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While the Stones’ Abkco vault is carefully protected, its basic contents have been widely known, and often available on bootlegs, for decades. In response, Abkco would need to make the recordings available more properly to avoid a transfer of the rights to the group.” (This issue was explored in further detail by The Verge on Friday.)īut of greater interest to fans more concerned with music than European copyright minutia is a recent forum post on the “It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll” fan site that contains unusually specific details about the songs and how the recordings, some of which are early or instrumental versions, were obtained by Abkco (which, as distributor, ordinarily would not have such works-in-progress in its archives).
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“The group could still try to terminate the assignment of rights for failure to make them available. “What Abkco did may have extended the copyright, although I think that’s somewhat debatable,” Rosen tells Variety.
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However, it is unclear whether a brief posting on YouTube meets the EU’s standards for a lawful publication. If unclaimed, the Stones almost certainly would have secured the rights for themselves, as the group has had an at-times contentious relationship with Abkco - and has long coveted the copyrights for “Satisfaction,” “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” “Honky Tonk Women” and dozens of their other ‘60s songs - over the 50 years since it parted ways with the company’s founder, the late Allen Klein, their former business manager and one of the most successful and tenacious executives in music-industry history. The terms of the “use it or lose it” provisions of a 2011 EU directive allow the artist to “terminate” the assignment of rights in unreleased sound recordings 50 years after they were made, prominent copyright attorney Zvi S. If the YouTube posts are deemed legitimate releases in the EU, Abkco’s copyright will term will last until the end of 2089. Abkco apparently has made similar moves in past years that went unnoticed, at least publicly, except by some fan groups.Ībkco’s motivation for posting the songs would seem clear: The company needed to “lawfully publish” or “lawfully communicate to the public” - i.e release them in some way - within 50 years after the performances were made, or it would lose the copyrights Bob Dylan, the Beatles and others have issued similar low-profile collections in recent years. They remained there - albeit with an ugly dial-tone-like sound obscuring the rarest recordings - for approximately 24 hours before being shifted from public to a private, invite-only setting.
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31, 2019 - the very end of the 50-year term recognized by the EU. The tracks, most of which date from 1969, were posted onto YouTube, apparently by Abkco, on the afternoon of Dec. While reps for both the Stones and Abkco Music & Records, which administers the group’s 1960s catalog, either declined or did not respond to Variety’s requests for comment, several sources and experts have commented on both the legalities of the situation and the recording details of the songs themselves. In the days since the brief New Year’s Eve “ copyright dump” of at least 75 rare Rolling Stones songs onto YouTube just hours before their European copyright was to expire, insiders and (especially) fans have speculated at length about the origins of the tracks and the legal ramifications of the move.