European commissioner Charlie McCreevy delivered a Valentine's Day gift to performers yesterday by proposing to almost double the length of time they can earn royalty fees.

Mr McCreevy said singers and musicians should earn royalties for 95 years, up from 50 years currently.

"If nothing is done, thousands of European performers who recorded in the late 1950s and 1960s will lose all of their airplay royalties over the next 10 years," he said.

"I am proposing that performing artists should no longer be the poor cousins of the music business."

The extension of the copyright would not only benefit stars such as Dickie Rock and the estate of the late Joe Dolan, but also session musicians who played on recordings.

Composers of music already benefit from a copyright period that extends to their life plus 70 years and in the US performers and musicians enjoy copyright for 95 years. But EU rules still restrict the copyright for singers, performers and musicians to 50 years.

Mr McCreevy said people are living longer nowadays and 50 years of copyright protection no longer gave lifetime protection to artists who recorded in their late teens.

"These royalties are often their sole pension," he added.

Under the proposal, record companies would have to set up funds for studio musicians and would not be allowed to deduct the original advances paid to featured artists.

If they refused to rerelease a record during the extended copyright period, the artists themselves should be allowed to move to a new label, said Mr McCreevy.

He said the new rules should not increase consumer prices because the price of records out of copyright is often the same as - or higher than - that of newly released discs.

Member states and the European Parliament will consider the proposal later this year.

The EU executive also wants to consider reforming copyright levies charged on blank discs, data storage and music and video players to compensate artists and copyright holders for legal copying when listeners burn an extra version of an album.

Mr McCreevy said he did not want to scrap the charges but wanted to see how realistic it was to impose the charges on all equipment.

Electronics manufacturers claim it is unfair to hand over millions of euro in fees to copyright collectors for all devices containing a storage facility - such as phones that can play digital music files or even printers.