After the European Union had harmonized the copyright term of its Member States' copyright laws to 70 years post mortem auctoris, the United States enacted the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act in 1998. By this act, the general copyright term in the U.S. of 50 years p.m.a. was extended to 70 years p.m.a. as well. One of the main reasons for this extension was the argument that the U.S. had to catch up with the EU in order to ensure the competitiveness of the U.S. content industry worldwide.
For several kinds of sound recordings, the U.S. now even provides a copyright term of 95 years from the year of first publication (for more information, see Dennis Karjala's chart here.) By contrast, the EU Copyright Term Directive only provides a protection of 50 years from the date the recording is made. It is no surprise that content owners have recently been pushing the EU to extend its protection for neighbouring rights such as sound recordings to 95 or at least 70 years as well. One of the main arguments for this extension is that the EU now has to catch up with the U.S. in order to ensure the competitiveness of the European music and recording industry worldwide (sounds somewhat familiar...).
A recent document by the European Commission indicates that the Commission does not intend to participate in this never-ending race towards longer copyright terms any more. In a staff working document which dates from July 19, 2004 and reviews the European acquis communitaire in the field of copyright law, the staff of the copyright unit of the Commission writes:
"It is feared that an extended term of protection would only tend to diminish the choice of music on the market by enforcing the flow of revenues from few best-selling recordings, while at the same time not providing any real new incentives for creation of new recordings or motivating new investment. It has also been pointed out that practically all developed countries, with the exception of the USA, apply the term of protection of 50 years. As to the need to achieve parity between the EU and the USA, it has been argued that the same term of rotection would not result in equal economic benefits for the right holders in these two territories. On the contrary, due to a different approach to which uses of phonograms are remunerated, US right holders already benefit from a better protection of their recordings in Europe, and the extension of the term would only aggravate this divide.
[...] it seems that public opinion and political realities in the EU are such as not to support an extension in the term of protection. Some would even argue that the term should be reduced. At this stage, therefore, time does not appear to be ripe for a change, and developments in the market should be further monitored and studied."
At least in some cases, the voices of copyright critics seem to be heard.