Musicians Lobby Government For Free Money
“Mummy! We spent 3 hours recording this track 50 years ago, we’ve made 500 million pounds out of it, I’m about to buy my 12th home, don’t let them take away my royalties mummy!”
whined Cliff Richard when it elapsed that copyright on his genre-defining album “The little piggy went to market” will expire soon.
When it expires, anyone has the right to sell his music.
We asked average Joe, Bob-teh-Builder, what he thought.
“What, you mean I could still be charging for houses I built 50 years ago?”
We pointed out that musicians are special people, they can demand you pay them for work they did up to 75 years ago. And the Government thinks this is right and decent and honorable.
“What? I wish I could do a week’s work and live off it for the rest of my life!”
Quite Bob. Quite.
Of course in the US its lifetime of the artist + 50 years or something ridiculous like that.
Its actually somewhat ironic, in the 19th century it was Europe which had the stricter copyright laws.
Ian M November 29th, 2006 at 17:37