Guest blog by Fran Nevrkla, Chairman and CEO of PPL and VPL in the United Kingdom:

Greetings from the other side of the pond -
where our national game is over every six balls, our public schools are
private, we call our hills downs and we let our musicians (and record
companies) lose the rights in their recordings during their lifetime. I'm sure
we'll continue our eccentricity in sport, education and our love of the
countryside but maybe, just maybe, we might change things for the better for
our musicians.

For our change in fortune we have to thank
an Irish ex-accountant, supported by the French son of a Hungarian noble. The
announcement came through from the European Commission on 14 February 2008 in Brussels, when Commissioner Charlie McCreevy
declared that he no longer wanted performing artists to ‘be the poor cousins of
the music business.' 

He announced legislative proposals to
extend copyright for performers and producers from 50 to 95 years. He saw no
reason why a composer should benefit from copyright for the whole of their
life, plus a further 70 years, while a performer only gets 50 years from the
date of the release of their recording.

He was not thinking of the featured artists
like Cliff Richard or Charles Aznavour but of the thousands of anonymous
session musicians who contributed to sound recordings in the late fifties and
sixties. In the UK
and indeed throughout Europe, those musicians are
paid airplay royalties directly by PPL
and others, but that income stream will dry up when the copyright runs out. 

The support for Commissioner McCreevy came
from the French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Soon after taking office, he set up
a commission, led by the head of the major retail chain FNAC, to look into
copyright and the creative industries. Alongside recommendations on ISP
responsibility, the commission proposed extending copyright and this will be on
the agenda when the French Government assumes the Presidency of the European
Union in July this year.

Of course, in the USA, the Sonny
Bono Copyright Term Extension Act extended copyright back in 1998. Here in Europe,
the battle to close the copyright gap between performers and other creators has
been running ever since.

Two years ago, 6,000 PPL
performers signed a petition calling for equal treatment. That list grew to
37,000 musicians across Europe and gradually
politicians have added their voice to end the discrimination. Leading the field
in the UK have been Pete Wishart MP,
whose Private Members' Bill is due for a 2^nd Reading on 7^th
March, Michael Connarty MP, whose Early Day Motion attracted 89 MPs from all
parties, and John Whittingdale MP, Chairman of the Parliamentary Select
Committee on Culture which last year recommended extending copyright protection
for sound recordings.

While the European Commission announcement
is a welcome break, there is still more to be done. The legislation has to pass
through both the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers before it
reaches the statute book. Then there will be a further gap before it is
implemented in the 27 European Member States. But for now at least, there is
hope that Europe's musicians will no longer be
second class citizens.

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 9:26 am by and is filed under creators, international, property rights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.