How Long Should Songwriters Own Their Songs?

A couple of years? Their entire life? Until the Earth crashes into the sun?

Two weeks ago, I wrote a post about why artists are selling (and people are buying) their catalogs for large sums of money. Along the way, I mentioned how I thought it was absurd that the current copyright length for songs in the U.S. is the life of the songwriter plus 70 years.

Musical copyrights should not be the life of the author plus 70 years. Those terms not only benefit the most successful songwriters, but they come at the expense of anyone who is not part of that group. Here’s an example as to why. If Taylor Swift lives to the age 77 - the average lifespan of an American woman - then in the year 2130 either her descendants or some corporation will be able to prevent a young DJ from remixing her 2009 hit “You Belong with Me”.

I thought this topic was so important that it deserved a full blog post. So that’s what you’re getting this week. Note that this post will generally focus on copyrights owned by individuals. I’ll save a discussion on corporate copyrights for another day.