European Commission appoints copyright industry lobbyist to copyright job

Now, I'm sure that Maria Martin-Prat is a fine, upstanding person. But someone who has taken money from the copyright industry - as Deputy General Counsel and Director of Legal Policy and Regulatory Affairs for the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry - should not be running the European Commission's copyright unit.

Given that she will be responding to requests from a cartel which paid her well in the very recent past, how can her judgements be trusted? The only way she could do her job would be to excuse herself from any decision relating to any of the IFPI member companies - which in effect would turn her full-time role into a part-time job whose hours would be so short she could probably sign on for Job Seekers' Allowance at the same time.

Old, starving musicians look forward to an extra small loaf a year

The thought of shivering retired musicians suddenly receiving cash for their work in the 1950s and turning up the electric fire to, well, on. That was supposedly the driving force behind the EU's recommendation of extending copyright in recordings from the current half a century.

So, how much can these people look forward if the change is made?

Half a Euro a year. The Open Rights Group crunches the numbers in response to the UK government's submission for comments:

Our submission shows that for the vast majority of performers the projected extra sales income resulting from term extension is likely to be meagre: from as little as 50¢ each year in the first ten years, to as “much” as €26.79 each year. That’s because most of the gains (89.5%) will go to the top 20% of recording artists. Meanwhile the major labels will be dividing up millions in extra handouts every year.

What’s more, performing artists will make no extra revenue from radio airplay and other income streams arising from so-called “secondary remuneration rights”, and may even make less. The Commission assumes that fees paid by users of recordings, e.g. broadcasters, will remain constant. That means the amount of earnings available to performers will not be any bigger - it will just be sliced more thinly and distributed longer to more rightsholders. Performers will not earn any more over their life time, and are likely to earn less, as money will be transferred from the living to the estates of the dead.

Brilliant! A move which will be great for the major labels while actually leaving older musicians worse off. Cliff Richard must be feeling proud today.

EU hand rich rockers extra pension

The long campaign to extend copyright in recordings looks to have scored a major victory: The European Commission has recommended extending the copyright to 95 years.

Well, Cliff will be happy, anyway.

The proposals were unveiled by European Commission Single Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy.

"A 95-year term would bridge the income gap that performers face when they turn 70, just as their early performances recorded in their 20s would lose protection," his scheme said.

Oh, really?

Feargal Sharkey echoes the sentiment:

"I am especially pleased that the announcement focuses on the 'invisible' members of our industry - the musicians, engineers and session players whose names are hidden away in the liner notes and credits.

"It is they, and not just 'featured' artists and record labels, who could derive real benefits from this move - and at a time in life when their earning power would be severely diminished."

As we've said before, if Cliff and U2 and Fergal were really worried about pensionable musicians who can't make ends meet, they could have come up with a proposal that would actually help them, rather than offer a vague chance of a small payment while making those featured artists (and record companies) much, much wealthier. After all, the reason why the less well-known participants on records are struggling in later life is because they tend not to own the rights in recordings of their own work.

There is no intellectual defence of a ninety-five year copyright period on anything. Time for a 'fifty is enough' campaign?

EC opens up royalty market

The European Commission has ordered royalty collection agencies across the continent to open themselves up and abandon the insistence on artists dealing only with their local agency.

When the EC was considering the question, some grumpy (and, it would be noted, rich) artists argued that if the status quo was changed, they might throw a strop and have a sort of strike, withdrawing permission for their music to be performed in Europe at all.

Which artists?

More than 220 singers, musicians and composers — including the Bee Gees' Robin Gibb, Charles Aznavour, Sade, David Gilmour, Julio Iglesias, Maurice Jarre, Mark Knopfler and Michel Legrand — have signed an appeal to the EU saying pan-European music licensing will stifle creativity.

Yes: Mark Knopfler thinks that saying he'll withdraw Walk Of Life from the European airwaves is some sort of threat.

Sony BMG merger probably won't be settled for years

It's an indication of how bloody slowly these things move that we're probably going to see Sony complete a purchase of Betrtelsman's half of Sony BMG before the EU finally decides if the merger was legal or not. The European Court of Justice has rejected the Court Of First Instance's decision that the European Commission had been wrong to allow the merger in the first place. Yes, we know, it's a bit like those long stretches of Star Wars movies where they go on and on about intergalactic taxation. The crux is that the Lower Court only heard two of the five objections to the merger that had been raised by Impala, an indie producer trade group.

