[78-L] E.U. just as corrupt as the U.S.

[Alan Bunting]

As it seems fairly certain that the EU copyright extension proposal will be passed by the Council Of Ministers on Monday I am hoping that they will have the courtesy to make available the full text of what they voted through. As I said before, there has been no mention of it affecting recordings already out of copyright in any of the offical documents I have been able to find on the WEB but this could change.
 
If it is retrospective, as we don't have WalMart over here (although they do own ASDA) and our supermarkets don't normally have greeters (thank goodness) I'll just have to manage on my pension.
 
Alan Bunting
 
And what Mr. Lennick is really asking today is whether we know any more about 
>the situation with sound recordings currently PD and whether they will suddenly 
>not be (and whether Mr. Lennick is going to have to prostrate himself and take 
>that job as a WalMart greeter).
>
>dl
>>>
>>> On 9/9/2011 2:55 PM, Cary Ginell wrote:
>>>>> The Public Domain is a black hole. Nothing that enters it can escape. Once something is P.D., traditionally it has been P.D. forever.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>    And remember how "It's a Blunderful Life" came back into copyright
>>>> through some side door?  dl
>>
>> In this instance it was only PRESUMED to be PD.  It never actually was.
>> The heirs of the writer of the original short story the film was based
>> on had retracted the licensing of the film rights when they renewed the
>> story's copyright for a second 28 years, and nobody noticed that the
>> loss of the underlying rights meant that the film could not be used
>> without the approval of the heirs of the story's writer.  This could
>> have happened even if Liberty Films' copyright had been renewed,
>> although that entity could have re-negotiated.  In this case since there
>> was no entity to renegotiate with, the heirs essentially cancelled
>> anybody's right to use the film without negotiating with them.  As I
>> understand it, the film still is PD, but since the story is not, the
>> film can only be used with the permission and licensing of the story
>> writer's heirs.  This is just like a P.D. sound recording which still
>> must be licensed by the song writer, just that although there is
>> compulsory licensing for songs there is none for short stories.
>>
>> Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com  .
>