Pet Peeves | Page 265 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

All this talk about iTunes is making me think about my pet peeve about how unreasonably long copyright lasts for. Don’t get me wrong, people should have exclusive rights to their intellectual property for a short period of time and how long that period lasts for is up for debate but i think enough time’s passed that anything released up until at least 1970 should be in the public domain yet here in America, only things released before 1925 are automatically in the public domain, meaning that even 90 year old films like Dracula and Frankenstein are still protected by copyright.

Yes @Ron Nasty i absolutely think The Beatles entire catalog (except possibly Free As A Bird and Real Love ) should be in the public domain. They had more than enough time to profit off their work and on top of that, Paul and Ringo have been continuously recording new music since 1962 and regularly tour so it’s not like they’d be homeless if The Beatles entered the public domain.

Also, i find your analogy of forcibly evicting people from their house for living there too long to be really strange. While there’s a divide in opinion on copyright, ranging from copyright should never exist to copyright should be eternal, i can’t think of anyone who would argue that viewpoint. But most importantly, there’s a HUGE difference between downloading pirating music and forcibly seizing one’s property. When you download a band’s discography off the internet, you’re making them lose potential revenue (which is why i’m against abolishing copyright entirely) but you’re not actually stealing any tangible object. On the contrary, forcibly evicting someone from their house isn’t just white collar theft but you’re also forcing a senior citizen to live on the streets instead of letting them retire like they should, meaning that they might starve to death if they don’t enough saved for a new house and their children don’t want to nurse them.

meanmistermustard said
There will be millions of artists and songwriters who will need the royalties from the copyright of their one or two hits to be able to live reasonably, not in luxury homes but just to make do.

That’s their fault for expecting to live work free for the rest of their lives off a one hit wonder instead of going back to work once they realized that their musical career is over. It might not seem like a nice thing to say but sometimes people need to take personal responsibility.

Ron Nasty said
It means that anyone can profit from it; that it can be used for purposes the artist is unhappy with (such as in advertising); and that royalties are no longer paid. It is the removal of the artist’s rights to control their works or receive financial benefit from its commercial use by others.

You make a good point about advertising but i think it would be better for the creator to encourage his fans to boycott the company that used his name and likeness in a way he disagrees with as opposed to making copyright eternal or otherwise unreasonably long. Not to mention, the record company also has a say in what gets released. For example, while The Beatles were fine with including Here Comes The Sun on the Voyager LP, EMI refused.

If they’re genuinely dependent on those royalties despite having a full time job, then i think the real problem is that the minimum wage is unlivable and needs to be raised, not that copyright should last as long as it does.