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

[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.

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: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: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