It’s nearly impossible to keep track of the recording industry’s efforts to extend copyright around the globe, using its usual “leapfrog” means of claiming that copyright lengths need to be “harmonized,” and thus ratcheted up and up and up on a rotating basis. Apparently, while everyone was focused on places like Europe and Japan, the industry has successfully been able to get Argentina to extend the length of copyright on performances from 50 years to 70 years. Amusingly, all those quoted in favor of it, make bizarre claims that retroactively extending copyrights on content already created 50 years ago will somehow promote the creation of new music.
And, of course, as this news comes out, it’s worth pointing out that a commenter last week reminded us of economist Rufus Pollock’s paper from June of this year, which tried to calculate the optimal length of copyright and found that it is likely in the 10 to 15 year range. So why are governments moving progressively further away from that rate based on nothing other than demands from the record labels who know that lengthier copyrights are nothing more than a monopoly rent for them? What’s truly amazing is that pretty much the entire history of the copyright debate has been based on claims without any evidence that “more” must be “better.” But these days, we have plenty of evidence that shows that’s not true. So why do politicians keep extending copyright?
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