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Paul McCartney has a copyright problem
money.cnn.com — Unless the UK extends the life of copyrights similarly to the US, copyrights to Beatles songs will start to expire in 2012. Just call him Sonny Bono!
willin- 466 diggs
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- kilps, on 10/12/2007, -2/+70What? 50 years to make money off a song isn't enough - write something new. I have no sympathy.
- BadassCheese, on 10/12/2007, -2/+43Agreed. Oh no, he's only a billionaire.
- szelij, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16It's a human problem. You tend to want to continue to profit..I don't blame the fella for wanting to profit but he should write something new and not stall the creative process of other people.
- treelovinhippie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15Oh no, how will he pay the bills, how will he put food on the table?
- UtopianComplex, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15I think they should go tell a couple years after the creators death, but I think this is clearly better than the US's practically infinite copyright system
- foobar5892, on 10/12/2007, -14/+2Title is inaccurate. Paul McCartney != Beatles.
- valis, on 10/12/2007, -13/+1Ignorant jerk. If *he* wrote it and was still alive, he would have a different view.
Give the man (McCartney) his due. When he's dead, then it's a free for all. - MiddleGirth, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13I think the real question is when does your creation no longer belong to you?
- l0ne, on 10/12/2007, -7/+5He will still receive royalties from his contracts with his label; just, people will be able to copy Beatles songs without penalties.
- foobar5892, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9McCartney != Beatles
- thatgirlismine, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10McCartney may not equal the Beatles, but he and John Lennon wrote the vast majority of their songs. Since Lennon and Harrison are dead, that leaves McCartney as the sole living author of the vast majority of their collection. Afaik, Ringo only wrote two songs.
- peteraldred, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Apologies for hijacking the first post but thought this warranted it:
Anyone from the UK, you can find contact details for your MP at
http://www.writetothem.com/ . Drop them a line, tell them what you think. We ought to be able to beat 4,000 names in the FT. - petepete, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3 @treelovinhippie
He probably gets a discount on Linda McCartney sausages - rebrad, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Boo, the ***** Hoo.
- nepawoods, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@MiddleGirth
"I think the real question is when does your creation no longer belong to you?"
If your creation is in the form of information, it no longer belongs to you once you make it public - and by public, I mean known to at least one other person.
How can one disseminate information, and maintain any degree of control over what others do with it? If government helps you out here, consider yourself lucky, but the lengths they go to now are ridiculous. - joeydoo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1"Paul McCartney has a copywrite problem"
Corrected......
"Paul McCartney has a greed problem"
I don't think he holds the copywrite for "Apple corp", which owns the Beatles back catalogue anyway. So whoever wrote that article is stupid. Last I remember Michael Jackson owns the Beatles rights. I'm thinking he sold it recently though.
The greed of the music industry is disgusting. If the copywrite runs out on all this material then they can still sell it and make money from it.
The only thing they are trying to stop is other people having access to our cultural heritage.
- Chris12, on 10/12/2007, -7/+4Come on - the Beatles arn't still making proper money out of this?
Time to pirate! Bit Torrent ftw...- valis, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6Let's pirate everything you do. I mean, who cares? Certainly no one cares about you. Free for all!
- frem001, on 10/12/2007, -9/+3so where does the money go after the copyright expires? shouldn't their families receive royalties?
- gregv, on 10/12/2007, -4/+23Why should their families receive anything after copyright expires? It's not as if those families did any work to deserve the money, other than choosing their relatives well.
"All you need is love"? Hardly. It's more like "Money, that's what I want". - dadioflex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Originally there was no copyright and it was introduced to ENCOURAGE THE CREATION OF NEW WORKS. By making it possible to profit from your creations you had an incentive to go on and create more. Get your head around the idea that originally anyone was free to copy anything you did quite freely. In fact the vast majority of art is built upon what went before including a lot of blatant copying by younger artists imitating their elders and betters. The introduction of copyright was a boon to give exclusive rights to a work after which it would pass, naturally, into the public domain where it would once again be fair game. What's happening now is a concerted effort by creators and publishers to abolish the public domain. And without the public domain you are basically giving up on your culture.
