By CNET Networks, 8 January 2003 11:50
NEWS A loophole in copyright laws which differ between North America and Europe threatens to undermine the record industry's efforts to protect its back catalogue of music from yesteryear. European and Canadian copyright protections for sound recordings last just 50 years, while in the US the protection lasts for 95 years. This means European file-sharing services are now perfectly within their legal rights to exchange any music dating from before 1953, and the record labels are powerless to stop them. Already this means vast catalogues of popular music, such as jazz, blues and early rock and roll are already legally changing hands this side of the Atlantic. And it also means new headaches for the US-based record companies trying to shut down file-swapping services. As older material falls into the public domain in Europe and Canada, people there are free to offer them on services such as KaZaA or Gnutella. Although it's still illegal to download the songs inside the US, it's much harder for copyright holders to find people who are downloading, as opposed to uploading, specific files online. The files are allowed to be offered, but the onus falls on the copyright holder - the record labels - to scrutinise each individual who downloads a song, massively increasing the work need to stamp out illegal file-sharing. Neil Turkewitz, the Recording Industry Association of America's executive vice president for international affairs, said: "There are some implications for enforcement, creating an additional wrinkle. But it doesn't affect the legality of a US user accessing a foreign hard drive and downloading a file." John Borland writes for News.com
In order to post a comment you need to be registered and logged in.
Log in or create your silicon.com account below