The European Parliament is being asked to nearly double the term of copyright afforded to sound recordings. Industry lobbyists suggest that extending copyright term will help increase the welfare of performers and session musicians. But the Term Extension Directive, which will be voted on by the Legal Affairs Committee in a few weeks’ time, will do no such thing. Instead it will hand millions of euros over to the world’s four major record labels, money that will come direct from the pockets of European consumers. The majority (80%) of recording artists will receive between €0.50 - €26 a year.

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An interesting alternative model for open access publishing for the High Energy Physics journals has emerged in the past years in a project led by CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) that attempts to make the current research openly accessible in this field.

CERN was the leader since the 50s, when the first pre-print repository was established at the headquarters of the European organisation.

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At the end of December 2008 it was publicly presented the first yearly report of the French Authority for Regulations of the DRMs (Autorité de régulation des mesures techniques - ARMT) that should have ensured the interoperability of the DRM systems and allow the private copies.

This could be very well the last report, since the new law on Internet and Creation, could create a new authority (HADOPI - Haute Autorité pour la diffusion des oeuvres et la protection des droits sur Internet) that will take the place of the old one and will have a different scope: to issue warnings and potentially cutting Internet subscriptions in cases of copyright infringement.

ARMT rep

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At UK Music's Creators' Conference on 1 December 2008, Culture Minister Andy Burnham announced the backing of the UK Government to extending the copyright term for sound recordings to 70 years.

The decision goes against the recommendations of Andrew Gowers, whose 2006 review of copyright is in favour of keeping copyright at 50 years. It is however more in line with the proposals made in February 2008 by EC Internal Markets commissioner Charlie McCreevy to increase the term of protection to 95 years.

Presently, the revenues from a sound recording goes to the musicians who performed on the recording and to the owners of the recording.

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The agenda of the 17th Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights, that took place between 3-7 November 2008 at the WIPO headquarters in Geneva, included the following topics: the limitations and exceptions, the protection of audiovisual performances and the protection of broadcasting organizations. In particular, the rights of visually impaired persons were in focus.

This article shortly presents the events of the last day, during which the conclusions of the meeting were agreed among the Member States, based on proposals prepared by the chairman Mr. Jukka Liedes.

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At the beginning of November 2008, a French court ruled that the US companies that created p2p software can be sued in France according to French laws.

The ruling refers to a case brought to court by the French music producers association - SPPF (Societe de producteurs de phonogrammes francaises) in June 2007, against open source software hub SourceForge with its hosted project Shareaza and two other p2p software Vuze and Morpheus, to which Limewire was added at the end of 2007.

On the basis of evidence provided by the French company Advestigo, the SPPF accused the four plaintiffs of copyright infringement, for files having being exchanged illegally via the Internet b

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Barroso, President of the European Commission has refused French President Sarkozy's request to withdraw Amendment 138 included in the Telecoms Package recently voted by the European Parliament.

Amendment 138 which basically reinstates the legal issue of the freedom to communicate of Internet users, reaffirming that only threats to public security can justify the restriction to the free circulation of information on the Internet without a court decision, was voted with a large majority by the MEPs, fact which largely displeased EU French presidency who has continuously pushed and pressed for the application of the three strike approach introduced by its "Création et Int

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A roundtable on online retailing with the interested private companies, including online music providers, and consumers organisations took place at the European Commission in Brussels on 17 September 2008 with competition commissioner Neelie Kroes and internal market commissioner Charlie McCreevy.

Ms Kroes expressed her concern regarding the barriers in buying music online: "Why is it possible to buy a CD from an online retailer and have it shipped to anywhere in Europe, but it is not possible to buy the same music, by the same artist, as an electronic download with similar ease?