Singers and musicians should earn royalty fees for 95 years — almost double the current 50-year limit, a European Union official said Thursday as he promised to draft new copyright protection rules.
“If nothing is done, thousands of European performers who recorded in the late 1950s and 1960s will lose all of their airplay royalties over the next ten years,” said EU Commissioner Charlie McCreevy, the union’s internal market chief. “These royalties are often their sole pension.”
People are living longer and 50 years of copyright protection no longer give lifetime income to artists who recorded hits in their late teens or early twenties, he said.
Most European composers and lyricists currently receive lifetime copyright protection which is passed on to their descendants for another 70 years. The new EU rules would not change that.
But the change would mean that performers would get the same 95-year copyright period enjoyed by their U.S. counterparts.
|
||||
| EU suggests singers and musicians should earn copyright fees for 95 years |  |
music/news | ||
|
|
||||
I think this European blog may be interesting for readers here.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.