Sir Cliff Richard and The Beatles will stop earning royalties on their early hits in the next few years after an independent review decided not to extend artists’copyrights beyond the current 50-year limit.
The Government is expected to freeze copyrights at the current level after Sir Cliff and other well-known British singers failed to convince Andrew Gowers, the former Financial Times editor asked by the Treasury to conduct the review, that they should be extended to 95 years as in the US.
The decision will mean that Sir Cliff’s first big hit Move It, recorded in 1958, will be out of copyright in less than two years allowing record companies to sell copies of the song without having to pay him royalties. Some of The Beatles’ earliest hits including A Hard Days Night and Can’t Buy Me Love will be out of copyright in 2014.
Sir Cliff, who is estimated to have a £40 million fortune, has fronted a three-year campaign to bring UK copyright rules in line with the US, claiming that protected royalty payments amount to a “pension” for musicians and that “Every three months from the beginning of 2008, I will lose a song.”
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His campaign, which won the backing of singers including Bono, Jethro Tull and jazzman Kenny Ball, also attracted support from music industry bodies and record companies including EMI, which gave Sir Cliff his first record deal in 1958.
Eric Nicoli. EMI’s chairman, made a last-ditch plea in favour of extending the copyright term at a private seminar at 11 Downing Street last week. He told an audience including Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, that keeping the 50-year terms “would put the UK at a disadvantage and jeopardise future investment.”
However, EMI’s arguments were weakened by lukewarm support elsewhere in the sector. Universal, the market leader, is thought to have impressed Mr Gowers by emphasising the importance of introducing new acts over safeguarding royalties from older ones.
Even if the artists and record groups had convinced Mr Gowers to recommend extending the copyright period the Government would have faced legal challenges for breaking with European Union Law that binds all member states to the 50-year period.
Andrew Hobson, head of intellectual property at lawyers Reynolds Porter Chamberlain, said: “I think the decision was pretty much a foregone conclusion. Britain could never have unilaterally extended the period of a performer’s protection and complied with its EU obligations. As such, whatever recommendations Mr Gowers comes up with can only be tinkering around the edges.”
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Mr Hobson added that while he was sympathetic towards musicians who would face a cut in their income the situation was not as bad as some artists had claimed.
“An artist has 50 years from his performance to plan the use of his royalties to provide a living past the cut off point. This is no different from someone living off a salary having to plan for retirement when that salary is no longer coming in.”