Tuesday 13 September 2011

As a ‘music creator’ you’d think I’d be happy about the extension of copyright term to 70 years, but it really looks like a cynical move designed to let EMI squeeze some more income out of the Beatles back catalogue. The remix frenzy will have to stay illegal (or at the very least non-commercial) in the meantime.

It’s quite common to read contributions to the copyright debate along the lines of ‘I don’t pay for recorded music, but I support the artist by buying tickets to see them live or buying their merch’. Musicians are now used to being told that they need to leave the studio to earn their keep, and get out to hotel rooms, planes, trains and transit vans, because the days of income from recording are over.  Well, but by that logic, we wouldn’t have (for example) any Beatles music after 1966, or the prospect of a new album from Kate Bush.  There are plenty of musicians to whom the touring life is not suited, and for many different reasons.  And there are many musicians, technicians and sound artists whose medium is recorded sound, not the live show (remember the Beatles in 1967 again). I don’t particularly like being told to leave my home and family for a month or more at a time and get out on tour, just so that some lazy sod can attempt to justify morally his not spending 99p on a download from iTunes.  So let’s just nip that argument in the bud, shall we?