Key Of Grey

Photo courtesy of mayhem

November 19th, 2009 – A while ago, the blogs were aflutter over Bluebeat’s weak copyright defense. Bluebeat had been selling Beatles tracks for a quarter each, without the consent of the copyright holders. Bluebeat argued that the digital files weren’t a copy, but a computer-analyzed reconstruction of the track.

Of course, that argument didn’t hold up in court, but now Techdirt’s new editorial examines the RIAA’s (the major labels’ sue-happy bulldogs) double standard. There are two major types of copyrights in music, the copyright to the song, and one for the recording of that song. Copyright owners of the master recordings make a lot off residual royalties of their back catalog. The problem for them is that their ownership of those masters only lasts for so long. When it runs out, the recording becomes public domain.

Being a major source of revenue for major labels with huge catalogs, they want to keep making money off the recordings. So what they’ve been doing is “re-mastering” the recording and copyrighting the new master. This, in their minds at least, lets them own the music in perpetuity.

Techdirt draws comparisons to Bluebeat’s arguments, which were struck down in the courts. So will these “re-masters” also be struck down? I doubt it.

via TechDirt