My many issues with copyrights and patents stem from them being used for reasons beyond their intention.  These government granted monopolies are meant to encourage people to create new works of arts and inventions.

This is why I’m confused by the European Union’s decision to extend copyrights for musicians by 45 years.  If musicians made music before this extension, that means the original copyright deal worked - artists were rewarded with 50 years of control over their work.  But now all those musicians get another 45 years and what does the rest of Europe get? A copyright system used for welfare.

Irish EU commissioner Charlie McCreevy didn’t hide the fact.

I am not talking about featured artists like Cliff Richard or Charles Aznavour. I am talking about the thousands of anonymous session musicians who contributed to sound recordings in the late fifties and sixties. They will no longer get airplay royalties from their recordings. But these royalties are often their sole pension.

It’s not the government’s job to retroactively create a pension system specific to one field. What about the airline workers loosing their agreed upon pensions? I don’t see governments stepping into make airlines pay these workers for every plane they helped run.

The irony is the Gowers Report on Intellectual Property conducted in the United Kingdom found that extending copyrights would be more harmful. The writer of the report, Andrew Gowers, later added that he thought copyrights should be lessened.

The United States had its own copyright laws extended in the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998.