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Music

The Beatles, Bob Dylan and the 50-Year Copyright Itch 153

HughPickens.com writes: Victoria Shannon reports in the NY Times that fifty years ago was a good year for music, with the Beatles appearing on Billboard's charts for the first time, the Rolling Stones releasing their first album, the Supremes with five No. 1 hits, and Simon and Garfunkel releasing their debut album. The 50-year milestone is significant, because music published within the first half-century of its recording gets another 20 years of copyright protection under changes in European law. So every year since 2012, studios go through their tape vaults to find unpublished music to get it on the market before the deadline.

The first year, Motown released a series of albums packed with outtakes by some of its major acts, and Sony released a limited-edition collection of 1962 outtakes by Bob Dylan, with the surprisingly frank title, "The Copyright Extension Collection, Vol. I." In 2013, Sony released a second Dylan set, devoted to previously unreleased 1963 recordings. Similar recordings by the Beatles and the Beach Boys followed. This year, Sony is releasing a limited-edition nine-LP set of 1964 recordings by Dylan, including a 46-second try at "Mr. Tambourine Man," which he would not complete until 1965. The Beach Boys released two copyright-extension sets of outtakes last week. And while there's no official word on a Beatles release, last year around this time, "The Beatles Bootleg Recordings 1963" turned up unannounced on iTunes.
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The Beatles, Bob Dylan and the 50-Year Copyright Itch

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  • How soon? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Saturday December 20, 2014 @09:44AM (#48641223)
    Before we get copyright in perpetuity?

    After all, don't J.S. Bach's descendants get to make profit on something they never had anything to do with? Shouldn''t that be only fair?

    Copyright was conceived to protect musicians rights, not their great great great great grandchildren's.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Paul McCartney is still alive, along with Ringo Star, Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkle, and the Beach Boys. Not sure you have a valid point yet. If you wanted to make a comment about how long do they need a copyright your point would be more valid. However, the Beatles are very overrated so I think by the time their stuff becomes public domain no one will care anymore.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Opportunist ( 166417 )

        So is the bricklayer that built my house. I can't remember paying him a dime in the last 20 or so years, though.

        • So is the bricklayer that built my house. I can't remember paying him a dime in the last 20 or so years, though.

          Bricklayers get paid an hourly wage for the work they do when they do it, and can work productively for forty plus hours a week all through the year. Also, bricklayers are more or less fungible.

          You can't really compare bricklayers and musicians.

          The whole idea of copyright may be untenable nowadays, but in principle it is just a way of paying artists for their work. If you got rid of copyright, you'd need to find another way of rewarding them, as the idea of just having amateur artists is deeply problema

      • by Zxern ( 766543 )
        Funny how they managed to make music under the old copyright terms. You would think they wouldn't have bothered at all if they couldn't hold the rights forever. At least that seems to be the implication from the *iaa.
    • Re: How soon? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 20, 2014 @11:00AM (#48641451)

      Copyright is to encourage the public release of creative works for the betterment of society. The temporary monopoly on profits from those works is the incentive, not the purpose.

      • The 'noble' intentions of copyright are irrelevant. The law is being used as very effective weapon of censorship. That is its intention.

        • The 'noble' intentions of copyright are irrelevant. The law is being used as very effective weapon of censorship. That is its intention.

          Yes, if your definition of "censorship" is "having to pay a small amount of money to access a piece of popular culture".

          If everyone who disapproved of copyright was a believer in pure communism, with everything shared equally, I would be quite happy to agree with them.

          As it is, in a capitalist society, what exactly do you expect artists to live on? Oh, I forgot, live performances, because it's so easy to go to a gig whenever I want to listen to some music or hear some poetry, that it makes you wonder w

          • Yeah, you should have been there when they tried printing the first books! A whole industry of writers guild were up in arms and tried to have the press destroyed. Nope, screw the rent seekers. Enough of the special privileges. Time for them to come down to earth with the rest of us schlubs.

      • The problem is, where is my incentive to ever create again if I can milk what I already created forever?

        Let's say you are someone not unlike Mozart. A once-a-century, if not once-a-millennium, prodigy whose music has the ability to enchant and entertain people for centuries to come. Mozart was, when you read his bio, a lazy, hedonistic bum. Essentially he was writing music when he had to pay his bills.

        Just imagine how much we'd have from him if the royalties from his "Magic Flute" would've paid for his life

        • That is one of the feeblest arguments about anything that I have ever read anywhere on the internet.
      • by hitmark ( 640295 )

        That was perhaps the Statute of Anne take. But the version we have now globally is that merged with the French "rights of the author". This is where the whole life+X comes from, as the French worried about the authors social rights. That is, the right to control in what context ones creation is used. Don't want your play or similar be associated with a certain dictator, deny anyone that want to use it in his honor. Never mind that those laws came into being when you were lucky to live past 40 with your heal

    • Copyright is to encourage the public release of creative works for the betterment of society. The temporary monopoly on profits from those works is the incentive, not the purpose.
      • Copyright is to encourage the public release of creative works for the betterment of society. The temporary monopoly on profits from those works is the incentive, not the purpose.

