Copyright Laws are a Crime

[Michele Monro]

I am very upset and worried about the current copyright laws governing artists. My father was the late great Matt Monro and I am now in a position of finding out that some of the music he recorded is due for public domain at the end of the year.

I am at a loss to understand why my father does not have the same rights as all other creative contributors. I have found out that composers, lyricists, photographers, artwork designers enjoy copyright until 70 years after their death, but not the artist. He has been singled out for a much shorter term of protection – 50 years after release of the record. Yet it is the sound recording, which is of most value to the fans. They buy that CD because it is his name on the album. They do not buy it because of the composer or lyricist.

My father has recorded many songs and has made them his own, tracks like Born Free, Walk Away, Softly As I Leave You, My Kinda of Girl, From Russia With Love, they are synonymous with the artist and he should be paid the same as all other creative contributors,

Why is it that the EU is lagging behind many other parts of the world, from the USA to India when it comes to valuing its older recorded music heritage? America increased the asset value of its recording industry when it increased the term of protection to 95 years. Equalising the term would give the older repertoire a value and provide an incentive for preservation, digitisation and distribution.

In the UK alone, over 7000 musicians will lose their rights to their recording over the next ten years. Across Europe, the number would be much greater. The vast majority of these are low earning musicians at the end of their career. Equalising the copyright term would allow all these musicians to earn airplay royalties. Many featured artists with record company contracts would also benefit from royalties from online and physical sales.

My father worked very hard in his industry, not only because of a passion for good music, but to leave a legacy of recordings behind him that he hoped would be enjoyed long after he had left this world. It is also any man’s right to leave his legacy or the protection of it to his family.

There was no way that my father could have foreseen that he would leave this world at the age of 54, he felt that he would continue to record great music for at least another fifteen years. Those recordings are what made Matt Monro a star to his public, his voice and phrasing were unrivalled in this country, his breath control second to none and he was known amongst his peers as “The Singer’s Singer” His adulation didn’t just come from an English audience but a universal following where he sat in many a country’s hit parade, earning platinum records worldwide.

Twenty-two years after leaving us my father’s music has continued to enthral new audiences and in 2005, the album “The Ultimate Matt Monro” sold 200,000 and went gold in ten days. In 2006, the DVD “An Evening with Matt Monro: went straight to the No1 spot in the DVD Music Charts. The BBC made a programme on his life called “The Man with the Golden Voice” which earned him an audience of 1.8 million viewers and that was against the World Cup Football showing on another channel.

In the 5th February, the new album, “From Matt with Love” went straight to the No 39 spot the first week and No 30 last week. His music is still in high demand and those recordings are sold on the strength of the name on the CD cover MATT MONRO.

Because of his early demise these albums all contain older recordings and yet they still sell enough for EMI to release two or three albums a year. I have worked tirelessly in ensuring these releases are 100% quality items, some of which have been remastered to bring them up to modern standards. EMI did not have to pay any extra money for this process but they felt the product and the music deserved it. Together these people protect those recordings from being cheapened by unscrupulous people out to make a fast buck.

I launched a website dedicated to my father in July 2005 because of the demand for it and this enjoys hits of 6,000 people a month. This is twenty-two years after his death. The only reason people visit the site is to know more about the music of Matt Monro and the legacy he left them. I wonder how many people would visit the composer’s site or a lyricist’s site – The answer is not many if at all. These people often only earn recognition because of the artists who made their composition famous. You can take the most famous recordings in the last 30 years, whether “My Way” “From Russia With Love” “White Christmas and ask a cross section of the public to name the composer or the lyricist and they wouldn’t have a clue, but they will always name the artist.

Music is a worldwide commodity; it transcends all politics, all religions, all colours and creeds and racism. There is not a place in the world that is not touched by music and we have a responsibility to protect and preserve it for new generations to enjoy.

As a worldwide commodity, it deserves one uniform copyright and I would beg you to join in artists in England and our fight to bring our copyright laws in line with the rest of the creative contributors and indeed the rest of the world. Why should the very name that makes money for the composer and lyricist and the artwork designers by giving their name to a recording be penalised together with producers. Their work is as valuable as others in making the product a success.

I have never understood why a song will earn an Oscar for the songwriters but not the vocalist who made it a success. “Born Free” earned that unique status symbol, a song which is ONLY associated with MATT MONRO, yet not worthy enough to earn the Oscar as well.

There is something not right within the industry and I am asking you to help me and all other artists and producers, make this right

This is a letter I have written to my local MP among others.
If you feel passionate about any artist's work as well as my fathers, then pick up a pen and write those sentiments to

Shaun Woodward, Minister for Creative Industries, DCMS, 2-4 Cockspur Street, London, SW1Y 5DH.

