RIAA misses point. Again.

So, let's just get the gist of this report that the RIAA wants Europe to change its laws on copyright in music recordings into line with the US laws (here, recordings become public domain after 50 years; in the States, after 95).

First, it's an bunch of American companies who pay no tax in Europe trying to dictate policy to us.

Second, their reasoning is that the copyright period should be extended "because more profitable materials" are coming into the copyright-free domain - ah, so why not simply extend copyright to everything that someone could make a profit on?

Third, the CDs can't legally be sold in the US anyway so, rather than fuck about with our legal rights, why doesn't Rosen and co pay a bit more attention to simply ensuring the ridiculous and punitive American law is applied at home?

Or how about we cut a deal - maybe we should consider eroding our own freedom to make fair use of musical recordings from the 1950 in line with the US rules, if the multinational labels drop prices of CDs here in Europe in line with the much, much cheaper prices in the States?