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Bragg criticises FAC critics over copyright extension

By | Published on Wednesday 8 April 2009

Talking of which, Billy Bragg has been talking up the Featured Artist Coalition’s viewpoint regarding the good old copyright extension debate. He wrote to Music Week in response to some chatter in some parts of the record business that the recently launched FAC are hindering rather than helping the industry-wide effort to extend the recording copyright term in Europe from the current fifty years.

As previously reported, copyright extension is very much on the agenda in Europe at the moment, and various EU political bodies have approved proposals for a term increase. Part of the proposal is that a system is put in place which means musicians benefit more from the copyrights that exist in the music they created once the initial fifty years are up.

Of course if an artist has signed ownership of their recordings to a record company, as is, or certainly was, the norm for new bands, and if those bands haven’t recouped on their original record contract, or they’re a session musician who never had a contractual royalty to start with, then they don’t earn much from the music the songs they were involved in generate. They do, despite what many people say, earn something – all artists and musicians earn a statutory cut of broadcast royalties oblivious of their record contract – but it’s not much.

Anyway, the plan is that after fifty years, and during any subsequent part of the copyright term, artists and musicians would earn an extra automatic royalty from their music, increasing their total income. A system for that has been agreed by various music business bodies in the UK, and across Europe, and that system is part of the current proposals.

However, the British government, while supporting extension in theory, last month held up the current proposals by arguing they didn’t do enough to benefit musicians over record companies during any extended copyright period. Other countries disagreed, and as such the whole term proposal document has been held up. Some fear it now won’t get through the system before the European elections this summer, holding everything up for months, possibly years.

The Musicians Union and collecting society PPL, both of whom represent musicians, criticised the UK government for holding up the proposals in that way. But then the FAC issued a statement saying they backed the government in its bid to secure artists a better deal, even if it delayed the actual introduction of a term extension. Record labels would presumably prefer a term extension that doesn’t involve them giving up too much of their extra revenue, while the FAC goes as far as suggesting that at fifty years the whole copyright in a track should return to the artist. All of which brings much new debate to the table. Some key players at other trade bodies worry such new debate could scupper the current term extension proposals, putting them back to square one.

Anyway, here’s what Bragg says in his letter to Music Week: “The Featured Artists Coalition has been founded to give artists a voice in the important decisions that are being made about the ownership and exploitation of copyright within our industry. With regard to the issue of term extension currently being addressed by the European Union, we believe that after 50 years of ownership by the record companies, the recordings that we made – and ultimately paid for [because the label’s cash investment is recouped from the artist’s sales] – should become our property. We want the slate to be wiped clean for those who didn’t recoup and we want our fellow performers, the session musicians, to start getting some royalties too”.

On criticism of the FAC’s late in the day remarks, he continues: “The industry is pushing the line that if the legislation fails to pass on its first reading this week, then that will be that, everything will be lost and there will be no extension at all. This kind of scare-mongering doesn’t wash, neither with artists nor with government officials. This issue will have to be resolved sooner or later because there cannot, in a digital age, be such a huge anomaly in the term of copyright in recordings between the USA and the EU”.



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