So, all you out there in record company land, presumably you are bracing yourself for our fine government's response to the much previously reported 'extend the term' campaign, which is due to come in the form of a government report later this week. As previously reported, the 'extend the term' campaign seeks to have the term for recorded music copyrights extended from the current 50 years, to bring it more in line with the US term of 95 years, or published music copyright of life plus 70 years. With many major recordings of the early rock n roll era due to come out of copyright imminently the need for a copyright extension, from the major record companies' point of view, has become increasingly pressing.
As also previously reported, the government's rethinking of intellectual property laws began with the Gowers Review, the research paper commissioned by that Gordon Brown chap. That paper was, to say the least, somewhat unpopular with record industry chiefs after it concluded that there was no case for extending the recorded copyright term. Those chiefs, therefore, are hoping government ministers have been more influenced by a separate and more recent Parliamentary select committee report on copyright, which rejected the Gowers conclusion and proposed an extension to at least seventy years.
With the 60-day deadline for official responses to that select committee report passing today, the government is expected to issue its own report on copyright before Parliament breaks for the summer on Thursday. A spokesman for the Department For Culture Media And Sport has declined to comment on what will be in it, but Billboard is pessimistic about the chances of a term extension, citing sources that say ministers plan to adopt an approach more akin to that proposed by Gowers.
Whether that turns out to be true time will tell. Though even if the government do opt to extend the term it's still not clear how long it would take for the term to actually increase, given that copyright terms are caught up in all kinds of EU agreements that would have to be navigated first.