This seems a little unfair, no?

It took three years of doing, but the music industry has finally won its European battle to lock up in-copyright sound recordings for another 20 years. Looking forward to The Beatles’ music entering the public domain as the 50-year copyright terms expires? Not going to happen.

The Council of the European Union, where the various member state governments all have a say, voted yesterday (PDF) without discussion to increase the copyright term in sound recordings from 50 to 70 years. Small countries like Belgium, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Sweden voted against the extension, but it passed anyway.

The long and winding road to this point actually began in 2008, when the European Union announced a plan to extend musical copyrights to 95 years. The stated objective was to “help aging session musicians” who had been making small amounts of money from these recordings for 50 years but were about to be cut off just when the rigors of old age were taking their toll. (Why hadn’t they saved money for the future during the last 50 years like everyone else? Who knows—it was a point no one seemed keen on addressing.)

Full article at Ars Technica.

The post You Should Know: EU has added 20 years to music copyrights appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.