What is ‘collapsed copyright’?

Collapsed copyright is essentially a new business model for the music

industry
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In which all an artists saleable assets are under the control of one entity. Be
that either a record label, music publisher or the artist themselves.

Saleable Assets?
An artist has three main saleable assets.
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Publishing in the form of publishing rights
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Recordings in the form of mechanical right
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Likeness this is in the form of Photos, logos, album covers and other
merchandise

Who currently owns what?

Not surprisingly publishing rights are usually owned by the music publishers.
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And the recordings are owned by the record labels
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The ownership of an artist’s likeness is slightly harder to pin down but in the
case of merchandise it is most likely to be controlled by either the publishers
or labels.

This is not always the case and an artist can choose to sell all their rights to
one person like in a 360 deal.

What about the current law?

In the UK under the current copyright law, the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988, there are two separate copyrights which apply to music. These are
listed as
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Musical and
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Sound recording
These are better known to us in the forms of
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The song on which copyright lasts the life of the composer +70 years
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And the sound recording on which copyright lasts 50 years from creation or
release of the recording

Likeness in the case of a logo or photo is considered an artistic work and

therefore covered by the same copyright law as the song. Life +70
Changing the law
In a press release the EESC (European Economic and Social Committee)
stated they are currently discussing copyright law in the EU
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with a special emphasis on music.

Their current revised preliminary draft opinion on copyright went up for

discussion at a meeting on 17th of May.

In this draft the EESC stated

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“Copyright and its protection is a subject that must be addressed by civil
society, partly because these tangible products are now bought and sold, and
distributed in the form of digital files”

The EESC are trying to change copyright legislation to be simpler and

although the term “collapsed copyright” is not used this appears to be the
direction they are trying to take the law in stating
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“The EESC recommends that a single legislative framework be established for
granting licences, framing agreements on the use of authors' rights and
arbitration in the event of disputes. This could help both copyright material
users and copyright-holders entitled to remuneration to resolve disputes
concerning the use of a work. It requires the establishment of a single
arbitration body for resolving disputes between copyright-holders and users of
copyrighted material.”
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In the UK it would appear that the collecting societies are already ahead of
this as a merger has already occurred between PRS (performing rights) and
MCPS (mechanical rights).

CONCLUSION
When all copyrights are put together into one
On paper seems like a good idea and seems to have worked in the examples
found.
Could put too much power in hands of collecting societies and record labels
who are under no real legal control
WEBLIOGRAPHY

http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p01_uk_copyright_law

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?
q=cache:k17Se6Mt69cJ:https://toad.eesc.europa.eu/ViewDoc.aspx%3Fdoc
%3D%255C%255Cisis%255Cdfs%255Cesp_public%255Cces%255Cint
%255Cint418%255CEN
%255CR_CES302010_REV_APA_EN.doc+EESC+draft+Opinion+on+Copyri
ght&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf

http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/ukcs/docs/edupack.pdf

http://www.artistshousemusic.org/videos/terry+mcbride+of+nettwerk+on+colla
psing+copyright+and+the+music+industry+s+new+paradigm