I am grateful for all the help that I can get

Please state your views below whether you agree or disagree

[paul and sue]

Hi Michele and all, I was jut reading the post about
copyright, i don`t know if you know but old films are the same, a lot of the old
classic comedies starring, George Formby, Will Hay, Arthur
Askey, Tommy Trinder and many others have just come out of copyright and are
being copied onto dvd and sold legally on Ebay, there is not a thing that
anyone can do as they are out of copyright, its wrong as these are just poor quality copies and people
are being ripped off, not to mention all the tens of thousands of pounds
worth of shop stock that will now be worthless, I guess this is what will
happen with the music, they will just put anything onto disc with no
remastering or enhancement and it will sound awful, all the best Paul and Sue

[ROBERT M.]

Yet, as mentioned by Michele, copyright protection for films/movies cover a lot longer period in the US than it does in the UK and Europe, which is totally wrong as both continents should have equal parity for copyright protection. Thats why so many videos of film/movies, even going back to the 1930's are removed from the Youtube website by film studios, because of copyright protection. It is very unfair, and the situation needs addressing.

[ROBERT M.]

On the Russell Davies show tonight, Russell mentioned Frank Sinatras classic album "Songs For Swinging Lovers" is now out of copyright, so anyone can release these songs, and rather unsurprisingly someone has already done so

[Steve Tarry]

I agree with michele, when an artist (or anyone else) records there voice or makes a movie its the persons image either vocally or in a visual form that is left for the future, this is a personal legacy left for all and should be protected from the less honest of those amongst us.
For some reason this country seems to lag behind every other in this respect and I think that whether a person is alive or not the material that they have spent time and care to ensure the finished product is of good value and worth taking the time to listen to, should be protected from butchery and lowered standards for perpetuatery.
We have all seen poor quality dubious videos and Cds, MP3s etc and the goverment spend fortunes to ensure that the persons responsible are brought to justice (to ensure they get thier cut of the taxes due).

I think that this is legalised piracy and should be stopped before we end up with a watered down musical and film heritage in the future.

[Marian]

Really disappointed in today's news that the government have decided not to support the call to extend the length of time for the copyright laws in the U.K. which stands at 50 years, compared with 70 years in Europe, and 95 years in the U.S.
This means that after 50 years, the artist, or his family, no longer are eligible to any royalties, and the work becomes public property.
As this directly affects the Monro family, who will soon be steadily losing any income from Matt's recordings, I feel we should support any action by the BPI, which represents the British recorded music industry, and continues to fight in Europe for fair copyright laws in the U.K.
Marian.

[ROBERT M.]

Here, here Marian. If it's 95 years in the US, then it should be the same in the UK

[Lena & Harry Smith]

Yes, there have been a mixture of views expressed on this issue and many of the top earning artists have declared their dismay and anger at this result. Others believe that many of these top artists have made more than substantial fortunes from the music industry and will hardly ever end up on the bread line, and the buying public should now have the opportunity to purchase music from sources at a reasonable price, but of course the argument is how quality or how shoddy would the goods be.
Well that's fine for those who have and still are making their enormous fortunes. We can see Micheles point, and agree that it's totally unfair for artists like Matt who if alive today would probably still be performing and recieving royalties and as she has pointed out when we puchase an album it's for the singer, -of course it is, and it's the singer who should be prioritised over and above songwriters and composors, as important and necessary as they are, there needs to be some reviewed changes.

[ROBERT M.]

What about those artists who had a couple of mediocre hits and are still receiving royalties from those songs to save their heads from going under. They RELY on those payments, or it could be government handouts in the future for them

[jon]

I think there may well be an issue about the quality of releases by companies now able to take advantage of the expiry of the 50-year deadline. I recently read reviews on Amazon's website about the releases of Johnny Mathis's first album by two companies other than Columbia which are now in the shops, to the effect that they are of extremely poor sound quality, so there is clearly an element of others just jumping on the bandwagon. In Matt's case, though, I suppose it's fair to say that many of his recordings won't pass the 50-year mark for some time as they were recorded in the 60s and 70s, and even 80s.

[Terence Lee]

There seems to be many CDs imported from UK recently in the shops here. Now the bad news......the labels (like Flare, Prism) are dubious and the songs are those in the public domain. The sound is almost always bad. I tell my friends to avoid these CDs but a Patti Page CD on the Sepia label proved priceless both in song selection and sound quality.