- gregv, on 10/12/2007, -4/+23Why should their families receive anything after copyright expires? It's not as if those families did any work to deserve the money, other than choosing their relatives well.
- aaaleman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5he might not make it to 2012... don't get me wrong, I love the Beatles, but that's just the plain truth.
- atdigg, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1if you see the pattern they tend to die before their time...
- calvmari, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2That's true for most rock stars who abuse drugs and live an extreme life style. Paul McCartney, though, was a pretty straight shooter wasn't he?
- shmatt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Uhm... FYI.. Paul did pa-lenty of drugs in the Beatles' heyday
- GiggleStick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I thought Paul had been dead, are we talking about his double here? 28 IF
- JoeBlunt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@Giglestick
HAHA Only the biggest fans will catch that comment. That is great.
Btw, word is that McCartney's latest breakup was precipitated bc she could not stand his continued use of the chronic as an aged man's tonic. Stuffy old english bird, fly away!
- filovirus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12He needs the money to pay off his divorce settlement.
- valis, on 10/12/2007, -10/+2And you need the money to get an education.
- simcjt, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1what's wrong with keeping what you made America is changing it's copyright laws so that mickey mouse will always be a Disney brand image
- jewdiknight, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I love the Beatles and I must say I can not wait for there stuff to go into the public domain.
- fredricko, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7What about Ringo?
- treelovinhippie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13What about Ringo?
- eagleswings, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3It's also Cliff Richard who wants copyright extended. I think these people have made their money now it's time to share. Just look at the podcasting area, lots of them let you download songs for free (okay, so you usually end up buying a full album) because they love what they do. McCartney and Cliff are living in a different era and need to move on.
Also, I feel it's another of the Beetles saying 'buy our music'. It's just like when every few years Apple Music sue Apple Computer it's free advertising and make people remember they used to make music (any co-insidence that the Beetles have released a CD recently and are complaining about it now, and in the run-up to Christmas - I think not). - broomett, on 10/12/2007, -11/+2The funny thing is that there are still Beatles fanboys who claim that they weren't in it for the money. That they had some greater reason for existing.
Of course, that was ALWAYS *****, as Paul has said sevral times that he and John used to call each other and say "Hey, come on over this afternoon and let's write ourselves anew in ground swimming pool." Yup, those songs that Bealtes fanboys think have deep spiritual meaning were written SOLELY to make money. (Not that there is anything wrong with that.)
They were basically a boy band. Made just to make as much money as possible. With crap like a 7 minute song that pretty much consists of two words, Hey and Jude.- valis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4You are in everything you do for the money. Get real.
- Alawiggle, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5"Hey Jude, don't make it bad. Take a sad song and make it better. Remember, to let her under your skin, then you can start to make it better."
Yeah man, two words. Probably two chords too with only two instruments and two people playing on it. I hope they only made two dollars on it because this song wasn't listened to by more than two people. It certainly didn't inspire more than two people! - fireball74, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@valis:
Not everyone is motivated by money. A lot of people, including OSS developers, do things for the love of it and for the sake of doing it. - shmatt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You gotta wonder about someone who hates a band so much that they delude themselves that badly
- UtopianComplex, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Doesn't Michael Jackson own the Beatles rights anyway?
- andy78, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I'm not entirely sure, but I guess one thing is the rights to license songs, and another is a writers royalties.. but again, not too sure.
- MiddleGirth, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6It's by country. I believe the child raper owns the US copyrights. This is over the UK rights, if I'm not mistaken.
- shmatt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3MJ own the rights just to the recordings, not the music/lyrics themselves. I think he's not the sole owner anyway...
- Azric, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I believe it is Sony who is co-owner with MJ.
- ksgant, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5MJ does NOT own the rights to the recordings. They are all still owned by the Beatles/Capital. MJ owns the rights to the publishing. And (from Snopes.com): "although Michael Jackson receives 50% of the royalties generated by Beatles songs by virtue of his ownership of the publishing rights, Paul McCartney and John Lennon (and Lennon's estate, now that he's dead) have always received their 50% songwriter's share of the royalties for all Lennon-McCartney songs. Neither ATV's nor Michael Jackson's acquisition of Northern Songs changed that, and Michael Jackson does not now receive royalties that would otherwise be going to the Beatles had he not acquired the publishing rights to their songs (except that, obviously, if Paul McCartney had managed to outbid Jackson for the publishing rights to the Beatles catalog, he and Lennon's estate would be splitting 100% of the royalties rather than 50%)."
