The European Parliament has today extended the term of protection for music copyrights from 50 years to 95 years. Also contained in the legislation is a provision preventing past contractual agreements from deducting new royalties resulting from the extension. In addition, there is a provision providing for a session-musician fund to be created to which producers must pay 20% of new royalties. The Parliament Press Release considers a meeting by January 2010 to discuss an extension for audiovisual works, and the extension for music copyrights will be revisited in three years to assess its benefit going forward.
I can’t say that the extension makes me smile. I’ve written on the problems with extending copyright terms to perpetual copyright protection; its adverse impact on the public domain, and the friction it causes in the creation process. There is an optimal point of protection, and I believe that the U.S. system entered the point of diminishing returns with its latest copyright extension in 1998. Nevertheless, protection to a certain extent is good, and this is a good day for recording artists and musicians.
Ian McClure is a former corporate & securities and intellectual property law attorney with 
Trevor M. Blum is a former Associate in the Chicago-based, valuation practice group of Ocean Tomo, LLC., an intellectual property (IP) consultancy. Additionally, he provided instrumental research support to Intellectual Property Exchange International, Inc., an IP exchange start-up. Trevor holds a B.S. from Indiana University and is currently an MBA candidate at the University of Cambridge, focusing on international business and finance. His interests also include entrepreneurship, economics, and informational visualization. He enjoys running and cycling in his free time. Trevor seeks to bring a transnational business perspective to the blog. 
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