The lower court has now been directed to think again about what it's done:

"Since the Court of First Instance examined only two of the five pleas relied on by Impala, the Court of Justice considers that it is not in a position to give a ruling itself on the dispute. It is accordingly referring the case back to the Court of First Instance," the court said in a statement.

It should be noted that the higher court hasn't based its decision on the rights or wrongs of two major labels merging - this is purely procedural.

God alone knows what will happen if Sony is forced to demerge its wholly-owned subsidiary some point down the line. That would be more like the Spiderman reset.

EC to overturn results of Gowers Report?

Now, there's a headline for the teenagers.

With the UK government having accepted the findings of the Gowers Report that copyright in performances shouldn't be extended, it looked like that music business proposal had been dead and buried.

Trouble is, though, the European Commission is now suggesting extending copyright grow from fifty to 95 years:

The European Union's internal market commissioner Charlie McCreevy said that "copyright protection for Europe's performers represents a moral right to control the use of their work and earn a living from their performances".

"It is the performer who gives life to the composition and while most of us have no idea who wrote our favourite song, we can usually name the performer," he said.

And that's grounds for changing the copyright, is it? Because people are more familiar with Robbie Williams than Guy Chambers?

It's not really the most compelling argument, is it?

The EC doesn't reveal how many performers remain alive ninety-five years after their performances; nor does it seem bothered that most performances are not owned by the people who gave them, but by corporations. Even although, applying McCreevy's weak logic, the proposal is going to fall since hardly anybody could name the parent company which owns mechnical copyright on our favourite songs.

Apple agrees to demands, blames labels

The news that Apple has accepted it must charge all European Union citizens the same price for iTunes downloads is encouraging - although we're not sure why it will take six months, and the headline on its press release held out the prospect that the rest of Europe might suffer instead:

Apple to Standardise iTunes Music Prices Throughout Europe

The body confirms, though, that they intend to drop prices in the UK - just as soon as those rotten labels agree:

Apple currently must pay some record labels more to distribute their music in the UK than it pays them to distribute the same music elsewhere in Europe. Apple will reconsider its continuing relationship in the UK with any record label that does not lower its wholesale prices in the UK to the pan-European level within six months.

“This is an important step towards a pan-European marketplace for music”, said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We hope every major record label will take a pan-European view of pricing”.

Apple's tune has changed somewhat - it's not so long ago that they were parotting the label's lame excuse of "lots of other things cost more in the UK" as a justification for the gouging of UK consumers.

Obviously, their capitulation to an EU investigation heads off the prospect of an embarrassing lawsuit and the need to refund British customers the part of the price which merely reflected the UK licence, but price harmonisation still seems to fall short of what is demanded by European Law - an EU citizen should be able to shop in any EU country, and discrete stores nation-by-nation, even ones with equal pricing, do not allow that.

Apple blames this on the labels - but maybe it's time for Apple and the EU to team up and force labels to remove this anomaly. After all, if the Commission is serious about a single pan-European music licensing regime, wouldn't this be a good place to start?

Europe proposes single, honest DRM

It's been a while coming, but the European Commission has finally published proposals for a new approach to digital copyrights across the continent.

Amongst the ideas the Commission has generated is some sort of cross-continent licensing system, allowing one deal to cover copyrights from the frozen north down to the warm seas and a call for DRM to be made interoperable. Noticing that that's unlikely to happen while the labels fudge and mung, the EC also proposes a more realistic ideal:

[T]here is a need to set a framework for transparency of DRMs regarding interoperability, by ensuring proper consumer information with regards to usage restrictions and interoperability.

The main disappointment is the document is motivated by the idea of making money from content rather than seizing the opportunity of online distribution to encourage consumption of music and art for its educational and cultural value - something which you'd think would be important for the European project.

EC slightly more focussed than US

The European Commission has drafted a directive on music theft that's causing the music industry to have kittens. See, the EC has twigged that the real problem isn't people sitting in bedrooms downloading the odd Lulu track, but the people making shitloads of CDs - and other dodgy goods - who are the challenge.

Indeed, they can see that twatting the heads of people using Napster and its children is going to hobble development of an information-rich euro society. So the directive concentrates on hooky goods and ignores downloading. One industry commentator has already moaned that it goes "against the principles of US law" - um, yes, hello? Europe? - and we can expect a whole heap more moaning as the impact sinks in.

The new proposals include going after people who make stuff to create false authentication labels, which is interesting, and probably will mean the closure of every market stall in the north west.