Gordon Crovitz: Money Can't Buy Me Beatles
[Gordon Crovitz is a media and information industry advisor and executive, including former publisher of The Wall Street Journal, executive vice president of Dow Jones and president of its Consumer Media Group.]
For two days last week, it seemed that the last holdouts had relented, making their music available digitally. It then turned out that the owners of the Beatles had not changed their minds. Instead, the cut-rate 25 cents a song was the result of what a federal judge called a brazen violation of copyright law.
This episode is a reminder that the rights holders in the most successful band ever still keep the Internet at arm's length. Do the cultural icons of the 1960s just not get it? Or is there a lesson for others trying to make their way through the long and winding road of economics on the Web?
The Beatles and their heirs have refused to make their songs available on the Apple iPod or other devices. They are not widely available for downloading on the Web. Beatles songs and albums are largely restricted to CDs, cassettes and records. This is why it was so surprising when a Web site called BlueBeat last week offered cheap downloads of some 500 Beatles songs. Music company EMI and other rights holders quickly got a federal judge to order the site to stop.
BlueBeat owner Hank Risen claimed he was the copyright owner to the Beatles songs as he offered them. He said he had used a "psycho-acoustic simulation device" to alter the songs, though they sounded just the way the Beatles recorded them.
Lawyers for EMI called this "digital music piracy of the most blatant kind." Judge John Walter agreed, saying that the Web site "cannot invalidate the copyright of an independent and preexisting sound recording, simply by incorporating that recording in to an audiovisual work." Or as copyright blogger Ben Sheffner put it, "This is absurd. One cannot copy a sound recording and then avoid an infringement claim by adding pictures."
But the real question is why, so many years into the era of digital music, the Beatles still don't allow digital downloads of their songs. Many bands now view the sales and illegal downloads of their songs as loss leaders for their live performances, but the last Beatles concert was in 1966. Rights holders such as John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, are well known for trying to protect exactly how Beatles songs are presented, limiting distribution...
Read entire article at WSJ
For two days last week, it seemed that the last holdouts had relented, making their music available digitally. It then turned out that the owners of the Beatles had not changed their minds. Instead, the cut-rate 25 cents a song was the result of what a federal judge called a brazen violation of copyright law.
This episode is a reminder that the rights holders in the most successful band ever still keep the Internet at arm's length. Do the cultural icons of the 1960s just not get it? Or is there a lesson for others trying to make their way through the long and winding road of economics on the Web?
The Beatles and their heirs have refused to make their songs available on the Apple iPod or other devices. They are not widely available for downloading on the Web. Beatles songs and albums are largely restricted to CDs, cassettes and records. This is why it was so surprising when a Web site called BlueBeat last week offered cheap downloads of some 500 Beatles songs. Music company EMI and other rights holders quickly got a federal judge to order the site to stop.
BlueBeat owner Hank Risen claimed he was the copyright owner to the Beatles songs as he offered them. He said he had used a "psycho-acoustic simulation device" to alter the songs, though they sounded just the way the Beatles recorded them.
Lawyers for EMI called this "digital music piracy of the most blatant kind." Judge John Walter agreed, saying that the Web site "cannot invalidate the copyright of an independent and preexisting sound recording, simply by incorporating that recording in to an audiovisual work." Or as copyright blogger Ben Sheffner put it, "This is absurd. One cannot copy a sound recording and then avoid an infringement claim by adding pictures."
But the real question is why, so many years into the era of digital music, the Beatles still don't allow digital downloads of their songs. Many bands now view the sales and illegal downloads of their songs as loss leaders for their live performances, but the last Beatles concert was in 1966. Rights holders such as John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, are well known for trying to protect exactly how Beatles songs are presented, limiting distribution...