Don’t be greedy, Cliff!

Sir Cliff backs royalty campaign

Cliff Richard is something of a pop icon in England. He started out in the late fifties as the local homegrown answer to Elvis (complete with sneer), transitioned to Pop in the sixties and Christian music in the seventies. While virtually unknown over here, he is as much of an institution as Elton John, and probably the richest Pop singer in England.

Faced with the expiration of the copyright of his earliest work, he is campaigning to have the copyright period extended to achieve parity with the songwriters, who had their copyrights extended from 50 to 90 years in 1988.

The purpose of copyright is to provide an inventive for artists to keep producing music.

• Not to provide welfare for aging musicians.
• Not to provide income for their descendants unto the third and fourth generation.
• And certainly not to provide an endless income stream for Media Corporations.

Funny how the rest of us get paid for the work we do when we do it, while this lot are bleating that fifty years of royalties are not enough.

So here’s my suggestion.

• Triple the royalties paid to both performers and songwriters, and
• Reduce the copyright period to ten years.

And stop being so greedy, Sir Cliff!