A gaggle of aging rockers have teamed up to demand an extension of copyright terms on recorded music, according to reports in the Independent and the Daily Telegraph today. The backers of the proposal, which seeks to match the American copyright statute of 95 years, include current and former luminaries like Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, Cliff Richard (no word on whether the Young Ones support the initiative), clarinetist Acker Bilk, and Bono. No, not Sonny Bono—his damage has been done here in the US—it's that guy from U2.

The artists are worried about losing their royalty checks from recordings made 50 years ago, which some of them claim to be a substantial part of their current income. Journeymen like backing guitarist Joe Brown, for example, seem to be feeling the heat. "It's just not right," says Brown. "It is thieving. They give me a heating allowance but they are going to take my royalties away. It is a matter of right and wrong. Why is this limit there in the first place?" And some of the more successful artists seem to feel solidarity with the plight of the lesser names.

"Of course, for Pink Floyd, Elton John, Rod Stewart - and I'm not short of a few bob - this may not be a problem," says Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson. "But the unsung heroes of the 1950s depend on royalties to pay heating and nursing home bills."

Well, silly me. I thought copyright rules were in place to encourage creation of new works in the first place, and the term is limited to ensure a rich public domain that can serve as a platform for the imagination of the next generation. These were the laws when Brown and his fellow early rockers recorded their first albums in the 50s; nobody has shortened the term on them. They just got old.

As it is, British composers enjoy lifetime plus 70 years of copyright protection on the material they compose, letting John Lennon's great-grandchildren collect royalties for "Imagine" until the year 2050. And the songwriter collects some money every time his song is played on the radio or sold on a CD, wax roll, or iTMS, regardless of who performed the tune on that recording. The copyright rule under fire here only covers sales of a particular performance; radio play is worthless to Joe Brown unless it drives record sales.

But it's not all about the money this time. It's about creative control as well. Once the copyright on a recording expires, others can use it in whatever way they see fit. That may or may not be a good thing. For instance, look at "Ring of Fire," one of the greatest hits in the Johnny Cash catalogue. If his works had passed into the public domain at his death, that song would have been used to sell hemorrhoid cream the year after his passing. I can see how his surviving family might have been offended by that idea.

Record companies seem to be quietly cheering the rockers on from the sidelines. The works of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Monkees will start to phase out of copyright soon unless something is done. We've seen this phenomenon before, as copyright terms seem to retreat whenever Mickey Mouse approaches the end of protection, and it would be a surprise to see the rights of consumers and the next wave of creative talent win out this time.

There is just too much money in the entertainment business to risk fresh material replacing the tried and true classics. "Government figures show creative industries provide 8 per cent of the 'gross value added' to the UK economy," says the Independent article, and the BPI—the British equivalent of the RIAA—worries that "just 50 years" of protection hampers British pop culture when American singers and accordion players enjoy nearly twice that protection. And profits from the back catalog provide the funds for promoting the next New Kids On the Block Darin uh... star talent.

The British will never walk alone, however. As part of the EU, they live under European laws and must persuade the good folks in Brussels to go along with this scheme. So thanks to a bunch of survivors from the British Invasion, all of Europe might soon be blanketed by the same excessive copyright laws as the United States. Wonder how Disney would have fared if Snow White or Cinderella had remained ©Jacob Ludwig Grimm and Philipp Wilhelm Grimm?