Tenor/conductor/impresario/corporate shill Placido Domingo welcomed an extension of copyright protection across Europe today as “great news for performing artists.”  Well, he’s half right.

That’s because it’s a windfall for recording companies. The recording copyright extension—modeled on the U.S.’s notorious Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act that has essentially destroyed the concept of public domain for fixed recordings—will be enacted  just in time to “protect” large swaths of the catalog of Domingo’s home label, DGG.