The 137-year-old prince of pop (presumably that means he really likes soft drinks), Cliff Richard, is arguing that performers should get copyright "parity" with songwriters, and that they should continue receiving royalties for an additional twenty years beyond the fifty currently awarded in the UK.
"Sometimes I'm absolutely fed up with singing Living Doll, but I have sung it constantly since '59 because every time I sing it live that generates sales of the original record and that brings royalties to me and the writer."No Cliff, you sing it live because if you refused to do so nobody would come to your shows. I can't imagine legions of little old ladies clamouring to hear the Lord's Prayer sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne.
Now of course not everybody's got a swag of saccharine novelty hits from half a century ago to rely on for their pension. There are many talented performers from that era whose works are out of print, virtually impossible to find, but still illegal to share. Copyright term extension is the equivalent of burning down the great library of Alexandria every time it is done. Inconceivable numbers of creative works are effectively lost forever, and what we are left with are the scraps that publishers consider still marketable. If we don't reduce the duration of copyright we run the risk of losing access to valuable works forever.
Do you want your children to grow up in a world where the sole remaining musical acheivements of the 1950's are performances by Cliff Richard, Pat Boone, and Perry Como? I didn't think so.