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The BPI contrasts the level of protection with that for the work of authors, composers and songwriters which remains in copyright for 70 years after their death - which could amount to as many as 120 or 130 year after the work was created. The law in the UK also differs from other countries; in the US, for instance, copyright lasts 95 years.

A change in the law is necessary, the BPI says, to preserve the levels of investment in new artists that the UK labels make - around 13 per cent, £150mn in 2003 - of its revenue is invested in developing new artists.

'The British record industry - which invests more in new British musical talent than any other - has less time to earn from its work than other UK creative industries; recording copyright suffers from unfair discrimination,' the BPI said yesterday.

The organisation dismissed the suggestion that this is merely about established artists making even more money.

'It is not,' it said. 'Just as is the case with music piracy, it is not the established artists who suffer the most when copyright is weak or abused. It's about the new generation of artists.'