One aspect of lapsed copyright that particularly annoys me is other writers or artists can make a great deal of money, at sometimes very little exercise of creativity, by writing prequels, sequels and various extrapolations of other writers works. Everyone it seems is currently publishing Jane Austen knockoffs, even Colleen McCullough whose previous experience of being sued by the holders of LM Montgomery’s copyright hasn’t discouraged her usage of others material. Most of it is quite enjoyable fluff but sometimes when a modern writer uses material in a way that is disrespectful and distorts the original writers intentions and values, I am offended. To a great degree, using well known characters provides writers with a ready made audience and hence generates revenue for writers and publishers, to therefore use the material in an exploitive way adds insult to injury.
on 24 Dec 2008 at 4.14 pm 2.blog said …
Hi Celeste! You make some good points – some of that stuff is utter rubbish and quite exploitative. However I’m not sure that banning it is the right answer – it’s too blunt an instrument.
Sometimes the derivative works can be good – I really liked the movie Clueless (based on Emma), Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next books are very popular, and of course Wide Sargasso Sea is a prequel to Jane Eyre but a classic in its own right.
The thing that offends me most about copyright extension is that copyright was initially extended in large part because of lobbying by Disney, which stood to lose copyright on Mickey Mouse. Yet, Disney has benefited from the public domain more than just about any other company with their remakes of classic stories such as Cinderella, Snow White, Aladdin and so on.
- Caitlin