I know you all are really “enlightened” and sure maybe your intellectual property laws are setup better than ours. But good Lord, if you’re going to stereotype Americans as gun-spinning cowboys, don’t rape babies. Because it will bite you in the ass.
I am curious how the French Intellectual Property laws are better than ours. I am not necessarily critical of that statement but I have some knowledge in that arena and would like more. I know their Visual Arts laws are a little more strict than ours…but otherwise I’m not quite sure. In regards to patent and trademark regimes, they are quite similar and in the realm of trademark there is almost universal harmony in the laws around the world…I digress…”the French are assholes” Harry Dunn
I’m speaking here of copyright, musically specifically. The French (read the entire european system) allows for an author’s right philosophy which, long story short, gives the copyright author more royalties for his or her work. In the US the max amount a songwriter can obtain for a compulsory license is 8.5 cents (this is NOT the norm, typically the standard is 75% of this number), whereas abroad (this idea invented in France) the author recieves a percentage of PPD (price paid by dealer). Which means the authoer gets a percentage equal to the percentage of song(s) on an album, yielding in much higher incomes for songwriters.
…more importantly, the percentage rate in any given european country are not determined by the government like the US (which chooses arbitrary numbers every few years – right now the highest rate you could possibly pay to use a song on a CD is 8.5 cents, going up to 9.1 cents in january of 2006).