The European Parliament, under a lot of pressure from entertainment industry lobbyists, specifically the music industry, is currently considering extending the copyright term in Europe to 95 years. The idea is basically to keep a lot of music recorded in the 60s from entering the public domain, and therefore enable catalog owners to keep making money longer.

Many experts and activists believe that wouldn’t really favor anyone apart from the largest rights holders (i.e. the majors) and a handful of big artists. As you might guess, we at jamendo agree.

Here’s a little video made by the UK-based organization Open Rights Group, explaining very clearly what it’s really all about.

The European Parliament might be voting on this proposal in March. We encourage you to get in contact with your Member of parliament, either in Brussels or in their constituancy, if you wish to express an opinion about this matter.

You can also support the Sound Copyright campaign and sign their petition.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 11th, 2009 at 2:54 pm and is filed under English. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.