"This is not only a European or American issue but 
can be spread all over the world. This stand can 
be freely used as a model by all library 
associations, libraries or library professionals 
interested to oppose this proposal".

Saludos
Alicia Ocaso
Uruguay

De: sinikka.sipila@...
Fecha: 20/05/2008 03:14 
Para: "IFLA Management of Library Associations
Section"<ifla-mlas@sla.
lyris.net>
Asunto: [ifla-mlas] URGENT to the European library associations and 
libraries -  oppose the extension of the term of copyright of sound 
recordings from 50 to 95 years



Dear European colleagues in libraries and library associations,

for your information the stand by The National Library of Finland and 
The
Finnish Library Association opposing the extension of the term of 
copyright
of the sound recordings from 50 years to 95 years in European Union. 
The
National Library of Finland and the Finnish Library Association urge 
all
European library associations and libraries to oppose this proposal. 
It
would harm also the libraries as you can read
 in the stand below.

In the USA the extension is already in force. In Europe the EUs 
Internal
Market Commissioner Charles McCreevy has proposed an extension of the
copyright protection of sound recordings from the present 50 years to 
95
years. It is important that library associations react and oppose this
proposal as early as possible through their representatives in the 
European
Commission and in the European Parliament. According to a press 
release
from Feb 2008
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/240 the
proposal should be ready for adoption by the Commission before the 
summer
break of 2008. There is not much time left to react and to oppose!

This stand has been send to the Finnish Members of the European 
Parliament
and many of them have already answered they will oppose this proposal 
when
it comes to the EU Parliament. There has already earlier been
 
available a
petition launched by Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)  Europe ja 
Open
Rights Group (ORG) http://www.soundcopyright.eu/petition. Over 10 000 
people
have already signed it. Information on this issue was also published 
on the
IFLA-L on the 14th of April 2008 by Mark Perkins: [IFLA-L] Petition 
against
EU extension of sound recordings copyright.

This is not only a European or American issue but can be spread all 
over the
world. This stand can be freely used as a model by all library 
associations,
libraries or library professionals interested to oppose this proposal.





THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FINLAND AND THE FINNISH LIBRARY ASSOCIATION 
OPPOSE
THE EXTENSION OF THE TERM OF COPYRIGHT


EUs Internal Market Commissioner Charles McCreevy has proposed an 
extension
of the copyright protection of sound recordings from the present 50 
years to
95
 years, to give performers equal protection with composers. Unless 
the
term of protection is extended, many European performers will soon 
lose
income from recordings they made in the late 1950s and the early 
1960s, says
McCreevy. A detailed proposal has not yet been published, but as the
Commissioner has announced that he aims to move quickly, the 
undersigned
wish to take a stand on the proposal on the basis of information 
currently
available.

1.	The copyright protection of performers cannot be equated with the
protection of composers and other authors. Most compositions have only 
one
or two authors; the term of protection is counted from the death of 
the
longest-living author. Rights in sound recordings belong jointly to 
the
record company and performers participating in recordings, sometimes 
more
than a hundred of them. Companies do not have a year of death. 
Extending
 the
term of protection to 95 years would inevitably lead to situations 
where
some sound recordings would be protected longer than the works 
recorded,
resulting in new demands for extended protection.

It is true that a small number of living performers will lose income 
from
the broadcasting of their recordings when the present term expires. 
However,
in Finland, record producers and performing artists did not have any
copyright protection until 1961. For a long time, the term of 
protection was
25 years. This state of affairs was well known to all parties, when
recordings were made. The protection of performers and producers has 
already
been extended retroactively several times; no other professional group 
has
ever received such special treatment.

2.	Commissioner McCreevy has not published any estimates of the 
additional
income which performers would gain from the extension.
 50-year old 
records
are only broadcast infrequently, 95-year old records almost never. For 
most
performers and their estates, the extra income would only be a few 
euros
annually, if anything. The damage caused by the extension would be 
much
larger than the benefits.

3.	The extension of the copyright term has previously been proposed in 
the
EU on the basis of the competitiveness of the European recording 
industry.
It was claimed that European record industry would be less competitive 
than
the US industry, which already has 95-year protection. In Britain, the
Gowers report convincingly proved that such claims were false. If 
anything,
the shorter term makes European record industry more competitive.

In the United States, there have been studies of the damage caused by
excessively long protection. In practice record companies have not 
been
interested in marketing recordings
 which are more than 50 years old, 
because
demand for them is marginal. Neither have they been willing to license 
them
to other companies. As a result, in the USA most recordings which are 
more
than 50 years old are available for educational and research purposes 
only
as European reissues. If the proposed extension goes through, the
availability of historical recordings will dramatically decrease in 
Europe,
too.

4.	The extension of the term of protection would not only apply to
commercially published recordings. It would apply to all sound 
recordings,
including broadcasts, private recordings and recordings made for 
research
purposes. Without the permission of the rights owners, protected 
recordings
cannot be used for any purposes. For instance, if an archive receives 
a home
recording made in the 1950s, it would not be able to make a digital
preservation copy without the
 permission of the rights owners, who may 
be
unknown.

5.	The extension of the term of copyright would eventually create a 
huge
orphan works problem. Ninety-year old recordings could not be used 
for any
purpose without the permission of the rights owners, but in many cases 
it
would be impossible to identify them. In the course of time, many 
record
companies will change owners, cease operations or go bankrupt. Even 
the
states where they once operated may cease to exist. The performers die 
and
the rights pass to second and third generations. Because most 
recordings
have little economic value after such a long period, the changes will 
not be
documented anywhere.

6.	The extension of the term of copyright would endanger the 
pioneering work
of the Finnish National Library in making historical recordings 
accessible
to the public. The National Library is legally responsible
 for the
preservation of national cultural heritage and providing related 
information
services. The National Library has digitised in the RAITA database a 
major
part of public domain Finnish sound recordings. The proposed extension 
would
make this task much more difficult. If the extension is made 
retroactively,
most of the materials would have to be closed for the public.

7.	In the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, copyright and 
access
are seen as two rights of equal importance. The extension will result 
in
unreasonable restrictions to the freedom of information, unless proper
balances are created. The harmful consequences of the extension to 
libraries
and archives are well documented, while the there are no studies of 
the
alleged benefits. As the Gowers report noted, it will be possible to 
extend
the term later on, if this proves necessary, but it will be very
 
difficult
to shorten it, if it has proven excessive.


Helsinki 1.4.2008

Kai Ekholm (Mr.)
Director of the National Library of Finland

Markku Laukkanen (Mr.)
Member of the Finnish Parliament
President of the Finnish Library Association


*************************************************
Sinikka Sipilae (Ms,)
Chair of IFLA MALS SC
Member of IFLA Governing Board (co-opted)
Secretary General
Finnish Library Association
Runeberginkatu 15 A 23
00100 Helsinki, Finland
tel.      +358-9-6221 399
mobile +358-400-659 363
email::  sinikka.sipila@...
http://suomenkirjastoseura.fi
****************************************
New Finnish Public Libraries http://libraries.fla.fi
Finnish Library Journal 100 years 1908-2008
Finnish Library Association 100 years 1910-2010


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