{"id":29183,"date":"2014-12-15T00:02:18","date_gmt":"2014-12-15T05:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=29183"},"modified":"2014-12-13T18:23:36","modified_gmt":"2014-12-13T23:23:36","slug":"sony-games-the-copyright-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/12\/15\/sony-games-the-copyright-laws\/","title":{"rendered":"Sony games the copyright laws"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At <em>Techdirt<\/em>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techdirt.com\/articles\/20141207\/06562729345\/labels-barely-release-1964-dylan-beach-boys-archive-materials-solely-to-get-extended-copyrights.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">Mike Masnick<\/a> explains why Sony released only a tiny number of pressed CDs of 1964 musical tracks:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Two years ago we wrote about the very odd release, by Sony, of just 100 copies of a set of previously unreleased Bob Dylan tracks. Why so few? Well, Sony sort of revealed the secret in the name of the title. See if you can spot it: <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/imgur.com\/rJ5WtCU\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Bob-Dylan-Copyright-Extension.jpg\" alt=\"Bob Dylan - Copyright Extension\" width=\"598\" height=\"598\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-29184\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Bob-Dylan-Copyright-Extension.jpg 598w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Bob-Dylan-Copyright-Extension-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Bob-Dylan-Copyright-Extension-480x480.jpg 480w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Bob-Dylan-Copyright-Extension-50x50.jpg 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 598px) 100vw, 598px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Yup. The release had absolutely nothing to do with actually getting the works out to fans, and absolutely everything to do with copyright. You see, back in 2011, despite having <em>absolutely no economic rationale<\/em> for doing so, the EU retroactively <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techdirt.com\/articles\/20110908\/15491315851\/eu-officially-seizes-public-domain-retroactively-extends-copyright.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">extended copyright<\/a> on music from 50 years to 70 years. However, there was a tiny catch: there was a &#8220;use it or lose it&#8221; provision in the law, saying that the music had to have been &#8220;released&#8221; to qualify for that 20 year extension. Thus, Sony realized with Dylan that it had to &#8220;release&#8221; (and I use the term loosely) some of its old recordings that had never been officially released, or it would lose the copyright on them.<\/p>\n<p>The other major labels have been doing the same. Last year, there was a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/12\/12\/arts\/music\/european-copyright-laws-lead-to-rare-music-releases.html?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\">series of releases<\/a> of 1963 music, including more from Dylan, along with some previously unreleased Beatles tunes (at least those were somewhat more widely available). This year, we&#8217;re getting a <a href=\"http:\/\/mobile.nytimes.com\/blogs\/artsbeat\/2014\/12\/05\/rare-dylan-recordings-set-for-release-in-copyright-extension-bid\/?_r=0&#038;referrer=\" target=\"_blank\">new crop of barely released 1964 songs<\/a> including (yet again) more from Dylan, along with some from the Beach Boys as well (and some expect more Beatles tunes as well). <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At Techdirt, Mike Masnick explains why Sony released only a tiny number of pressed CDs of 1964 musical tracks: Two years ago we wrote about the very odd release, by Sony, of just 100 copies of a set of previously unreleased Bob Dylan tracks. Why so few? Well, Sony sort of revealed the secret in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[831,9,28],"tags":[311,135,200],"class_list":["post-29183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-law","category-media","tag-1960s","tag-copyright","tag-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-7AH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29183"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29185,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29183\/revisions\/29185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}