        ANd how does the trend toward perpetual coyright encourage this?

        • Obviously it does not - the system has been corrupted by Disney and other copyright holders. And by repeating their lies about the purpose of copyright you make yourself a voluntary foot soldier in their war against culture.

        • Some people might be motivated to make provision for their descendants. If I leave them stocks or property they can get dividends and rent forever. It's an asset that gives a future income stream.

    • Re:How soon? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by StillAnonymous ( 595680 ) on Saturday December 20, 2014 @11:04AM (#48641485)

      And people on slashdot wonder why nobody around here has any respect for copyright anymore... It's because the original deal was broken. They kept extending to the advantage of the copyright holders, with absolutely zero concessions for the public. How is that fair? Why should I respect that?

      • What's broken is the capitalist system

        But on slashdot capitalism's wonderful because it lets a few code monkeys become billionaires.

    • Before we get copyright in perpetuity?

      It’s already here. You just haven’t realised it yet.

    • I've often thought that copyright was introduced by The most corrupt Pope Alexander the 6th. He did it as a means to squash the Protestants and their bible printing business. Their bible printing business was undermining the power of Catholic Rome.

  • Stealing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by itzly ( 3699663 ) on Saturday December 20, 2014 @09:49AM (#48641237)
    Copyright extension is stealing.
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

      Time to fight back. Write a computer program that produces music automatically using some algorithm. Allow some trivial amount of control so that the user can claim it is a musical instrument, like a synthesiser. Release over 9,000,000 limited edition (1 copy) albums, and then sue every artist working for Sony for copyright infringement on every new work they release. One of your millions of tracks is bound to sound like theirs.

  • by deviated_prevert ( 1146403 ) on Saturday December 20, 2014 @10:05AM (#48641287) Journal

    Sums up the mickey mouse laws that Sony, Disney and their ilk have created in the industry. It has nothing to do with copyrights it has everything to do with control of content. If I want to include an RCMP [www.cbc.ca] officer in full dress uniform in a stage play even in the country where they come from then I have to get permission from Disney to use the image.

    It is time for someone to challenge this nonsense and expose the practices of these charlatans for what they really are. Then perhaps the public will wake up to the real damage to freedom of expression in the entertainment industry that these corporate thieves and their myrmidons in government have foisted upon the audience.

    • Sums up the mickey mouse laws that Sony, Disney and their ilk have created in the industry. It has nothing to do with copyrights it has everything to do with control of content.

      I don't see a problem with Disney still retaining full rights to Mickey. The company still exists and actively uses the character in their works.

      • by itzly ( 3699663 )
        Disney can keep full rights to Mickey. But everybody gets them too.
      • by jedidiah ( 1196 ) on Saturday December 20, 2014 @10:44AM (#48641393) Homepage

        Mickey Mouse is a trademark.

        That's a different kettle of fish. That's the problem with everything getting thrown together as "intellectual property". It muddles together things with very different requirements and considerations.

        Abuses and backlash will be inappriately applied.

        • Mickey Mouse is a trademark.

          Perpetual exclusive rights in a trademark cannot be used to extend the theoretically limited term of any of the exclusive rights under a U.S. copyright. Dastar v. Fox.

      • Sums up the mickey mouse laws that Sony, Disney and their ilk have created in the industry. It has nothing to do with copyrights it has everything to do with control of content.

        I don't see a problem with Disney still retaining full rights to Mickey. The company still exists and actively uses the character in their works.

        What would you do if your kid decided to get creative then you were sued by Disney? All because he or she did a doll based cartoon using Mickey and Mini and then posted the results online?

        It will take something like this happening to expose these crooks for what they really are. I am sorry I have no respect for Sony or Disney as they more than any other corporations have stifled creativity and have become anti-creative and destructive to the arts in many ways. Youtube and other sites scare the shit out of t

    • > If I want to include an RCMP officer in full dress uniform in a stage play even in the country where they come from then I have to get permission from Disney to use the image.

      That was almost true for a few years, from 1995-2000. The RCMP had a merchandising contract wherein Disney Canada would manage whatever rights RCMP had to the mountie image. They figured Disney is pretty good at managing the branding of a character, so they contracted with Disney to manage the Mountie character.

      Does the RCMP h

      • > If I want to include an RCMP officer in full dress uniform in a stage play even in the country where they come from then I have to get permission from Disney to use the image.

        That was almost true for a few years, from 1995-2000. The RCMP had a merchandising contract wherein Disney Canada would manage whatever rights RCMP had to the mountie image. They figured Disney is pretty good at managing the branding of a character, so they contracted with Disney to manage the Mountie character.

