40,000 Musicians tell Brown to increase copyright term

It is inappropriate to equate performers to 'creators' such as painters, authors etc.. It is like equating Charles Dickens to , for example, Anton Lesser who reads Dickens on audiobook. These are completely different creative processes. Given the public's perception of the record industry, this continuous bleating about fairness goes down extremly badly - particularly given the state of today's economy. If artists were ripped off by record companies when they did their deals then that is regrettable, but I don't see that that is a reason for a change in legislation now to provide them with their 'pension'.

Personally I think that the extension should not be approved. Musicians make enough money.

Why is 45 more years good for creators? Logic says it will not help authors of performers, but the industry. It really looks like this "show" is just something ordered by the lobbies, which are the ones that will really profit from this extremist extension. And creativity and culture will be lost.

As an industry, we are shooting ourselves in the foot over this extension demand. We may able to persuade the politicians to extend the copyright, but we will be unable to persuade the consumers that it is morally right. We have been harassing our customers over illegal downloads, and then we spend millions of pound to get law changed. The man in the street will think we are complete and utter hypocrites. They will turn their backs on the industry, buying more dvds and computer games. We are facing a large problem with stopping illegal downloads of the recordings from the last 50 years. If this is extended to 95 years we will need to spend more money to stop them, while most of the recordings are not economically worth protecting. Think of the damaged it will cause if an 80 years old granny is taken to court for downloading a 60 years old recording, which has been out of the catalogue for more than 50 years. The performers, especially those on the PPL video message are acting like lemmings. Most are deluding themselves to thank that royalty payment make much difference in old age. Most musicians which I know in their 30s and 40s, only receive a few thousand pounds in royalties a year and much less if they have not had a recent hit. In the PPL video message, are these best people to represent the case for the extension? They come across very aggressive and at about three minutes and 24 seconds into the video, one stated that he did not realise until recently that he had 20 years left on his copyrights. It just proves to the public that all musicians have a rock and roll lifestyle and not think about their old age. The letter sent by the PPL to the Prime Minister had only 99 signatures, out of a membership of 40,000 performers. When the younger newer performers realise that their share of the PPL revenue will be reduce because it is being split with descendants of dead performers, they will also not be very happy. If the mainstream media researched this correctly, they will realise that lots of musicians such as the drummer from Blur are against this extension and this will cause even more damage to the industry. Terra Firma has realised that EMI Music makes its money on the back catalogue, but makes large loss (according to their accounting methods) on new music. If the copyright is extended to 70 or 95 years, their accountants will tell them to stop recording new music, because it is not worth the risk.