Creative Commons - Belgium

[Frederik Questier <fquestie AT vub.ac.be>]

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 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.")

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 who copied lots of things, like Pinnochio in 1940, 
one year after the copyright of Carlo Collodi finished, and who is now 
itself pushing for never extending copyrights...

If the record companies can't make enough profit by being the only one who 
can sell the product during 50 years, they have a very flawed business 
model.
Compare this with products like medicines which need an investment of 300M 
Euros that can still be profitable with 20 years patent protection minus 
10-12 years development.

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