"Sony Corp. paid Michael Jackson $95 million in 1995 to merge ATV with Sony and form Sony/ATV Music Publishing, a 50-50 joint venture, so it's probably more correct to say that Jackson now owns half the rights to the Beatles catalog."
- Alawiggle, on 10/12/2007, -14/+5Why is everyone being dugg down who say that he should keep his copyright? The man SHOULD keep his damn copyright. All that material is rightfully his (or John's). Why should fifty years pass and all of a sudden it's free? The man wrote a lot of material and he's still making money off it. He's not being selfish, IT'S HIS MUSIC! I'd be pretty damn pissed off too if the law said that fifty years is the maximum that anything I artistically create is legally mine.
- fireball74, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6I think 50 years is generous, but half it and it'd be fair. Why should he, or any purported "artist" get a free ride on their old stuff? I'm in agreement with others, he should write new stuff and let the old go. If he can't, tough. He can go flip burgers for a living for all I care.
- Alawiggle, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2@fireball74
That's absolutely garbage. How is he "riding" on it? He's a billionaire. He doesn't need your money, my money, or anyone else's money and he'll be fine (and his kids too!). It's more a matter of respect to what he created. When the copyright expires, everyone can get his music for free. He certainly didn't write it for free! Why do people who had nothing to do with creating his music get to own it for free? I'm not saying he worked extremely hard making the songs he wrote, but it did require a bit of talent to get large amounts of people to buy them.
Actually, never mind. You're right. He should let all his music go. Why bother caring for songs you made like, fifty years ago and stuff? It's not like they hold any kind of importance anymore! - qwertydvorak, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13i hope you don't sing "happy birthday" at birthday parties. it is not yours to sing, it belongs to someone else. i also hope you don't buy generic drugs at the pharmacy. i hope you get gouged for full price. some things need to expire for the greater good. walt disney made a ton of money essentially stealing fairy tales.
- Alawiggle, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3@qwertydvorak
Actually, I don't. But moving on into a rebuttal:
I'm not saying the copyright should NEVER expire, that's just silly. I'm saying that if they're still living, they should 100% benefit for their creations.
And in any case, the copyright for Happy Birthday is still in effect (in the USA anyway). - daedpid1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Because in a free society people have the freedom to exchange culture and knowledge. Copyright is explicitly expressed as a limited privilege granted by the government to compensate artists that infringes this freedom. It's a government granted limited time monopoly. Or at least it's supposed to be.
"I'm not saying the copyright should NEVER expire, that's just silly. I'm saying that if they're still living, they should 100% benefit for their creations."
Because sometimes music becomes part of the greater culture before the artist dies. - jocknerd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Because what if the copyright was held by a corporation? For instance, say Mickey Mouse. There's a good one. Disney owns the copyright. When is Disney going to die? Probably never.
Just think if a publishing company had owned the rights to stories like Snow White or Robin Hood. Disney wouldn't be able to make movies from all these public domain characters. Kind of ironic huh? - billytwoiwlly, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Actually, copyright was put in place by the Government to correct a market failure. Before copyright you write anything and anyone can just publish it themselves without giving you anything. I.e no incentive to create anything yourself because people will just publish it without giving you anything back. The problem with copyright is that it essentially grants a monopoly on the creative work, which is another form of market failure because people will end up paying too much for something in a monopoly. The practical solution was to grant the monopoly for a limited amount of time. Since the whole purpose of the Government is to maximize social benefit (atleast that is the theory in a democracy), the question the government should be asking itself is "How much time do I need to grant the monopoly for in order to let artists make enough money to give them incentive to continue to make music?" In that sense extending copyright time period is completely absurd because the artist already made the music knowing full well that they would only get the period specified when they made the song to exploit the monopoly and yet they still made it.
