Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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

Posted by Soulskill on from the they-get-by-with-a-little-help-from-their-lobbyists dept.

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 So every year since 2012, studios go through their tape vaults to find unpublished music to get it on the market before the deadline.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.

21 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. How soon? by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 5, Informative
    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.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    1. Re: How soon? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re: How soon? by baronvonj5561 · · Score: 2

      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.

    3. Re:How soon? by StillAnonymous · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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?

    4. Re:How soon? by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, the public should be allowed to profit from the work of others.

      That's exactly true, and in fact that's the reason that the US Constitution plainly states that copyrights are to be granted only for limited times. The founders of this country clearly wanted the public to profit from the works of others, after as little as 14 years.

    5. Re:How soon? by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Well, yes, but when the constitution was written, 14 years after publication, the creator of the work was likely dead of the scurvy, or gout.

      Glad you brought that up.

      J.R.R. Tolkien has been dead since 1972. Middle Earth Enterprises goes after anything Do not have the nerve to mention H****t, lest ye be sued. The Tolkien family and Middle Earth Enterprises, asre even busy suing each other. So THIS is what the perpetual copyright system is heading toward, Lawsuits and pecuniary extraction

      It's a real hoot of a read , The legal travails of a man dead since 1972. And it's the direction we are moving in. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    6. Re:How soon? by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 2

      Actually, if made it past childhood, life expectancy back then wasn't dramatically less than it is now. It certainly wasn't 5X less, like the copyright terms were.

      I can also never figure out why anybody gives a damn about the lifetime of the author. The crew that mudjacked my driveway 20 years ago are probably still alive. None of them are showing up here demanding tips when people park on my driveway.

    7. Re:How soon? by tepples · · Score: 2

      Screw creating your own things.

      Even if I create my own things, how can I be sure that I haven't accidentally re-created someone else's things?

    8. Re: How soon? by fustakrakich · · Score: 2

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

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    9. Re:How soon? by Opportunist · · Score: 2, Insightful

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

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    10. Re:How soon? by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 4, Insightful

      People like you can't seem to wrap your heads around the difference between the physical product of some unit of manual labor, and the creation of an idea.

      I know that they're completely different. Copyright fanbois are the ones who don't realize that copyrights are a ham-fisted attempt to make an infinitely replicable idea seem more like a physical object via creating artificial scarcity through government fiat.

      And the differences don't apply to my point: You do some work. You get paid for it. Then you should move on and do more work. Your grandchildren should not be able to charge rents a century down the road based on artificially created scarcity without having to do work themselves. That makes no economic sense.

      Compare the value of all the tea in crates on docks in Boston harbor in 1776 against the intangible ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, and tell me which was more valuable.

      Indeed those documents were very valuable. Somehow they even got created without the benefit of copyright protection or ownership rights by their authors. How could that be? Maybe it's because copyright is highly overrated in the first place.

    11. Re:How soon? by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Just explain to me why an artist should be entitled to live off one single creation for the rest of his life while everyone else has to keep working to earn money.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    12. Re: How soon? by scum-e-bag · · Score: 2

      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.

      --
      Does it go on forever?
  2. Stealing by itzly · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Copyright extension is stealing.

  3. The day the music and freedom died. by deviated_prevert · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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 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.

    --
    This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
    1. Re:The day the music and freedom died. by jedidiah · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  4. Re:Surprisingly frank? by NotQuiteReal · · Score: 2

    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...]"

    --
    This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
  5. Summary is wrong by Charliemopps · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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...
    A&M is owned by UMG:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...
    The largest Music publishing company in the world who's owned by Vivendi:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V...
    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...
    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...

    The real pirates are the music labels.

  6. It's crap anyway. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 2

    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?

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  7. Dastar v. Fox by tepples · · Score: 2

    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.

  8. Why can't copyright holders... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2

    Let it be.