The Loveshade Family Blog

Those who know me well know that I'm a bit of a fanatic when it comes to copywritten material.  I believe the biblical "the workman is worthy of his hire," thought I might phrase it in the gender-neutral "the worker is worthy of es hire."  I once complained to leaders of a spiritual congregation that illegally making copies of music being sold by another ministry was stealing.  They responded by asking their congregation for donations to purchase music so that wouldn't be necessary, and received more money for the music ministry than they'd had before.

But my belief applies to the worker, not necessarily to the corporation that wants to own em.  That might be changing in the European Union.

"Charlie McCreevy, the EU's Commissioner for the Internal Market and Services, wants to nearly double the European copyright term in sound recordings - from 50 years to an astounding 95," according to an article posted on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's website.  How many musicians will be around 95 years after they produce their work?

Art is usually meant to be shared.  I suspect that the biggest dream of most beginning musicians is not for some corporation to profit from their work long after they're dead.  Perhaps worse, a corporation can easily hold the rights to an artistic work without publishing it for decades, meaning the artist's creation will almost certainly be forgotten.  If it went into the public domain, it would have a chance to survive.

To learn more about this effort and what you can do, go to http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/02/stop-copyright-term-extension-europe

(Acknowledgement of bias--I've ran events for, made contributions to, and am friends with people who've worked for Steve Jackson Games.  That company was caught in a suit against the U. S. Secret Service, which was an inspiration for the creation of the EFF.  Some friends of mine were involved in a case that touched on changes made to the law at least partially due to that case.

The image above was found at http://www.felicity.com.au/artwork1.htm which has other copyright free images)