Musicians are set receive royalties for their songs well into their old age under a new EU ruling.

Regulations approved on Monday extended copyright on sound recordings from 50 to 70 years.

It means that recordings like Cliff Richard's Move It, which fell out of copyright in 2009, will now continue to earn money for the musicians involved.

A move that will benefit the top 10% of artists and the record companies. Those lower down the pecking order who on the surface should benefit the most will still get a lousy amount.

Though they will get that lousy amount for longer.

For the vast majority of performers the projected extra sales income resulting from term extension is likely to be meagre: from as little as 50¢ each year in the first ten years, to as “much” as €26.79 each year.

Performers' remuneration from broadcasting, public performance or private copying compensation will be affected. Assuming that licensing fees remain constant, earnings to performers will not grow but be sliced more thinly and distributed for longer to more estates of deceased artists. Artists living now will not earn more over their life time.

Moreover the proposed session musician fund comes at a tax of 400%. For every €1 allocated to performers, record labels will get €4.
Each major label would be expected to gain €8.2million-€163million over the 45 year term. That, in turn, works out at €205,000-€4.075m, per label, per year. This is a windfall for record labels.