Copyright rule extension proposed

The House of Commons Culture Committee has said that the 50 year copyright rule for sound recordings should be extended to at least 70 years, to bring it more in line with the copyright term enjoyed by songwriters and composers.

Over the next decade some 7,000 people - including backing singers and musicians - will lose royalties from recordings made in the late 1950s and 1960s, the MPs report said.

The report stated: 'We have not heard a convincing reason why a composer and his or her heirs should benefit from a term of copyright which extends for lifetime and beyond, but a performer should not.'

The committee also  found that on the issue of private copying – for example recording CDs onto a digital device such as an iPod - there was a strong case for a limited exception in law that allowed people to do this but did not permit them to benefit by further distributing copyright material which they did not own.

The committee is recommending the government press the European Commission to bring forward proposals for an extension.