Copyright Policy

[Isgrimnur]

Register (UK)

The US Congress is looking to extend copyright on some sound recordings to a staggering 144 years – making it the twelfth time copyright rules have been extended since the 1970s.

The CLASSICS Act being debated in the Senate and House would create a new federal copyright rule for sound recordings made between 1923 and 1972 that would keep them out of the public domain until 2067.

The act is being combined with another bill – the Music Modernization Act – which is aimed at ensuring that musicians are paid for their music as we enter the digital streaming era, under the logic that it makes sense to pull together a patchwork of laws under one regime.

The upshot, however, is that recordings from the 1920s to the 1970s cannot be streamed without a license.

While it's understandable that the enormous value of music ranging from Ella Fitzgerald to Elvis Presley to David Bowie should be protected, critics are frustrated that lawmakers are effectively condemning vast swathes of culturally important recordings to the dustbin of history by extending a blanket copyright rather than requiring copyright holders to assert their rights.

In many cases, it is not clear who owns the copyright to a recorded work – so called "orphan works" – and it can be a difficult and time-consuming process to track down who holds it and reach agreement on a licensing fee.

That is not the case for the vast majority of commercially valuable recordings which has a huge and established system for paying license fees. But copyright holders – typically large corporations – don't want the hassle of having to actively assert their rights and so have successfully lobbied for there to be no such requirement.

[stessier]

Ugh, I thought this had died. Copyright is so broken.