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British Films and Chat For movie polls, thoughts, and discussion.on British films and stars.


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Old 26-11-2006, 11:12 PM
  post #61
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That'd be good
Although as the performer he never had any influence to prevent that anyway.

Steve
He does. I recall Nescafe using Muse's cover of "Feeling Good" and the band threatened legal proceedings. Nescafe withdrew it and used the Nina Simone original instead.

I think you can make a moral objection to the uncleared use of your vocals/appearance.

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Old 26-11-2006, 11:54 PM
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He does. I recall Nescafe using Muse's cover of "Feeling Good" and the band threatened legal proceedings. Nescafe withdrew it and used the Nina Simone original instead.

I think you can make a moral objection to the uncleared use of your vocals/appearance.
Or just threaten people with lawyers even if there isn't a case to answer. It still scares a lot of people off because it's an unnecessary expense.

AIUI the copyright holder is the only one that has any real say how it's used. Once you've signed the recording contract you pass over all rights. You might earn money from any usage of your work but you don't have any say in who can use it or how it's used.

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Old 26-11-2006, 11:57 PM
  post #63
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Yes, moral rights are kept no matter who owns the copyright.

Steve, I think you are underestimating the power of Cliff.
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Old 26-11-2006, 11:58 PM
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Yes, moral rights are kept no matter who owns the copyright.

Steve, I think you are underestimating the power of Cliff.
He's got God (& lots of lawyers) on his side - even if he doesn't have a case in law

Steve
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Old 27-11-2006, 09:36 PM
  post #65
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Today's Sunday newspapers report the excellent news that the Treasury Committee looking into the copyright period applied to commercially released sound recordings recommend that it should remain at 50 years. Some performers such as Sir Cliff Richard had been lobbying hard for an increase in the copyright period to 95 years which would have done for music tracks what the 1996 Act did to film - consign the vast majority of the music to the archives never to be heard again for fear of contravening "copyright". Fortunately the Government has at least seen sense on this issue, realising that only a tiny fraction of music released over 50 years ago retains any great commercial value, and thus they saw no reason for extending the copyright period. If only they could now look again at Film copyright in the UK - remember that before 1st January 1996 the 1988 Copyright Act treated Film and Sound recordings in the same way - ie gave them protection for 50 years after their date of release to the public. The law was only changed in respect of films in the 1996 Act to bring us in line with other EC countries to give us the ridiculous current laws that keep the majority of films made before 1956 unseen and rotting in the vaults.

present Mike (MrT)

Maybe we could start lobbying our MPs asking the government to look again at this absurd piece of legislation? The fact that so many hundreds and hundreds of films lie forgotten suggests that the current copyright holders (if they exist) have no interest in making any money from their holdings, so what sense is there to keep them locked away?
Sorry but I don't see it this way,a large percentage of this music is still commercially available and to many artists it is their pension plan.The present copyright law regarding sound recording was drafted in a time where the present longevity of recordings was not imaginable,Britain is out of step here.

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Old 27-11-2006, 09:58 PM
  post #66
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I do not see why they cannot just leave it as it is but allow you to buy extension to your copyright. This would encourage them to either release it properly and recoup their cost or release it into public domain.
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Old 27-11-2006, 10:40 PM
  post #67
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Sorry but I must correct Terry - even with the current copyright laws less that 5% of recordings originally produced on 78's are currently available commercially - if the period of copyright is increased this 5% figure will dwindle to almost zero and the small amount of our musical heritage made available by specialist companies will disappear overnight. As with film, extension of copyright will just keep everything in the vaults, and out musical heritage will disappear as fast as our film heritage has done. Woolfgang makes a good point - current copyright holders could maybe extend their copyright if thay wanted to, but the application of a blanket 95 year term for all recordings will be as detrimental as the 1996 Act was to film.

