Oasis feature in some sort of election story

How can we hope to inject some sparkle and glamour into the European elections? How about by working in a popular beat combo into the story? Or, at a stretch, Oasis?

Beware! Beware! Oasis might influence the outcome of the election in the North West:

A music concert in north Manchester, featuring the band Oasis, could delay people voting in next month's European ballot, election officials have warned.

Uh-oh. Is it not bad enough that Noel Gallagher ruins everything he touches, without him spoiling the European Parliament too?

How are Oasis going to frustrate the popular public desire to turn out in their low numbers to make a disappointing choice from a frustratingly narrow list of candidates?

The Manchester band plays the first of three huge open-air concerts in Heaton Park on 4 June, which is polling day.

Two main roads bordering the park, Bury Old Road and Sheepfoot Lane, will be closed at 2130 BST - half an hour before polling stations close.

Oh. So, with the polls open all day, anyone who goes to vote at the very last minute will have to make a small detour if they happen to take the route down past the park.

"Elections officers in Bury say that one way to avoid any potential problems would be to use a postal vote," a Bury council spokesperson said.

"Alternatively, some people might choose to go the polls a bit earlier."

Or perhaps go down the next road across.

In other election news, if angry, barking dogs were in all the streets in Devon on June 4th, it might cause some people to have to edge very, very slowly down the side of the walls to get to the polling booth. "Or perhaps they could distract them with sausages or something" suggested polling officials.

Europe makes Cliff's day

The European Parliament has voted to extend copyright in recordings to seventy years.

The BBC coverage is a bit shabby, starting with this:

Musicians in line for cash boost

and then going on to claim that "thousands" of "less well-off session musicians" will benefit from this "boost", even although almost nobody believes that.

In fact, the only sour note is buried deep in the piece:

UK Green MEP Caroline Lucas said: "I am disappointed that MEPs chose to ignore the voices of the artists they claim to be helping.

"It is clear that action is needed to better reward performers for their work, but the legislation approved today is absolutely not the solution.

"The copyright extension to 70 years will fill the pockets of a limited number of powerful corporations and harm performer rights and artistic creativity."

The one encouraging note is that material currently out of copyright won't be taken back in - which is what happened when copyright in published work was extended, with a number of public domain works vanishing again.

MEPs back plan to make Europe a less creative place

The proposal to extend copyright in recordings from the already over-generous 50 years to a preposterous 90 years has been approved by the European parliament. Some sort of vague attempt has been made to try and stop this turning into a cash cow for multinational companies:

The approved report, drafted by Brian Crowley (UEN, IE), amends existing legislation to increase the copyright protection for music recordings to 95 years.

To ensure that performers fully enjoy the additional royalties deriving from copyright extension, the committee amended the original text so as to prevent the use of previous contractual agreements to deduct money from the additional royalties.

Great news: if your recording hasn't recouped in fifty years, the burden is lifted. It's not known if Crowley considered how little the funds raised from the copyright over fifty years must have been if the contract hadn't recouped yet, but surely he must have. Let's assume this is just his little joke.

Nobody really believes this is going to make much difference for any individuals - if Crowley had been serious, he would have drafted the legislation to stop any funds going to companies at all rather than just a couple of sops.

Oh, yes - the other sop:

A dedicated fund for session musicians was also approved by the committee. This fund would be financed by contributions from producers, who would be obliged to set aside for this purpose, at least once a year, at least 20% of the revenues gained from the proposed extension of copyright term.

Committee members also amended a provision relating to this fund so as to give collecting societies, which represent performers' and producers' interests, the right to administer the annual supplementary remuneration.

Given that the figures involved are tiny, it's likely most of this fund will be swallowed up by the collection agencies administration. If there must be a fund, and there must be administration, wouldn't creating a charitable body to oversee the funds make more sense?