Led Zeppelin Agrees To Digital Distribution

cphilo points out a NYTimes article on Led Zeppelin's decision to sell its music online. The group is one of the last superstar acts to hold out against the digital tide. There was a months-long, trans-Atlantic bidding war for the rights to license the band's catalog. In the US, the only digital holdouts that outsell Led Zeppelin are the Beatles and Garth Brooks.

Comments

Led Zep should be FREE by now

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Under the original terms of copyright in the USA, which I believe was 17 years + 17 more optional renewal if author was alive and wanted it, much of Led Zep's catalog would be in the public domain by now.

Re:Led Zep should be FREE by now

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright in sound recordings expires either 50 years after the recording is made, if the recording is published during that period, 50 years from the publication or if during the initial 50 years the recording is played in public or communicated to the public, 50 years from said communication or playing to the public if the author of the broadcast is an EEA citizen. Otherwise duration under the laws of the country of which the author is a national applies, unless such a duration would be longer than offered in UK law, or be contrary to treaty obligations of the UK in force on 29 October 1993.

from wikipedia Led Zeppelin is still played regularly, so it's not becoming public domain anytime soon. I don't know why USA copyright laws are relevant(both led zeppelin and their record label are based in the UK), but they don't only last 17 years as you said, they last 70 years AFTER the artist's death.

Re:Led Zep should be FREE by now

[CodeBuster]

The Copyright Act of 1976 extended the duration of all copyrights in force as of 1976 to the life of the original author plus fifty (50) years and the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (aka The Mickey Mouse Protection Act) extended that term by an additional twenty (20) years. If the surviving members of the band continue to enjoy an average wealthy first world life expectency then the Led Zeppelin catalog should begin entering the public domain some time around the year 2093, by which time it is very likely that none of us will be around to enjoy them in that capacity (unless you buy into the whole singularity nonsense).

AC/DC

[Hao Wu]

No AC/DC on iTunes, last time I checked.

(I check several times each day.)

Garth Brooks may never go digital

[ubernostrum]

IIRC when he went into retirement he inked a deal which granted exclusive distribution rights, going forward, to Wal-Mart; unless they get into downloadable music in a big way, or can grant digital rights to a big online player like Amazon or Apple, that may come back to bite him pretty hard.

Re:Garth Brooks may never go digital

[StikyPad]

LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE! PLEASE.

(Hey, somebody was gonna say it.. might as well be me.)

The real news...

[morgan_greywolf]

...is that Garth Brooks outsells Led Zeppelin?!? Who knew?

Heh, n00bs...

[Ethanol-fueled]

The true Led Zap fans rip their vinyls to Mp3 :)

Having grown up

[gillbates]

listening to Led Zeppelin, I can say they are easily one of the best rock bands of all time. Unlike a lot of recent 'talent' which seems to be concerned only with imitating others, Led Zeppelin pioneered rock and roll and actually brought creativity back to a genre which many had dismissed simply as hippie music.

Good to see their catalog online; however, a few years ago I had a rather revealing experience after buying one of their earlier works on CD: I could definitely notice the limitations of the analog equipment used for recording. I hope that the tracks offered online are of better quality, or it will be a little bit of a disappointment.

Re:Having grown up

[gooman]

Time Travel.
That's how you rip-off a Blues musician 20, 30 even 40 years before they are born.

Re:Having grown up

[J_Omega]

This begs the question: Did you get a "remastered" CD?

The re-releases do sound better - more clean, etc. Jimmy Page is an obsessive sound engineer.

But... perhaps you did. That's probably as good as they're ever going to sound.
Online stuff sound better? Ha? It'll be MP3s - low bitrates with bad artifacts and all.
The best you could hope for is to buy FLAC (or other lossless formats) that'd be CD quality.

It's all a part of the era they were recorded in. Heck, I love Zepp as well, but what can you do?
I love old jazz (Charlie Parker, etc.) that was recorded in mono. Even the "best" copies sound like something you could have recorded on Fischer-Price kids stuff nowadays. Just deal with the quality, enjoy the music.

ringtones?!?

[russellh]

Ok, from tfa:

Under a series of new agreements expected to be announced today, the band will make its songs available first as ringtones and similar mobile features starting this week in an exclusive deal with Verizon Wireless.

WTF? This to me says one of two things: either they don't care about the artistic integrity of their music at all, or they don't understand or don't have any respect for digital distribution, digital music players. I'm going with the former, as the latter has big $$$ attached now, apparently. mp3 players already devalue music generally, but nothing kills integrity like ringtones. Especially stairway to heaven ringtones. OMFG. kill me now.

Re:Beatles?

[Tablizer]

Michael Jackson purchased most of the Beatles copyrights. He also owns copyrights to the music of many other artists and whomever wants the rights to use those will have to negotiate with him, at least till his control of the copyrights expire.

Which means it'll cost you an arm, a leg, and a white-woman's nose.

CDs

[Winckle]

Don't CDs store data digitally?

Also why do marketeers always cal them "digital downloads", when can I get them on analogue downloads? :-)

When she gets there, she knows

[ross.w]

if the stores are all closed, with a click she can get what she came for.

Amazon patents notwithstanding

Re:When she gets there, she knows

[Kesch]

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Re:Led out?

[wasted]

What took so long to get the led out?

My thoughts on possible reasons:

• Technology left them Dazed and Confused .
  
• They resisted when they had plenty of money during the Good Times, Bad Times currently prevail, though.
  
• They wanted to ensure that The Song Remains the Same during the analog to digital conversion.
  
• They wanted to do it earlier, but there was a Communication Breakdown - during the discussions, it seemed that one of the parties would just Ramble On .
  
• They weren't sure what the analog to digital conversion would do to their Rock and Roll , and were considering Going to California to get it all straightened out.

in partial defense of Led Zeppelin

[commodoresloat]

It's true, the band should have been more up front about the music they were covering, but you are exaggerating the case. They did not "steal everything." They did cover some songs and there were lawsuits to force them to credit Willie Dixon and I don't know if they've ever credited Jake Holmes. But that is a small handful of songs in a large catalog -- Led Zeppelin has plenty of "original" songs. Sure, they were basically a blues band, but they used the blues to basically pioneer a new hard rock sound. Rock n Roll is itself basically ripped off from the blues and country music. And a lot of heavy metal ripped off Led Zeppelin. And so on.... that's how progress occurs in the open source world of popular music history. You're right that they should have credited (and paid respects -- not to mention some percentage of their profits -- to) the musicians whose work they used. But I don't think you can define all of their work by that.