SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Victoria Shannon writes in the NYT 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 So every year since 2012, studios go through their tape vaults to find unpublished music to get it on the market before the deadline.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.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday December 20 2014, @06:07AM
Maybe I am the last member standing on Soylent News, but this is just too ironic to pass up. The "Copyright Extention Collection"? OK, Bob is dead. In fact, if you know the history, it is not the first time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 20 2014, @06:08AM
Can you clarify what you mean for those of us who are not Dylan obsessives?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday December 20 2014, @06:58AM
Several points. Folk scene in the early sixties, Dylan was one of the first to go "electronic". Some time later, poor Bob decided to become a Christian. Death for a jew. And now? Who knows. And, who cares? Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act of when Disney needed it, as well. Karma in intellectual property is a bitch, as I recall.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday December 20 2014, @05:17PM
Well, I don't believe in karma, but IMO Sony got what they've deserved and whoever fucked up their systems has my thanks; Sony's XCP malware fucked one of my computers up.
Even though I hold registered copyrights (one came in the mail yesterday), or maybe because I do, I say copyrights are WAY too long. They hinder creativity. Example: I would have liked to include the lyrics to two songs off of "Dark Side of the Moon" in the article "Dork Side of the Moon" (it's a true story about an attempted murder on a night with a total lunar eclipse) in an upcoming book, but its songwriter is dead and I have no way of knowing who holds the rights so I could get permission to use it. Those songs are 40 years old and should be in the public domain by now.
Sony Bono is surely burning in hell right now. I'd like to visit his grave so I could piss on it. Damned whores...
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org