A report on WBEZ's Sound Opinions from a few weeks ago taught me that the earliest tracks recorded by The Beatles and Bob Dylan are, in 2013, now old enough to land in the public domain under European copyright law. It turns out though, that the EU -- like the U.S. -- is perfectly willing to just extend the length of copyright protection (from 50 to 70 years) in order to protect the profits being made on such works.
As I've discussed before, copyright law with public welfare benefits in mind will extend enough protection to content producers to make their efforts worthwhile, thus encouraging cultural production. Extending copyright protections an additional 20 years so the corporate owners of music, book, or whatever rights can continue to sell them exclusively does not do that. Is limiting the production of "Love Me Do" recordings for the next 20 years going to ensure that The Beatles have been adequately compensated? Or will continue to make music?
More pernicious than the lack of cheap "Love Me Do" records is what happens to "orphaned" works under a 70-year copyright regime. In a good report from On The Media last month, James Boyle, head of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain, explained that books, films, and audio recordings where the current copyright owner is unknown cannot be legally reproduced. No one is profiting from these works as it is, yet these pieces remain locked away as a casualty of our very generous copyright laws.
There is a real cost to our culture -- or at least some warping effects -- of keeping cultural products from the last 70 years more expensive than those which came before.
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