Music copyright - an author writes
(or does BPI stand for 'British Phonographic Industry' or 'Bellyaching Pricks Incorporated'?)

Reluctantly, I've just had to turn down the chance to appear on the BBC 10 O'Clock News tonight* to discuss the thorny problem of music copyright, brought to the fore of the headlines again by the redoubtable Sir Cliff Richard. In the absence of a national television audience, I thought I’d bung my thoughts on the matter up here, should anyone want to know what I think.
        Cliff believes that it’s terribly unfair that copyright in sound recordings should expire after 50 years. He believes he should have the right to receive payment for his recordings in perpetuity. Funnily enough, as a fellow creative toiler, I semi-agree. I’d hate to think of the Peter Pan of Pop having to sell his last tennis racket to make ends meet, but the fact is that extending the copyright period past the current 50 years would be injurious to artists less fortunate than Sir Cliff. 
        Pick a record, any record. Look at the small print on the label. Chances are that somewhere it will say “© Original sound recording is owned by [insert flatulent money-grabbing corporate monolith here]”. Not “© Original sound recording is owned by the poor bugger who wrote and recorded it”. Only successful artists with persuasive managers retain the copyright in their own recordings, leasing them to the record companies for a set period, after which the deal is renegotiated. Most artists still sign direct to a record company, which then owns every chord they strum or note they warble during the period of that contract, for 50 years after its release.
         That’s 50 years in which the record companies can re-issue and re-package the music, making it available to a grateful listening public. Or it’s 50 years in which the record companies can let the music sit deleted and unloved in an archive, whining about downloaders while fail ing to realise their assets fully, as would be good business practice anywhere else. The re-issue market is booming, and it’s a market that will seemingly withstand any amount of product. Moreover, the technology now exists to make available material that would not turn a profit on even the most modest CD pressing run.
        Disenfranchised from their work, most artists have no control over its exploitation and destiny. Records that sell for silly prices second-hand, and are ripe for re-issue, sit gathering dust. One option is for the artist or a reissue label to license the recordings from the record company. However, they usually demand an extortionate up-front payment, which, in the case of most niche recordings, is enough to discourage all but those with a Brewster’s Millions complex from bothering.
        To Cliff, the expiry of copyright means a few quid fewer in his capacious bank account. To a less financially-successful artist, it means potential emancipation. When a recording passes into the public domain, that means that anyone can release it, as long as they pay the composer any royalties accruing from the sale. What’s that? The 50-year term only applies to a recorded performance of a piece of work. Copyright will exist in the composition for 70 years after the composer’s death. Perhaps if Cliff’s worried where the next few quid are coming from, he should have written a few more songs instead of leaving it to Hank, Bruce and Brian. So, the expiry of a recording’s copyright actually allows an artist to regain a degree of control over their work.
        Why has this become an issue now? The 50-year period for sound recordings was set by the Copyright Act of 1911 and remained unmolested through that Act’s many revisions ever since. If it really was a long-term threat, any efficient, well-run industry would have dealt with it years ago. However, the words ‘efficient’ and ‘record company’ go together like ‘Jew-friendly’ and ‘Nazi’. Until now, recordings over 50 years old have tended to be of limited interest to the mass record-buying public. Nonetheless, while there is a healthy market for such nostalgic recordings, it wasn’t enough to wake the major record companies from their slumbers. However, with the earliest Elvis recordings having passed out of copyright last year and the Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Who, etc due to go public domain in the next decade, alarm bells have rung. These have been the major labels’ cash cows for years, and the thought of having to discover new artists of equal stature to replenish the coffers is too much. Extend copyright and we can all go back to sleep again.
        To extend the copyright period in sound recordings would make an already complacent industry even more unbearably smug, and give a clear signal that they can get exactly what they want if they whine loud enough. The losers will be the artists who continue to have their back catalogue sat on by the fat corporate arse of the record companies, the small record companies who have made available numerous archive recordings that have passed into the public domain (which would almost certainly not be made available any other way), and, of course, the general record-buying public.
        I’m a reasonable man. Here’s a counter proposal: Record companies can have copyright for as long as they want, as long as they make their entire archives commercially available in some shape or form at a reasonable price. If a title goes out of catalogue, the rights revert immediately to the artist. Until then, no sale.

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