Copyright Term

Background
On Monday 12 September 2011, the Council of the European Union agreed to extend the copyright term for performers and record companies from 50 to 70 years from release of the recording.

This is the culmination of a ten year campaign by performers and the wider music industry across Europe. PPL first raised copyright term with the Department of Culture, Media and Sport in 2002. The Directive is expected to be implemented across all EU Member States by 2013.

Additional measures are contained in the Directive to ensure that both featured artists and session musicians reap the benefit of a longer copyright term, including:

• A substantial new fund for session musicians from record company revenues in the extended term.
• A requirement for labels to make sure all recordings are commercially available, failing which the artist will be entitled to release their recordings themselves.
• A 'clean slate' for featured artists, writing off any un-recouped advances so that artists receive full royalties in the extended term.

PPL’s response
Welcoming the news, PPL Chairman and CEO Fran Nevrkla said, "This is a tremendous development and we must recognise the goodwill of the politicians in Britain and other parts of Europe who understood that this key change in the copyright legislation was long overdue. I am delighted that we at PPL, jointly with our many thousands of individual performer and record company members, have been able to play an important role in this process.

"It is not possible to overstate the effectiveness of the sterling work by many individual PPL performers who signed copyright petitions, lobbied Parliament here and in Brussels and generally remained completely engaged and determined to succeed. This copyright change will mean that the PPL income streams will continue to flow through to the whole community of recording artists, orchestral players, session musicians, backing singers and other performers for an additional period of 20 years which is so important, especially when those individuals reach ripe old age and are no longer able to exercise their profession. The enhanced copyright framework will also enable the record companies, big and small, to continue investing in new recordings and new talent."

The copyright extension was also welcomed by other British music industry bodies including the BPI, The Musician's Union and AIM. The organisations hailed the approval of the Directive as an enormously positive step forward for everyone in British music – including music fans, featured artists, session musicians, producers and record labels.

Next steps
The next step will be implementation in Member States. The Directive will be published in the EU Official Journal in October and Member States will then have two years to implement into national legislation. From that point, sound recordings in the EU will enjoy a copyright term of 70 years from the date of release. This means that recordings dating from 1963 onwards will enjoy the longer copyright term and musicians on those recordings will benefit from the additional measures. Earlier recordings will not enjoy the extended term and will remain in the public domain.

October 2011: Amending Term of Protection Directive published in EU Official Journal
TBC (after two years): Copyright Term Directive implemented in Member States' legislation