Scroll down to “Buddy Holly phone call”, and you will hear 20-year-old Buddy trying unsuccessfully to gain legal access to some of his recently rejected recordings, to which US Decca held the copyright :

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2009/02/buddy-holly-on-line-one.html

As this sad and authentic exchange very cogently demonstrates, until the 1970s-80s indie movement, young recording artists were almost never the copyright owners of their own work, which invariably belonged to the media corporations that recorded them.

This is precisely the kind of situation that today’s music industry lobbyists are currently trying to misrepresent in their blandishments about the alleged benefits to the ageing recording artist of an EU recording copyright extension beyond 50 years. If the artist or session-musician doesn’t control the recording in the first place, there is clearly little chance that he or she can possibly benefit from an extended copyright protection period. To put it more bluntly, as usual the artist will get the arse.

Does one really need further evidence that the EU term extension directive merely benefits the big four multinationals, while locking up the bulk of our musical heritage in virtual perpetuity?

I am an author and I do not support extending copyright.