PHOSITA® : ELVIS LIVES -- HIS COPYRIGHTS, THAT IS....

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August 12, 2004

ELVIS LIVES -- HIS COPYRIGHTS, THAT IS....

Elvis has left the building!

The debate is on in Europe right now about the copyright extension efforts that are taking place.

What is the fuss all about? Harmonising European copyright term with the term currently available in the U.S. -- life +70 years. From Project Gutenberg:

The most important question when publishing a book on the internet is whether the work is still protected by copyright. This depends on the applicable copyright term.
The term of copyright protection in EU member states has been harmonized by Directive 93/98/EEC. The following rules determine the duration of protection for books.
If the country of origin (see Country of Origin) is a European member state or party to the agreement creating the European Economic Area, or if the author is a Community national, then the following copyright terms apply (see Article 1 and 7 par. 1 Copyright Term Directive):
If the author of the work is known, 70 years after the death of the author;
In the case of a work of joint authorship, 70 years after the death of the last surviving author;
In the case of anonymous or pseudonymous works, 70 years after the work is lawfully published. If the pseudonym leaves no doubt about his identity, or if the author discloses his identity during the 70 years after the work was lawfully published, the work is protected 70 years after the death of the author;
If national law allows a legal person to be rightsholder or contains specific provisions on copyright in collective works, 70 years after the work is lawfully published, if no natural persons have been identified as authors on the work;
If a work is published in separate parts and the term of protection runs from the time when the work was lawfully published, the term of protection runs for each item separately;
In the case of works for which the term of protection is not calculated from the death of the author or authors and which have not been lawfully made available to the public within seventy years from their creation, no protection exists;
If a term of protection already running in a Member State on 1 July 1995 is longer than the corresponding term provided for by the Term Directive, the longer term applies (Art. 10 par. 1);
These terms apply to books protected by national copyright legislation in one member state on 1 July 1995. There exists doubt whether national copyright legislation includes the Berne Convention.
Else the following rules apply (see Article 7 Copyright Term Directive):
If the country of origin is a member of the Berne Convention, the copyright expires on the date the copyright expires in the country of origin, but the protection term may not exceed the European rules described above.
If the country of origin is not a member of the Berne Convention, other laws may apply. This can be checked on a case by case basis, since this is probably an exception.
All terms will be calculated from the first day of January of the year following the event which gives rise to them (Article 8 Copyright Term Directive).

Anti-European copyright extension arguments are set forth on many sites, but a current weblog post from BoingBoing links to Index for Free Expression:

Faced for the first time with losing significant back catalogue profits, the industry is lobbying to change the law. The industry describes the law as a "loophole". In fact it is anything but.
For every one recording that has the power to reach number three in the commercial charts fifty years after its original release, there are hundreds if not thousands of tracks that do not.
Although these recordings no longer have any commercial value to their rights holders, they are of tremendous value in terms of our cultural heritage. But the mechanisms of copyright law mean that, should the European Parliament choose to heed the music industry, keeping Elvis out of the public domain for a further 45 years or even more, the King will drag down with him this huge body of commercially worthless but culturally significant work.