Important British Copyright Issue

It would seem a number of MPs have taken it upon temselves to sign an an Early Day Motion calling for extension to current copyright protection.
Which is a shame as the Gower Report & the EU have already mulled it over and recommend keeping the current terms.

Simply put
Current UK copyright law permits you rights over your creation for 50 years.
After that , the work enters the public domain.
The theory being that 50 years should be adequate for you & your family to profit from the work, but after that it becomes in the public interest to have the work freely available.
A case can be made for extensions in certain cases, however, what is being proposed here is a blanket, retrospective extension up to 95 years.
The problem with a blanket ban is that only a few works benefit. 90% percent of old material will languish on unsafe storage mediums, & eventualy be lost to future generations.
I agree that in the light of modern communications major reforms of copyright are required, but these reforms need to be balanced between benefits to the artist AND the larger communtiy, not rushed through by lobbyist pressure on MPs that are blatently ignorant of all current thinking on this matter.

[Link]

A good Backgrounder at Wired

EU Slams the Idea