Unreleased 1963 Beatles Tracks On Sale To Preserve Copyright

Taco Cowboy writes "Back in 1963, the Beatles did some performances for the BBC and other places. The songs were recorded, but never officially released. Now, 50 years later, Apple has packaged all 59 tracks together and put them up for sale on iTunes for $40. The reason? Copyright. The copyright for unreleased works expires 50 years after the works are recorded. By releasing the 59 tracks on iTunes before the end of December, the songs will be protected under copyright law for 20 more years."

Comments

All the more reason

[MitchDev]

to revoke Copyright law.

If the **AA's aren't going to play fair, we have to take their toys away...

Re:All the more reason

[Half-pint HAL]

Oh noes... they're protecting their material. They're stealing from the public...

...actually, no. They're working in compliance with a law that has been enacted to act against abuse of copyright terms. It's a law that says "release the material or release the copyright". This is one of the arguments that comes up from people on your side of the fence all the time: "they're not selling it, so it's of no value, so it should be free." Well, they've said "it is of value, so we are selling it, so it shouldn't be free."

It looks to me like the law is functioning as intended and achieving the intended goal.

Re:All the more reason

[Half-pint HAL]

But this law does nothing to extend copyright. What it does do is stop labels sitting on works without making them available to the public.

Re:yea right

[RDW]

The Beatles: "Money (That's What I Want)":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeqW3t6EnvU

Re:This is important

[Rob the Bold]

You joke, but it's really incentive for future artists more than former. When they see people working a few years in their youth and then earning royalties into retirement, that's quite the incentive to get into music.

Just ask any musician. They'll tell you they got in it for the money.

Re:Write a song, get sued

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you're successful and change labels, you might just get sued for sounding too much like yourself. Ask John Fogerty about that one.

What really happens

[gnasher719]

1. As mentioned, it is "Apple Corps", the company owned by the Beatles, that put the music on the music store by "Apple Inc", which allows people to buy this music if they wish to, or not buy it if they don't wish to.

2. Apple Corps has 70 years copyright on all published music by the Beatles. As a quirk in British law, unpublished music only has 50 years copyright. That's different from US law, where the clock starts running when the music gets published, so the same songs according to US law would have infinite copyright protection, being not published at all.

3. So people here get all excited because Apple Corps made a tactical move to get the same copyright on this music as on all the other music, where in the USA they would actually have had much longer copyright.

4. Remember: With this move, you can actually get this music now, where before you couldn't. The only ones hurt by this is anybody who somehow had illegal copies of this music in their possession, and hoped to cash in when copyright runs out.