Beatlemania Returns to Canada: This Time, in Public Domain, Spurring Fight
In early February, a half century after The Beatles created a frenzy upon North American shores, Love Me Do became the top-selling CD at Walmart stores in Canada.
The reason why might be partly tied to Canadian copyright law. Until recently, sound recordings were only protected for 50 years. As a result, early '60s recordings by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys and others have fallen into the public domain up north to go alongside works like Ian Fleming's James Bond character that have also become subject to a lesser copyright term.
Taking advantage of this fact is a company called Stargrove Entertainment, which began producing CDs full of public domain recordings and then selling them at retailers like Walmart for five bucks each. The cheap Beatles albums introduced to the Canadian market earlier this year were a hit.
But what happened next, according to Stargrove's 408-page filing on Tuesday with the Canadian Competition Tribunal (read in full below), was interference by vertically integrated music giants, Universal and Sony.
Although the recordings were free to be exploited by anybody, a Beatles album embodies compositions necessitating the clearance of publishing rights. This usually happens without a fuss. "In practice, the market for the issuance of mechanical licenses operates as though it were a compulsory system," states Stargrove in its filing. "The process is so automatic that record labels press and sell CDs before obtaining mechanical licenses."
By: Eriq Gardner
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
