Copyright extension in the UK

[Bob the Builder]

It's not just British copyright law, it's how copyright in general applies to old Jazz recordings. I'm sure I've seen this discussed here before.

Haydn, Copyright is country specific. There are no general world laws (well not yet anyway). Many countries laws are very similar, but not the same.
There is no easy answer in regard to Copyright law. To understand it, you just have to study it. And even at that, its really confusing and in some cases a breach of copyright ends up on how a judge reads the law.
One of the big problems with copyright law is there are more myths than facts out there. You should only believe what you read in official government publications. That is why I gave your the site link.

Brian

[Haydn]

Sorry Brian, I'm convinced someone knows the answers so I'm not going to read the info on the site you mentioned just now. I don't want to fully understand copyright law, only how it affects this music.

Looking through the archives, I found this New York Times article which is relevant -
http://www.swingdjs.com/phpbb2/viewtopi ... =copyright

This more or less explains how European companies like the Proper (UK), Classics (France) and The International Music Company (Germany) can produce their CDs.

I've also discovered that when you play a 30-second sample on allmusic, it shows the copyright holder. If it's on the Columbia label, it shows Sony - who I believe are the inheritors of the original copyright. If it's on a European label, it normally shows the name of the European company.

One point I don't understand. The New York Times article states:

"(These copyrights apply to only the recordings, not the music recorded.)"

How does this affect things?

[Haydn]

I wondered how this story relates to 1930s American Jazz Recordings?
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6216152.stm)

I got the impression that a lot of Jazz reissue companies use recordings that are free of copyright (and that's one reason they can sell them cheap). But according to this story, there are two types of copyright - performers and writers. In the UK at the moment, performers copywright is 50 years, and writers lifetime plus 70 years.

So, take a jazz record written and recorded in 1935, where the writer died in, say 1970. The performers' copyright expired in 1985, but the writer's copyright doesn't expire until 2040. Apparently that's the current law in the UK.

But the jazz I'm talking about was from the USA. Is writer's copywright law similar in the USA? If so, how do Jazz reissue companies like Proper get round it (Proper is a British company)? Or doesn't writer's copyright apply? Anyone know the answers?

I briefly discussed this with a friend last night. He said writer's copyright applies to new recordings of compositions, not existing recordings. So, if I want to record myself playing a song written in the 1930s, I have to get permission from the copyright owner, as the writer's copywright is still in force. But I can freely record and sell 1930s recordings, as these are out of copyright.

In the USA, apparently copyright protection was extended from 50 years to 95 years in 1998. In the UK, there is a campaign running to do likewise, but it seems unlikely to succeed, as a government report and the European Union are both in favour of a 50 year limit ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6216152.stm