They live like aristocrats. Now they think like them
The trouble started when they quit Carnaby Street for the mansion
lifestyle. Now Bono and co have lost the plot on copyright
Marina Hyde
Saturday December 9, 2006
The Guardian
There is a moment in the spoof rock documentary This is Spinal Tap
when a reporter poses a crushingly direct question to the eponymous
band's lead singer at the wrap party for their disastrous US tour.
"Is this, like, your last waltz?" he wonders. "Or are you going to
milk it for a few more years in Europe?"
This vignette was called to mind by the full-page advertisement
placed by 4,500 artists in Thursday's Financial Times that petitioned
the government to extend the copyright on sound recordings to 95
years from the current 50. Anyone who assumed that this was these
musicians' last waltz - or perhaps an elaborate ploy by Kiri Te
Kanawa to get her name in the papers again - should set their faces
to stunned. Now that the government has accepted the Gowers review
recommendation that changing the law will give little public benefit,
this ragtag army of multimillionaires and wronged creatives will be
milking this one all the way to the European courts, even if the
suggestion that in 95 years anyone will be dusting down a Katie Melua
recording seems a triumph of optimism over sanity.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1968136,00.html
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