‘Hope I die before I get old…’ Copyright in classic rock recordings of the 60’s evade expiry in EU

Bob Dylan and the Beatles have both been in the Copyright news recently. This time it’s not about infringement wars but rather copyright expiry.

Under European Copyright law, the copyright period in a sound recording lasts 50 years which means at this point, i.e. sound recordings made prior to 1963, they then enter the public domain and can be reproduced without owing a stitch to the owner of the sound recording. For the year of 1962, this has
recently happened to the Beatle’s ‘Love me do’ (ok, they did get better) in which the copyright in the recorded track lapsed at the start of 2013. The same is true of Dylan’s 1962 first album, ingeniously titled ‘Dylan,’ but back to Bob later. This means that these recordings are now the public domain and
you can now freely re-issue them as a vinyl flexidisc taped to the side of a packet of cornflakes, if you so wish, without having to pay a stitch to the owner of the copyright of the recording (notably record companies).
Flexi-what? (look it up kids!)

The copyright in the actual written song however still, in the case of ‘Love me do’ belongs to Lennon and McCartney and lasts the life of the author + 70 years after the author’s death.

Yes you are reading correctly – 2 versions of copyright pertain: copyright in the written song and
copyright in the recorded or published (printed) version.

In the not too distant past, UK 1960s pop icon Sir Cliff Richard (look him up kids and watch ‘Summer Holiday’ whilst you’re at it!) helped champion the move to extend the duration of recorded copyright - arguing the fact that many artists and session musicians (which still happened to be alive and hadn’t overdosed/drowned in swimming pools/other) still made a living from the royalties (some probably needing it more so than others but we won’t go there!). The EU, in its infinite and wonderful wisdom, therefore decided at the end of 2012 to extend the period of recorded sound by 20 years to the
threshold of 70 years (this period is 95 years in the US) - meaning that most of us will probably ‘die before we get this old’ in any event). This whole EU extended copyright stuff, however, now needs to be ratified by the EU council (zzzz….) and is expected to be signed into being around November 2013.
So whilst recorded tracks prior to 1963 have already fallen into the public domain in the EU - year by year post this, recorded tracks will now get a stay of execution for another 20 years. So the 1976 classic ‘don’t fear the reaper’ can rest in peace until 2046.

Right, so what does this all mean? Well, pretty much that just some aging rock stars and record companies will still get some cash through their retirement from continued record sales. But actually, and probably most importantly, record companies will still be able to use a % of the proceeds of their back catalogue to fund new artists. For stuff which has already fallen into the public domain – this is now open to being freely released by any label.

Oh yes back to Dylan. There’s another twist to this copyright tale. If you have, say as a record company, a portfolio of recorded stuff which you own the copyright rights to but don’t release or publish it in the 50 year period, unless you do, the copyright reverts back to the original owner - so called ‘use it or lose it’. So to get around this Sony recently and very craftily released a limited addition of early Dylan demos so these will now also have also another 20 years in the EU.

Complicated? …….. If only Future Copyright had been around 50 years ago!

Future Copyright makes copyright super simple so you don’t even have to think about it. At the click of an upload it captures and evidences the copyright in your work as soon as you create it. You can build your own copyright portfolio of new creative ideas through to recorded master copies. It generates copyright certificates of who owns what, and you can choose to release stuff directly from FC in a controlled manner; having a full legal copyright audit trail or simply decide to things under lock and key.
Future Copyright works right out of the box. It’s Free - so feel free to step right up and use it.

Just don’t forget to invite us to your reunion gig in 2083 - by which time it will be all boobtubes and legwarmers again!