According to an article on News.com the RIAA is facing new headaches because of a difference between American and European copyright laws.
European and Canadian copyright protections for sound recordings last 50 years, compared with 95 years in the United States. This would mean that older songs fall into the public domain in Europe and people are free to offer them on services such as Kazaa or Gnutella.
The expiration of copyrights overseas is just one piece of an antipiracy puzzle growing increasingly complex as the use of modern computer technology and high-speed networks increases around the world. Record labels and movie studios have fought periodic battles to shut down foreign Web sites that offer copyrighted material and to sue file-swapping companies such as Kazaa's Sharman Networks that are based overseas. |
Although most of those efforts have been successful, they have had little effect on the actual quantity of content changing hands over the Internet. Kazaa, for example, remains one of the most popular software programs used anywhere in the world.
So it seems that we Europeans are free to trade music by artists like Miles Davis and Elvis Presley The RIAA is already pressing policy-makers in Europe and elsewhere to bring their copyright laws in line with those of the United States but have met with little success so far. Read the complete article here.
Source: News.com
