Petitions from some 6200 individuals were presented to the Treasury on Friday ahead of the deadline for submissions for that previously reported government review on copyright.
The signatures were assigned to one of two submissions to the so called Gower Review Of Intellectual Property, one from royalties body PPL essentially representing performers, another from trade magazine Music Week essentially representing industry executives. Both submissions call for an extension in recorded music copyrights, which currently last for 50 years in European countries. According to Billboard, 4300 of those signatures came from artists, including U2 frontman Bono, the Shadows' Bruce Welch, Cliff Richard and Tom Jones.
As previously reported, the music industry is keen to increase the length of recorded music copyrights in Europe, which are generally shorter than those awarded to performers elsewhere in the world, and which are somewhat out of sync with the copyrights enjoyed by songwriters, which last for 70 years after a composer's death. The issue is becoming increasingly important as key recordings from the early history of rock 'n' roll start to reach their fiftieth anniversary, and industry execs hope that the UK government's review of copyright will be a starting point for persuading the European Commission to act on increasing recorded copyright lengths.
Confirming the high number of signatures on their petition, Fran Nevrkla, CEO of PPL, told reporters: "We have been absolutely astounded and very touched by the response we have had from performers on this".
Meanwhile Tom Jones said in a statement: "When you make music, you want to be able to leave it for your family. I don't understand why you don't own your music forever. When I first started out making music, I wasn't thinking about what was going to happen in 50 years time."