Creativity Stifled? A Joined Academic Statement on the Proposed Copyright Term Extension for Sound Recordings

In February 2008, EU Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy declared his intention to extend the European copyright term for sound recordings by 45 years, from 50 to 95 years. The announcement overturned the recommendations of two recent independent reviews on the issue. One was conducted by the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law at Cambridge University for the UK Gowers Review of Intellectual Property (2006), the other was commissioned by the Commission itself as part of a larger study by the Amsterdam Institute for Information Law (2006). The 2004 Commission Staff Working Paper on the European copyright framework had summarised the policy consensus quite accurately: ‘‘It is feared that an extended term of protection would only tend to diminish the choice of music on the market by enforcing the flow of revenues from few best-selling recordings, while at the same time not providing any real new incentives for creation of new recordings or motivating new investment. It has also been pointed out that practically all developed countries, with the exception of the USA, apply the term of protection of 50 years. From the point of view of the Internal Market, the term of protection for phonogram producers does not cause particular concern since the term has been harmonised in the Community and also been incorporated by the 10 new Member States. (. . .) Moreover, it seems that public opinion and political realities in the EU are such as not to support an extension in the term of protection. Some would even argue that the term should be reduced. At this stage, therefore, time does not appear to be ripe for a change, and developments in the market should be further monitored and studied.’’ It is indeed hard to see how extending exclusive rights over the catalogue of recorded music for another 45 years would benefit society. Following years of fierce and sustained lobbying by the trade bodies of the record industry, however, the copyright unit of the Internal Market Directorate has drafted the text of an extension directive which the European Commission has adopted on July 16, against the reported objections of commissioners Viviane Reding (information society) and Vice-President Antonio Tajani (transport). In order to assist rational policy-making, leading research institutes called a meeting at Bournemouth University in May 2008. Collectively, we have reviewed the empirical evidence on the issue of term extension