Last month the British government rejected extending copyright terms for sound recordings (currently 50 years).
Of course the music industry cried that the government did not support musicians and artists. But I’ll let that specious argument go for today. Even thought the government would have had get the European Commission to change the uniform copyright law, it was being heavily considered.
In the end, Prime Minister Gordon Brown determined that extending copyright terms “would not benefit the majority of performers and could lead to increased costs.” It is refreshing to see anyone in a government paying attention to carefully researched expert opinion, i.e. following the sound advice of the Gowers report, instead of rolling over for a bunch of aging celebs, i.e. Cliff Richard and Roger Daltrey, to mention but two.
Filed under: Copyright, Public Domain
