The Beatles - Bootleg Recordings 1963, NEW iTunes release 17. December 2013

That's a good question. A) Do the IBC demos predate their recording contract? B) Does ABKCO own the material that predates their recording contract?

 

Well at least you still care. The "New" album is the first time EVER that I have not bought a new McCartney studio album. I didn't buy Dylan's latest. I didn't buy Brian Wilson's latest solo album. My interest in the dinosaurs is slowly fading away...at least their attempts to be current.

 

Well, I didn't buy Dylan's latest, either. But I enjoy the overwhelming majority of what McCartney has put out since Run Devil Run, and, while New may be the slightest of the new studio albums he has put out in that time frame, I still enjoy most of it.

 

iTunes downloads always sound "pinched" to me. So even if the source material was on crappy equipment, I still like to hear it more flat and natural. Just my feelings about it.

Jeff

 

Do you have a source for this information? I think you're talking about the copyright on unpublished compositions and not unreleased recordings. In other words, the publishing copyright, not the recording copyright.

The relevant date for sound recordings is 2/15/72, not 1/1/78.

This PDF says that foreign sound recordings that were released in another country but not released in the US are covered by US law if the other country is part of some international agreement, but nothing about recordings that were never released in their country of origin prior to becoming public domain in that country.

This leads me to believe that becoming public domain in an originating country that's part of that agreement means it also becomes public domain here. It doesn't make much sense for an unreleased, unheard recording to become public domain in its country of origin but be subject to enforcement of copyright by the US government.

 

To each his own. I agree with those who find the current Mastered for iTunes Led Zeppelin albums to sound very enjoyable, and there's a lot more challenging information to reproduce on those recordings than there is on the Beatles' BBC recordings, many of which sound like they were recorded on a tin can connected to a string to begin with (and then taped off the air/archived on God knows what).

 

Tempest was the first new Dylan album I've ever bought. Very enjoyable work.

 

One more headache for the lawyers. My best guess is that a US judge would find that it doesn't matter if it's public domain somewhere else, it would be covered by US law in the US, but I don't know.

 

My two cents:

In early 1964 in Paris when they wanted to produce GERMAN language versions of "She Loves You" and "I Want Hold Your Hand" it was impossible to recycle the backing track for "She Loves You" because the tape had already been erased!!

They had to record an entirely new backing track that matched the original as much as possible. This meant they had to go through the process of setting up the same instruments with similar microphone positions as the July 1963 session to get something that sounded like the original. They got close but not quite. Surely EMI must have realized they screwed up by letting the "She Loves You" session tapes be erased because everyone now had to spend studio time recreating the backing track.

It's no surprise that after THAT they started keeping ALL the session tapes. Now if they wanted to produce a German or French version of their latest hit (or an album track they thought could be a hit single in another language) all they needed to do was just pull out the original tape, dub the music to another 4-track, and add new foreign language vocals.

The existance of the earlier session tapes may be just because they were in a different tape storage facility as a previous person mentioned.

 

That actually makes sense.

 

The IBC demos were done under their deal with Eric Easton and Andrew Oldham, who sold their shares to Allen Klein. The Stones were never signed directly to Decca. So I would presume that ABCKO owns the IBC material in conjunction with the Stones.

 

Ah, you're right about that. I was misreading.

As best I can discern, US copyright law doesn't make a distinction between released and unreleased material in terms of protection, as EU law does. It talks about copyright originating from the moment the work is "fixed in a tangible medium of expression." Authorship, not publication, is what is relevant to copyright if I'm understanding correctly.

It says that pre-72 foreign recordings not released in the US are covered by federal law under certain conditions. However, pre-72 foreign recordings not covered by federal law would still be covered by individual state laws. And according to this article, state laws seem to err on the side of keeping sound recordings out of the public domain. It seems to me that all recordings are covered under either federal or state law. I don't see how they could make a distinction between works created in the US and elsewhere.

 

It doesn't. That's why so many of the PD releases are from Europe. Where it gets sticky is a legal product from another country that violates U.S. Copyright being sold here.

 

In practice, though, what are they going to do - stand at the airport and confiscate legally produced CDs of works that are in the public domain in the EU but covered (maybe) by some state law here? And what state's law would apply? Who would be the complainant?

It seems very odd to me that a recording made in a foreign land and never heard or registered there or here could be "owned" by a company or individual in the US but by the population at large in the country of its production.

Quirky business.

 

The last Dylan album is great. The other Soo so so

 

Obviously there's no way they can prevent mail order sales of CDs that are PD in Europe but under copyright in the US. The best they can do is prevent US retailers from importing and selling them. But that of course wouldn't keep them out of the hands of anyone with internet access. I'm sure that's one of the big reasons why they are taking action to prevent the recordings from becoming PD in Europe... to keep them out of the US market. In this day and age of internet sales, if something becomes PD in Europe it's effectively "PD" here even if it's not.

Which state law would apply? I guess it would be the state where the US seller or US CD company was based.

 

You know they do have people (called Customs Agents) that stand at airports and people that check international mail for things that incoude copyright infringements. It's true they do not search every person and every package.

 

Really? I had not heard of these so-called "Customs Agents" of which you write before. Thanks for letting me know. Do they have public domain sniffing dogs? Would they probe my inner-groove with a lightly lubricated gentle gloved finger? I'm curious.

I'm sure they're sitting at their desks with a check list of all unreleased European recording session tapes dutifully checking off which ones to confiscate and which ones are cool to let pass. Government efficiency at its finest.

 

I'm a figure of great international standing. Whenever I travel in and out of these great United States, which I do quite often, I simply request, "Don't touch my bags, if you please, Mr. Customs Man."

 

As of tonight there's still no sign of this collection coming on iTunes........?

 

why would It be on tonight? it won't be there till the 17th

 

I really wonder whether they are going to issue this on the Ukrainian iTunes store. I mean we're not EU, but we are technically Europe. Hmmm

 

Joke all you want now, but you won't find it so funny when you're interrogated for hours and placed on the No Fly List for having the Bob Dylan Copyright Extension vinyl set in your suitcase. To make matters worse, when they were inspecting it, the bastards slightly dented one of the corners on the sleeve.

But I'd do it again in a heartbeat. You never know if they're gonna package it properly when you order online. It's just not worth the hassle.

 

Isn't that the 'song copyright' though, not 'sound recording' copyright? Here in the EU, these out-of-copyright sound recordings are NOT out of copyright regarding the songwriters and publishers. Even Public Domain CDs still have to pay royalties to the song publishers. It's the actual sound recordings of the songs that are out of copyright.

 

Why do Apple actually need to issue any post-1963 unreleased outtakes? If they are unreleased, then how do the issuing companies have them? They must therefore by definition be stolen or at best obtained without authorisation and Apple could issue an injunction barring release or sue for theft, no?