Labels win ruling on longer copyrights

A New York State Court of Appeals has issued a ruling that protects record companies' copyrights– at least in that state – for works issued before the 1972 federal copyright statute.

EMI had sued to stop rival label Naxos from reissuing 1930s recordings originally recorded by Capitol Records, which have fallen into the public domain overseas. The larger record company is now using the ruling to call for "harmonization" of international copyright law – presumably around the longer U.S. copyrights rather than the 50 years provided by European law.