No Rock And Roll Fun

COPYRIGHT OVER BREAKFAST: Good work by Louis Barfe in battering Barclays Brothers employee Neil McCormick of the Daily Telegraph on BBC Breakfast a few minutes ago. Called on to discuss the record industry's demands that mechanical copyright be extended, Neil wheedled out the usual "it's unfair that artists will lose control of their own recordings" argument, which Louis pointed out is actually the reverse of what will happen - at long last, the Elvis Presley estate will be able to release its own versions of the Presley classics, for example, since they'll no longer be chained up by a label. "But it's not just Elvis" wailed McCormick "there's lots of artists who'll be affected... Little Richard..." - whereupon Barfe jumped in and pointed out that Richard used to parade about with placards declaring "ATV stole my music." Neil was reduced to muttering "but someone made this music..." (yes, but not, usually, the copyright holder - and, besides, someone wrote Jane Austen's novels - their being out of copyright doesn't seem to have brought the publishing industry to the brink of collapse) and how we must come into line with "America and the rest of the world." Okay, then. Let's come into line with Russia's copyright laws, shall we?