The copyright term for sound recordings is about to be increased in Europe from fifty to seventy years after release. This follows lobbying from the UK and European record industry, with valuable mid-sixties catalogues including some Beatles and Rolling Stones recordings approaching the end of their fifty-year term.
It appears highly likely that the proposals will be rubber-stamped by the European Council of Ministers next week. This will mean that the Beatles’ ‘Love Me Do’, which comes out of copyright under the current system, would just about fall inside the 1 January 2013 deadline…
For any further information please contact Philip Herbert, 0207 355 6119.