Mr. McCreevy made two important statements on copyrights during his intervention in a press conference:

• The re-launching of a consultation process on copyright levies. The consultation period will be open until April 18th and should be followed by a public meeting in June to see if common ground can be found among all stakeholders.
• The proposal to extend the term of protection for related rights for performers from 50 to 95 years; he considers this a moral duty based on the idea that once copyright protection has ended the performers no longer receive any income for their work. 

Mr. McCreevy is mainly concerned about the royalties as “pensions”, and the proposal would be addressing the interests of the “thousands of anonymous and unrecognised session musicians and featured artists” rather than music stars. 

The proposal will also take into account the record industry. The Commissioner calls it “use it or lose it” provision: in case a record company does not will to re-release a performance during the extended term, the performer will be able to move to another label.

Two other important elements of this proposal are, on one side, that this measure should not have negative impact on consumer prices, and, on the other side, that concerning trade implications most of the additional revenue collected in an extended term would stay in Europe and benefit European performers.

Next steps:
EC proposal for the extension of term of protection for related rights: summer 2008.

To read Mr. McCreevy speech, please click here
To access the Directive 2006/116/EC of December 12th, 2006, repealing the Directive 93/98/EEC of October 29th, 1993, harmonising the term of protection of copyright and certain related rights, please click here