Creative Commons - Belgium

[Frederik Questier <frederik AT questier.com>]

Op Saturday 19 November 2005 14:05, schreef Wouter Vanden hove:
> Hello,
>
> I would like to hear some opinions about the IFPI-petition in attachment.

These are just the record companies, trying to make copyright protections 
infinite, killing the public domain, and increasing their control over the 
artists.

> Exactly what is protected for 50 years?
>
> A songwriter writes lyrics for a song.
> a performer sings this song in agreement with the songwriter and puts it
> in a record to sell.
>
> Then what happens after 50 years?
> All royalties stop to the singer, but not the songwriter?

It means that when a performance is 50 years old, the copyrightholder of the 
performance (and that is almost always the record company and not the 
artists) is no longer the only one whose has control over the recording, 
who can make money of it, or copy it freely.

This is of course in the case nobody else has still copyrights pending, such 
as the songwriter. So think about 50-year old performances of e.g. 
Beethoven's music.

This means e.g. that is harder than it should be for other artists such as 
movie makers, to include old music in their own works...

Compare it with Disney: they copied lots of things from the public domain, 
like Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, or a sad example: 
Pinocchio in 1940, one year after the copyright of Carlo Collodi finished. 
But now that their own creations like Mickey Mouse should finally have 
fallen into the public domain, they are the strongest pushers for never 
expiring copyrights...

This extension is totally against the original copyright idea (UK 1710: "for 
the encouragement of learning"; US 1790: "to promote the progress of 
science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and 
inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and 
discoveries.")
Originally these protection terms were 14 years on request, renewable once 
on request for 14 years.
If the record companies can't make enough profit by being the only one who 
can sell a specific product during 50 years, they have a very flawed 
business model.
Compare this with products like medicines: these need typically an 
development investment of 300M Euros and can still be profitable with 20 
years patent protection minus 10-12 years development.

Extending the record companies' monopoly for another 50 years (yes, they ask 
100 years), will even stifle innovation, as it will be much easier for 
those record companies to get the crazy high prices for the re-releases of 
these oldies (on HD-DVD or whatever is next) than to invest in new artists.

Read also:
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,67783,00.html

Frederik

-- 
Free University - Free Software !
Vrije Universiteit - Vrije Software !

"The most fundamental way of helping other people,
is to teach people how to do things better
or how to better their lives.
For people who use computers, this means sharing the recipes
you use on your computer, in other words the programs you run."
                   Richard Stallman, Free Software Foundation.
--
Frederik Questier, PhD
Onderwijsvernieuwing &
Onderwijs Service Centrum
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
http://osc.vub.ac.be
http://questier.com