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

[Anonymous Coward]

Please don't type half your post in the subject, it makes your post unreadable. Especially when using alternative browsing methods.

Re:All the more reason

[SJHillman]

He puts his hear to the ground and listens for the distant stampede of electrons running through Cat5. For more interactive browsing, he fires up a faulty power supply to make smoke signals.

Re:All the more reason

[ackthpt]

Please don't type half your post in the subject, it makes your post unreadable. Especially when using alternative browsing methods.

Indeed. As with modern media the subject should be a play on words or shameless pun.

The body of the post should be non sequitur by the paragraph, which leaves the reader baffled as to which medication you are on.

This media backed up by the cloud

Re:All the more reason

[dkleinsc]

Here's an example of the silliness of copyright law: Because my late grandfather collected and arranged a folk song in upstate New York in the 1950's that eventually became a skiffle hit in the UK, my family gets a check each year from sales of recordings we had basically nothing to do with creating, for work done about 60 years ago by someone who has been dead for over 30 years. Now, it's not a very large check these days, but still, there's no good reason why the song shouldn't be public domain.

On the upside, it is also the song that is on the first known recording of the Quarrymen, so I'd at least have something to talk about if I ended up face to face with Paul McCartney for some reason.

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

[dkleinsc]

There are 4 reasons we don't:
1. If we release the copyright we have on the text of the song, all that really happens is that the company who owns the copyright to the recordings of the song (also mostly from the 1950's - a 1957 version by Lonnie Donnegan actually reached #1 on the charts at one point) simply gets to keep what they're currently paying us.

2. ASCAP is involved in the legal side of things. I'm not exactly sure how it works, but they're usually pretty vicious about hanging onto the songs they have a right to (and sometimes the songs they don't). Again, it might be that whatever we don't see simply goes to ASCAP.

3. We don't take any kind of steps to enforce it against small performances or individual recordings. So Paul McCartney might have to pay someone who pays someone who eventually pays us, but a high school chorus or a traveling folk singer is not going to run into a problem if they download it from somewhere.

4. My family gives away the money we get to a charitable organization in the region where my grandfather collected the song.

In short, renouncing the copyright only benefits some big corporations at the expense of charity.

Re:All the more reason

[Half-pint HAL]

And more to the point, the material would not have fallen into the public domain anyway -- the summary is wrong, following as it does the lead paragraph of the CNN article, which is wrong. If you look halfway down the article it says:

The British government, following the change in European copyright law, implemented a law last month providing "that if a record label is not commercially releasing a track that is over 50 years old, then the performers can request that the rights in the performance revert to them -- a 'use it or lose it' clause," the government's website said.

(my emphasis)

The public domain is not affected by this law in the slightest: it's between the Beatles and Apple Corp. Apple doesn't want the McCartney and the other 3's families getting hold of the material and then selling it themselves for a higher percentage, so they've rushed this out to hold onto their cut.

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.

Apple or Apple Corps

[cdrudge]

No, Apple is not packaging them up and putting them on iTunes. Apple doesn't own the copyrights. Apple Corps, the corporation founded by the members of the Beetles who do have the copyrights, is the one releasing them on iTunes.

When you have two entities that have almost the same name involved in the same story, it makes a different to differentiate the two to be absolutely clear. But this is Slashdot after all...

Re:Apple or Apple Corps

[cdrudge]

What does the USPTO or patent law have anything to do with this? It's a British COPYRIGHT law that was passed following a change to a European law. Patents and trademarks are not at play here. Nor is US copyright law.

Even if it was about US copyright law, it's not abuse. It's following the law. If Apple Corps lobbied to have the law change, then maybe it's abuse. But they didn't. They just applied the law and the protection it granted to their work. Which is their right under copyright law.

Re:Apple or Apple Corps

[ATMAvatar]

True, and originally, the trademark dispute between the two was settled with a pittance and an agreement by Apple, Inc. not to sell music. However, they managed to win over a judge when iTunes came out and then wrest control of the trademark away from Apple Corps (perhaps better known as Apple Records) shortly thereafter.

Never again

[A10Mechanic]

I, for one, will not ever be giving another cent to Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney. If you find a way to give to just Ringo, I'm in.

Re:Never again

[wed128]

Well, there are the Ringo Starr solo albums...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringo_Starr_discography

This is important

[punker]

It's a good thing they did this. Otherwise, the Beatles would have no incentive to produce new songs.

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:yea right

[RDW]

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

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

Re:yea right

[fractoid]

Well yes, money is why companies do things. But wait, let me get this straight - because of copyright law, a company is releasing music to the public that otherwise may never have been released?

Isn't that the entire purpose of copyright law? To encourage the release of artwork? Is this not a perfect example of copyright working as intended?

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.

Similar to Bob Dylan

[larry bagina]

100 copies of "Copyright Extension Collection Volume 1" (yeah, that's the name) were sold in Europe last year.

Re:yea right

[TubeSteak]

Isn't that the entire purpose of copyright law? To encourage the release of artwork?

Not originally, no.
Copyright was originally meant as a means of censorship and was entirely focused on publishers, not authors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licensing_of_the_Press_Act_1662

"An Act for preventing the frequent Abuses in printing seditious treasonable and unlicensed Bookes and Pamphlets and for regulating of Printing and Printing Presses."

The actual history of Anglo copyright goes back another 120ish years when the crown first decided that censorship was important and started limiting the right to publish.

/For the sake of brevity, I won't get into monks writing curses against copying in their manuscripts