Free for a Fee

The forces behind the drive to extend Europe’s musical copyrights from 50 to 95 years (i.e., the record labels, Sir Cliff Richard, and at least a few actual, aging session musicians that the law is ostensibly designed to help) won a major victory late last week when the bill was passed out of the powerful Legal Affairs Committee (known as JURI) at the European Parliament. Lost in much discussion about the vote was the fact that the committee wondered aloud whether “a similar copyright extension would benefit the audiovisual world.”.

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