The only legitimate argument for extending copyright is to encourage new works to be made that weren't profitable to the artist under the old regime. Given the way revenues work out in the music industry (Huge revenue in the first year after release then huge tapering down of revenue) and the use of even a very modest discount rate, when artists make songs it is ridiculous to argue that they are even thinking about revenues past about 30 years out (I would say 15-20 years out, but I'm in a generous mood) because they are essentially worthless to them. This means that the only legitimate reason for extending copyright law is completely bogus.
So, if the only legitimate reason for extending copyright law is bogus then we have to think about the ilegitimate reasons. In this case I think it is Paul being a whiny baby because he happened to be part of the less than one percent of artists whose songs are still valuable (and by valuable I mean people are willing to pay for them and/or have even heard of them) after the 50 years are up. Well Paul, tough luck, you just made a donation to the common good that you knew was coming for the past 50 years. Congratulations for being a poor sport.
So, what could be the record labels reasons for supporting this? Do they release all these artists songs they own so people can buy them legitimately? Not really, there are a couple big names, but the vast majority of the stuff from 50 years ago will never see the light of day from the record companies archives. So why would they want to continue to own stuff they won't sell? Well, one fairly obvious benefit is that they can keep you and I from listening to it. If the stuff goes into the public domain we'll suddenly be able to buy some very good music from 50 years ago for rock bottom prices or get it for free legitimately off the internet. How do you think that will affect album sales of the current crap they are putting out? My bet would be poorly, since the current crap acts have to compete with the best of 50 years ago.
- vhold, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11I'd remotely see their position if they were calling for reparations towards the descendants of Mozart, Bach and friends.. but they aren't, and why? Because it's ridiculous.
There's a reason copyright expires. - olego, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11A copyright *problem*? I call expiring copyrights a solution.
- gill1109, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4at some point songs and music ought to be in the public domain because (the good ones) become part of culture and language ie property of the human race. similarly for novels. 50 years is arbitrary but not unreasonable. if someone is still singing your songs after 50 years you have achieved immortality and shouldn't care about your descendents still being paid for it (similarly also of course the source code of operating systems and word processing software....)
- ChadN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Right! And beyond that, the point of expiring copyrights is that they creators had the weight and power of copyright law behind them for those 50 years to protect them from copyright infringement. Expiring copyright is the price of allowing the taxpayers to (in part) fund a justice system that creators can use to seek redress. If they don't want that, let them hire an army to go fight bootleggers.
(Of course, McCartney could hire that army...)
- ChadN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Right! And beyond that, the point of expiring copyrights is that they creators had the weight and power of copyright law behind them for those 50 years to protect them from copyright infringement. Expiring copyright is the price of allowing the taxpayers to (in part) fund a justice system that creators can use to seek redress. If they don't want that, let them hire an army to go fight bootleggers.
- qwertydvorak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i like to think of the bible in this situation. the bible is public domain, yet somehow tons of people make millions of dollars selling them. go to any book store, it is there. not only that, but there are some people who change it a bit, and make their own version. kinda like a remix in the song world.
- Alawiggle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2What are they supposed to do, GIVE away copies of it? It requires material to make, and material is not free. The idea is that what is contained within the Bible is public domain. So you can look up the text on the Internet for free, but since the Beatles songs are not yet free, you cannot legally download them.
However, Beatles CDs (once the copyright expires) will still be sold in stores, since it takes material to make them. However, the company will not need any type of permission to use the songs or pay royalties to the Beatles.
- Alawiggle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2What are they supposed to do, GIVE away copies of it? It requires material to make, and material is not free. The idea is that what is contained within the Bible is public domain. So you can look up the text on the Internet for free, but since the Beatles songs are not yet free, you cannot legally download them.
- cdreiling, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Paul only owns rights to the original recordings. The music was lost when Apple made shares public in an effort to shelter themselves from taxes. They lost controlling shares of the music, Thanks Michael. Michael owns more shares than Sony, so Sony bails out Michael from time to time rather than Bank of America getting control. Sony/Michael Jackson own the sheet music, performance rights etc. That is why if a Beatles song is used in a movie it is a cover band because Sony does not have rights to the recordings. Since Sony owns the music they get a pinch of the original recording sales.
