James Purnell, the UK’s new minister for creative industries, is quoted in The Sunday Times as supporting an American-style lengthening of the copyright protection period (currently 50 years in the UK). Apparently, the Beatles’ hit ‘Love Me Do’ will lose copyright protection on January 1st 2013.

Purnell is quoted as saying that, with the extra revenues, ‘record companies can plough money back into unearthing new talent’. He further said ‘[b]ands like Coldplay will make enough money for their company to help them discover around 50 or 100 bands’.

Nothing like using a public interest rationale to justify a move clearly designed to protect private interests!

Of course, the flip-side to Purnell’s justification is that new artists will be required to secure licenses from (ie, pay money to) existing copyright holders to make innovative use of their still-copyrighted material in certain new projects. This tends to adversely affect the ‘new media’ such as video game companies, etc. Also at issue are so-called ‘orphaned works‘ — older, usually non-income-producing works covered by copyright where the authors / owners are difficult or impossible to locate - this results in cultural content being locked-up for no use whatsoever.

So, an extension creates winners, but it can also create losers. We’ll see if the DCMS acknowledges that fact as this matter proceeds.

The current law? According to the UK Patent Office:

Copyright in a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work (including a photograph) lasts until 70 years after the death of the author. The duration of copyright in a film is 70 years after the death of the last to survive of the principal director, the authors of the screenplay and dialogue, and the composer of any music specially created for the film. Sound recordings are generally protected for 50 years from the year of publication. Broadcasts are protected for 50 years and published editions are protected for 25 years.

Copyright extension in the U.S. (via the so-called Sony Bono Copyright Extension Act) was hotly-disputed and resulted in a Supreme Court decision, recounted by Lawrence Lessig in his book, Free Culture.