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France seeks extension to musicians' copyright
• Britain will strike sour note in new EU move
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By
The Minx , Entertainment editor
Saturday,
2 February, 2008
Despite a long and bitter campaign by the UK's leading musicians in the UK, to get music copyright extended to 95 years, in common with the US, the UK government remains adamantly opposed.
Now help is at hand from France. The French Prime Minister Nicholas Sarkozy is a big pop fan and a life long fan of veteran French pop star Johnny Halliday, France's answer to Cliff Richard, who led the UK campaign. M. Sarkozy also recently married the model turned pop singer Carla Bruni.
Now Mr Sarkozy has declared it his intention to make extending the copyright a priority when France takes over the EU Presidency in July 2008.
Christine Albanel, the French Culture Minister has already asked the EU to do the necessary groundwork.
"Today whole swaths of the recording catalgoue of the 1950s and 60s are falling progressively into the public domain. This creates an obvious problem of fairness. Artists who began their careers very young are being stripped of all remunation from their first recordings".
France is considering whether to protect reocrds for 70 years of the life of the artist. Jean de Saint-guilhem musical director at the ministry, told the Times in London that support for extension was rising in the EU. The two leading opponents are Britain and Germany.
Officials at the Elysee Palace said the key would be overcoming British and German reluctance then the other EU states would follow suit.
The British government has always opposed any extension. It based its opposition on a report commissioned from former journalist Andrew Gowers who said extending the copyright period could harm the trade balance. The government further countered it was not possible to implement due to EU rules. A supporter of the extension was Eric Nichol, shortly before he left EMI in 2007.
(See Charles Bremner's Paris blog timesonline.co.uk/bremner)
The Naked Reader 2008
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