- FuzzyCat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4
A lot of people seem to be under the impression that in 2012 you'll be able to copy the Beatles music 'willy nilly' - this is NOT the case. What is does mean is that
a) anyone can perform it without paying royalties.
b) you can flog it in a book of music and words and not pay royalties.
You can't legally just start copying CD's, because the CD (performance) is copyrighted around it's release date. In other words a remastered performance, put onto a CD is a new work an thus obtains 50 years of copyright protection...
All that's being made available is the music/words - Nerys, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Only the remastered version gets a new 50 years the ORIGINAL encoded into mp3 for example could be FREELY distributed once its 50 years old.
Also 50 years is too long. Copyright should be LIFE of creator when its personal 25 years when its COMMERCIAL
It has been shown time and again that the public domain is critical for a good and prosperous society AND economy ie businesses.
In fact almost all of the current MEGA corporations of MEDIA have gotten there START by using PUBLIC DOMAIN Material that they now want to LIMIT.
THIS is not right. - bixing, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Copyright laws are screwed up, and I don't think they'll be fixed anytime soon.
Yeah, it's his creation, and sure, he should be able to profit from it. However, 50 years after the fact, people should be able to listen to it freely. He can still profit by box sets and those who would rather have a collection of CDs (the hardcore fans).
Put it this way, if you don't agree with the copyright laws, then ignore them. That's what I do. Download the songs anyway.
Kinda moot after that point :) - saigumi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Get Sonny Bono in here. The Beatles need another Act. Oh, wait. They are in England and Sonny is dead. Sucks to be them.
Copyright, like patents, are made to expire. There is a point that the information needs to become public domain because it is. Do some reading on Ben Franklin's views on how the patent system was devised and the spirit of it for the US.
Disney just made a play and got Sonny to extend copyright in the US because it didn't want to lose control of Mickey. Walt's dead. He work was on a timeline to expire. The worst part is that their whole business model was to take works from the public domain (Grimm's and such) and never give it back. - GLSmyth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's too bad he couldn't have made some money with the music while he could.
- NoQuarter, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3He'll be screwed when he has to live off the old 'Wings' tracks.
- JohnnyZito, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The Public Domain is important.
He got his just dues. Time to let someone else play with the toys. - thefrenzy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2First off there seems to be some confusion amongst diggers about what exactly this means.
To clarify, this is about the "mechanical" copyright on the actual recording of a song. This is currently 50 years from creation of the recording.
Every time a recording (that is still under copyright) is played on the radio, a flat fee is payed to the artist. A fee is also payable to the writer of the piece, that's where the real money is.
Copyright on the song's music/lyrics remains unchanged and is still set at Death of Author + 70 years.
When these artists recorded their music, they understood at the time that they would have a period of 50 years to exploit it for their personal gain. Trying to change the rules after the fact, by people who don't need any more money smacks of greed and avarice.
Paul and co will still get royalty payments for public performances of songs they have written, and their dependents will continue to receive that for 70 years after they die. This measure is only to do with an actual recording, nothing more. - keije, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0why would Paul McCartney be in trouble? Michael Jackson owns the copyrights to the Beatles' songs. And MJ has been in bigger trouble.
- vhold, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1There's two copyrights. There's the copyright on the -recordings-, then there's the copyright on the song. Last I heard, MJ bought the ones for the song, giving him control over covers of Beatles songs.
- SupaFupa, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Paul McCartney has hundreds of millions of dollars. Where's the problem? Then there are guys like Mick Taylor, who helped write some of he Rolling Stones best albums, who hasn't seen a dime of it, simply because Keith Richards didnt like him, and never credited him on any album. I think Sir Paul will be just fine.
- noseeme, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2You win for having Elvis Costello as your icon.
- zhulien, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0the way Disney and some others like PM act, they may as well abolish copyright expirey entirely, heck, 50 years isn't good enough
personally, if it were up to me, I would abolish copyright. - NextGenXbox, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1It's his work, he should collect his royalties!
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