Mike (MrT)
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Old 27-11-2006, 10:52 PM
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I do not see why they cannot just leave it as it is but allow you to buy extension to your copyright. This would encourage them to either release it properly and recoup their cost or release it into public domain.
Suppose it's that industry prefers harmonisation, certainly with Europe. Otherwise you'll have a loophole where the music will be copyrighted in the UK but available for free download from European based servers.

To be honest 'Cliff' doesn't really pack much punch in swaying the government but I can see the issue arising once again when all those big 60s names (Beatles, Stones, Who) fall out of copyright. Especially The Stones, who are very savvy and many of their early releases weren't penned by Jagger/Richards.

This should be great news for those in the US as they'll be able to download tons of music that wouldn't normally be free as I think copyright extends to 95 years Stateside.
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Old 30-11-2006, 04:07 PM
  post #69
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Wolfgang suggests a good principle, some sort of application being made the by the copyright owner to enable those who wish to earn from copyright material owned yet allow access to other untouched works.

I would have thought technology should have allowed for the production of a database that could yield ownership information.

Having a film title enter the public domain presents other problems. a company which lavishes expenditure on the restoration of a public domain title might see their efforts taken advantage of by another public domain company. Accessing and restoring original material becomes economically unviable. Perhaps after a certain age, some kind of standard tempory purchase of rights could be made, which can only be refused by the owner of the material if they register their interest.

Perhaps a registry of interests should be set up to allow people to approach rightsholders with the view of licensing their work.
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Old 30-11-2006, 04:51 PM
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Perhaps a registry of interests should be set up to allow people to approach rightsholders with the view of licensing their work.
It'd be good if such a database was set up. Although it'd be difficult to get all the copyright holders to use it - and almost impossible to find the data for all existing films unless you could do expensive legal searches for each film.

The trouble is that as companies or individuals that hold copyright or licensing rights (not always the same thing held by the same people) have died, gone out of business, merged they have often transferred copyright to blocks of titles. When this is done quite a few times and the titles in each block have varied, it gets very difficult to find out who is the current rights holder.

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Old 02-12-2006, 11:06 AM
  post #71
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This campaign by Cliff Richard has been running for some time - and has puzzled me for just as long. He's not the copyright holder to most of his songs. The copyright is held by the composer & lyricist. Cliff was just the performer.

Maybe he has an agreement with the copyright holder that only ran for 50 years whereby he gets some fee every time one of his early songs is played. But that's between him and the copyright holder(s). Or maybe he's lobbying on behalf of the composers & lyricists, but it's usually reported as his trying to protect his own copyright. He has copyright over recordings of any live performances, but not of any recordings. Steve
But as far as the composers and lyricists are concerned, the situation is unaltered. Anybody releasing tracks now out of copyright still has to obtain an MCPS licence and pay the levy on each CD produced/sold. This money is usually shared between the publisher and composer/lyricist. This is actually good news for the latter because in some cases they have a chance of getting some return from compositions which otherwise might never have seen the light of day on CD.

The real losers are the record companies or the owners of the tracks (not always the same but mostly) who will no longer get anything unless, of course, they re-issue the CD themselves - as they still could.

Record companies are notorious for delaying or preventing the issue or even licensing out of material they own - this ruling might well provoke a change of policy.

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Old 22-01-2007, 11:04 AM
  post #72
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Default British Films in the Public Domain
Does anyone know of a list of British films that are in the public domain or know where i can get this info from.I would be really grateful
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Old 22-01-2007, 11:31 AM
  post #73
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No features are public domain in the UK and wont be for probably 30 years.
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Old 22-01-2007, 06:48 PM
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How does that work? I know there are lots of public domain films in the US some of which seem to be available to buy cheap over here, due to the fact that there are no royalties to pay. Is this because US law applies? Isn't that the same as them being public domain over here?
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Old 22-01-2007, 07:01 PM
  post #75
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How does that work? I know there are lots of public domain films in the US some of which seem to be available to buy cheap over here, due to the fact that there are no royalties to pay. Is this because US law applies? Isn't that the same as them being public domain over here?
Different rules in different countries.

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