Copyright Term For Producers And Performers

EDM number 1392 in 2006-07, proposed by Michael Connarty on 01/05/2007.

That this House notes that 50 years ago Lonnie Donegan's Cumberland Gap was No. 1 in the charts for five weeks; is concerned that due to the present law governing payments for use of audio recordings this track will go out of copyright at the end of 2007 and that the family of Lonnie Donegan, who would have been 76 on 29th April, and the other performers, Denny Wright, John Nicholls and Mickey Ashman, and their company Pye Records, which produced this unique recording, will no longer receive any royalties, nor have any say in how this recording is used; is further concerned that thousands of musicians and their record companies will lose out over the next few years because of the shorter copyright term for sound recordings relative to that granted to almost all other creators, including the songwriters and the sleeve artists who enjoy copyright for the whole of their life plus a further 70 years; notes with concern that, according to a Musicians Union survey, 90 per cent. of musicians earn less than £15,000 a year, and thus acknowledges that the extension of copyright will come as a much needed financial boost to many low paid musicians; and asks the Government to make representations to the European Commission to look at this inequity.

This motion has been signed by a total of 92 MPs, 3 of these signatures have been withdrawn.