The Public Domain Enhancement Actfree elvis!
August 12, 2004
On January 1, 2005 the original recording of Elvis' That's All Right enters the public domain and European lobbyists are angling to change the law to protect RCA's royalties, according to Becky Hogge.
Under current EU law, sound recordings are classified as “performance” and copyrighted for a period of 50 years. This is not to be confused with compositions, which remain in copyright for the artist's lifetime plus 70 years, preventing others from covering or sampling the track without paying some royalties.
Nevertheless what this law does mean is that, from January, anyone may store, share, swap or commercially release That's All Right without recourse to RCA, who currently own rights to the track as part of their back catalogue. Further, over the next decade and beyond, other such seminal recordings - from Chuck Berry to Johnny Cash and, eventually, The Beatles - will come into the public domain.
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