So the Harper Government Wants to Extend Copyright. What Does That Mean for Music?
Amber Healy reports from sister website, Geeks&Beats:
Tucked inside Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s 433-page 2015 spending plan is a little gift to Canadian musicians: an amendment to the Copyright Act that would extend protections for 70 years.
In a section titled Protection of Sound Recordings and Performances, the Harper government notes that some of the country’s iconic artists of the 1960s are approaching the end of their original copyright protection, Billboard reports.
“Economic Action Plan 2015 proposes to amend the Copyright Act to extend the term of protection of sound recordings and performances from 50 to 70 years following the first release of the sound recording,” the plan says. “This will ensure that performers and record labels are fairly compensated for the use of their music for an additional 20 years.”
Music Canada has loudly welcomed this development, with Graham Henderson, the organization’s president, praising the government for demonstrating “a real understanding of music’s importance to the Canadian economy. Thank you. We look forward to seeing the full details when the Budget Implementation Act is tabled.”
It is not “in the public interest” for “Canadian treasures like Universal Soldier by Buffy Sainte-Marie” to be lost to the public domain, Henderson adds.
The issue at hand is the disparity between the current protections and those in place in other countries.
