By Nate Anderson
July 22, 2008 - 12:06PM CT

Now that the EU plan to retroactively add 45 years of copyright protection to old sound recordings looks set to keep the work of the 50s and 60s locked up for another half century, resistance is solidifying. Yesterday, a group of independent academics from across Western Europe signed a letter to the Times arguing that the new plan would only pad the pockets of "record companies, aging rock stars or, increasingly, artists' estates.

It does nothing for innovation and creativity." And that's one of the more pleasant things being said about the idea. The academics are all experts in intellectual property or copyright law, and they trash the EU's assertion that no outside expertise was needed before formulating the plan. That's ludicrous, say the learned doctors, since the data filed with the EU came in large part from the recording industry.

Not surprisingly, the data showed that prices wouldn't rise, that artists would make more money, and "that the record industry will invest in discovering new talents, as if exclusive rights for 50 years had not provided an opportunity to earn returns." The professors questioned these assertions. They point out that independent outside evidence against the plan already exists major forms like the UK's Gowers review of intellectual property, but the EU seems to have ignored much of this in favor of Big Content's far-reaching claims.

If the goal is to make sure that artists have enough money to live on, the solution shouldn't be extending copyright but going after "unreasonably exploitative contracts during the existing term" and taking a look at "remuneration during the performer’s lifetime, not 95 years." The UK's Open Rights Group has some strong words of its own for the plan, which it sees as more of a rights grab than an attempt to help poverty-stricken musicians.