There has been a predictably cynical response to the formation of the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC), a rock star union, if you like, which was set up at the recent In the City music forum, writes Brian Boyd

With members as diverse as Bryan Ferry and Billy Bragg, Radiohead and Robbie Williams, FAC has one simple demand: that musicians be allowed to keep the copyright of their own music (which would then be leased to record companies).

With all the digital deals being struck these days, the issue of copyright has taken on a new urgency. The sarky comments about FAC - "a millionaires' picket line" - are predicated on the fact that some artists have done immensely well out of a system they are denigrating, that rock stars know exactly what they're getting into when they sign contracts etc.

Which is all fine, but it ignores vital facts, such as: only one out of 10 acts on a label makes a profit; and the law on copyright (as it stands) is an ass.

Consider just one of the manifesto points from FAC: Under the "fair deal" concept, you or I could put out a DVD of a big name band featuring tons of audio and visual material (ie their greatest hits). If we put a "review" or a "critical commentary" over our narration, we are exempt from existing copyright laws. So no permission or payment is required.

This loophole is widely abused - check out all those "critical review" DVDs for sale. But it's only emblematic of how the copyright laws are in such a tangled mess and why handing them over to the artists (as feckless and as dense as some or most of them are) might well be a good idea.

Take the basic complaint artists have about copyright: If you borrow money from a bank for a mortgage, you pay back over so many years and at the end of the term, you own your house. A record company lends to an artist to record an album, market it etc. When, by dint of album sales, you have paid off this advance, the label still owns the album and they can reissue and repackage it as many times as they want without your permission.

When you do hand over copyright (as everyone signed to a label does now) here's what can happen: a few years ago the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) told all children's summer camps throughout the US that if the children sang songs around the camp fire, then a license would have to be obtained and payment made.

In the book, Brand Name Bullies, author David Boilier recounts how children at the time were reduced to doing the Macarena (Los del Río's big hit) in silence, without the music. One of the children was overheard trying to explain why they couldn't sing the song: "The people who wrote the song have a thing on it - a little "c "with a circle around it. There's an alarm on it and if you sing it, BOOM!" But it's not the people who wrote the song, but the copyright holders of Macarena (the label and publishing company).

It's for this same reason that you will never hear Happy Birthdaysung on television or in a film. You may hear the tune, but the lyrics are copyrighted and you have to change them if you want to use the song without paying a small fortune. It's for this reason that many of the big chain restaurants have their own version of Happy Birthdayto sing to customers.

And it goes on. Since Tin Pan Alley, copyright has been a source of tears and tantrums. It's properly called "Intellectual Property", but the way the copyright holders work the system is stunningly stupid.

If FAC do get their way and wrestle back copyright, they may well make an almighty mess of it - but at least they'd have no one to blame but themselves.