        Does the RCMP have the right to control whether or not you have an RCMP officer in a play? Probably not. The image wasn't a registered trademark, and you're allowed to use other people's trademarks in certain ways. Therefore, they couldn't have Disney manage that right for them.

        To the extent they did have Disney managing their licensing for merchandising, that deal ended fourteen years ago.

        Thank you for informing me that the deal is over. However it would not at all surprise me if there are deals that are not public knowledge currently in force. Our conservative government does this sort of thing all the time and the management decisions of the Mounties are under their direct control, unlike in the US where the FBI was a distorted organization run by a Tzar that was appointed essentially for life because he had dirt on all the political parties.

        What is really disgusting is that Corbis [ssrn.com] has ess

    • the way I see it is the rich are going to screw me. While they're busy screwing me over something as trivial as this they might give some ground on something that actually matters, like health care. In the States we have a (by our standards) fairly liberal president who's managed to get a (very) few health care reforms though that will benefit me and mine. To pay for the campaigns to convince American's that health care is something they want we get crap like this. Is it a horrible and unpleasant compromise
  • Surprisingly frank? Sony is just not that good at covering things up these days....

    • Another album -

      Spite and Contempt for our Customers Collection, Vol I

      Including tracks such as the ever popular tune; "We don't want this, but you can't have it [Feat. Bwaa Haaa ha ha...]"
  • Summary is wrong (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Charliemopps ( 1157495 ) on Saturday December 20, 2014 @11:00AM (#48641447)

    The Beach Boys released two copyright-extension sets...

    That's not true. "The Beach Boys" didn't release anything. The rights to their work were stolen in the 1960s by their manager and sold to A&M records:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... [wikipedia.org]
    A&M is owned by UMG:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U... [wikipedia.org]
    The largest Music publishing company in the world who's owned by Vivendi:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V... [wikipedia.org]
    Who's worth nearly $50 billion, and has profits in the $3 billion/yr range...

    and you wonder why copyright laws get changed in their favor... lol

    When arguing about copyright law, always keep in mind... the people that "own" these copyrights are almost never the artists or their families. Business own then and the attempts to extend copyright into perpetuity has absolutely nothing to do with rewarding the creator of the music. It has to do with extending what was usually a theft from an artist, into a theft from mankind as a whole.

    Watch the following movie for more details on that side of the business:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... [wikipedia.org]
    I don't like 30 seconds to mars, but that movie matches what many of the musicians/bands I've met have said about the industry.

    And here's an article written by Courtney Love 15yrs ago... and it's also pretty much dead on:
    http://www.salon.com/2000/06/1... [salon.com]

    The real pirates are the music labels.

    • When arguing about copyright law, always keep in mind... the people that "own" these copyrights are almost never the artists or their families. Business own then and the attempts to extend copyright into perpetuity has absolutely nothing to do with rewarding the creator of the music. It has to do with extending what was usually a theft from an artist, into a theft from mankind as a whole.

      That would be an incredibly easy thing to solve by not allowing the transfer of copyrights at all, either to corporations or your own children.

      Although to be fair, most arts aren't run by such blatant crooks as the music industry.

  • Dear Hackers:

    Please have Sony remove all the copyrights on all of their music.

    Thank you,

    vortex2.71

  • Seriously, if they're out-takes, they weren't considered good enough to release. Releasing them goes against both the original musicians' wishes and foists crap on the general public because "otherwise you don't have the complete set."

    Consider the out-takes as crappy code you would never release. You release the cleaned-up code and build a reputation - which is tarnished when someone releases your crappy code. Or maybe there's a politically incorrect comment in the crappy version that was there to remind you to fix something ... like "Duh! This code is crap! I must be having a blonde day!"

    Do you really want YOUR out-takes published for someone else's financial benefit?

    • "The true scholar prizes all drafts, early and late."

      --Mr Spock

    • Seriously, if they're out-takes, they weren't considered good enough to release. Releasing them goes against both the original musicians' wishes and foists crap on the general public because "otherwise you don't have the complete set."

      No one's forcing you to buy the out-takes are they?

      If people find them interesting enough, good luck to them.

      It's like reading the original manuscript of a poem or novel, and seeing what was changed before publication. Unless you're a really dedicated fan, it probably wouldn't be of much interest, but for scholars it can be fascinating.

      Having said that, you'd only normally do this after the artist was dead.

  • by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Saturday December 20, 2014 @01:42PM (#48642097)
    Let it be.
  • As the bar gets set lower with each new compilation of previously not-good-enough-to-release music, we'll eventually get to enjoy the between takes fart recordings. I'm looking at you Sony.
  • Forget it - I'm waiting for the copyright extension set of previously unheard works by The Electric Prunes.

    • That's cool. Personally, I am a fan, and I've been waiting a long time to hear Carnival of Light. The good news is, I might only have to wait another couple of years.

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