Abroad, US copyrights expire after 50 years. There was talk about extending it to maybe 100 years. You know if anything is actively happening with that?

Jim replied...

In Europe, all copyrights in the recording, expire after 50 years. Accordingly, that means that anything recorded in 1960 (or before) expires this year.

This applies only to the recording.

Copyright in the song material itself, does not expire until in most cases 75 years (depending on the territory) after the death of the last surviving songwriter in any composition.

There are moves afoot, led by the British labels, to change this 50 year limit, but this requires legislation in the European Parliament, which if I remember rightly, at last count, was still dragging its heels on this matter.

The problem with the limit being increased from a music lover's point of view, is not the extra cost to the purchaser of the CD, but to the fact that some record labels, having got the extra protection, may not choose to release a lot of the material anyway, and still of course, prevent anybody else from so doing.

At this moment for example, a UK label is releasing each year, every single chart record from the equivalent year 50 years back. (I am right now listening to the CD "British Hit Parade 1959", which comprises every recording to have charted in 1959 in the UK - a total of 199 different recordings).

I have collected these since they started in 2005, and am hopeful that they will ocntinue for another three or four years anyway - to cover 1960, 1961, 1962 and 1963.

(After 1963, 90% of material has been legitimately re-issued on CD so it can be got without difficulty. But priuor to 1963, it was a bleak picture).

Of course, the move to change the law, is spearheaded by the British record industry, who can see that in a year or so, the Beatles will be out of copyright for their 1962 material, and soon, all UK Mersey hits (which are still in some demand) will also be out of copright.

The labels did not care too much about the earlier stuff - nobody was looking for the mid-fifties UK singers anyway - but the Mersey stuff onwards, is a different matter.

John also wrote...

Why extend a period of time, for the intent to control, to something greater than man's life expectancy?

Jim replied...

Well, right now Cliff Richard's early hit singles are all out of copyright, so are Marty Wilde's, so are Duane Eddy's, Frankie Avalon's, the Crickets', Dion & The Belmonts and many more - all of whom are very much still alive, so the UK labels are using this to claim that these impoverished stars, will earn nothing if the law is not changed!

(Of course, the reality is that given the lousy royalties paid, they earned a pittance anyway - presuming of course that the label even bothered to make their material available in the first place, and then remembered to pay royalties in the second!).

It's just a business, like any other.

• RE: Ultimate Oldies Countdown - John 04/22/2010 10:26:37 EDT (0)