Who owns the music on early Beatles acetates?

Bootleg audio discussion for anything John, Paul, George and Ringo
jgjohnson
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Who owns the music on early Beatles acetates?

Post by jgjohnson »

I was reading about the Peter and Gordon Woman acetate here and that got me thinking about the “What Goes On” demo acetate that sold at Polygram Auctions a couple of years ago. That one was a demo made by John and Paul, and super interesting as an example of how the song evolved.
Is the music that is on that disc under a copyright law, or could someone put it out in a grey market release? There is that double CD that was released in 2013 on a label called Popular Demand called “The Beatles Talking’ in Stereo” that contained a press conference but also contained Some Other Guy and Kansas city taken from the Granada cavern Club acetates. It also had the Cavern tape we all have with Catswalk, etc. That one was widely sold and I think Amazon had it.
I kept hoping that one of the owners, either new or previous, would do something with a tape of “What Goes On” so we could all hear it. Is there a legal reason why this could not be done?
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Tex
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Re: Who owns the music on early Beatles acetates?

Post by Tex »

If it only exists as an acetate and there is no tape source owned by EMI then the owner of the acetate owns the recording. The same is true for live recordings.

Unfortunately Apple would sue anyone trying to commercially release it. While they would have no technical claim they would still bring you to court and put you in debt hiring lawyers.
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Golem
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Re: Who owns the music on early Beatles acetates?

Post by Golem »

generally there are rules against sharing them when you buy it
The Milky Bar Kid
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Re: Who owns the music on early Beatles acetates?

Post by The Milky Bar Kid »

Acetates made for song publishers like Dick James Music (at their studios) or for Northern Songs would probably belong to the song publishing company that asked for the acetates in the first place (or would belong to the entity that controls either the publishing company, or the publishing rights, nowadays).

John and Paul are now getting control of their songs (up to and including "Paperback Writer", "Rain" and "Woman", so far - "Woman" has been given a Paul McCartney, John Lennon credit at Paul's website (but it was given a McCartney credit alone, in the credits for the Peter Jackson film - I'm guessing that PJ's people were left alone to put their film together and didn't check in with either Apple Corps or MPL Communications about the changing status of "Woman" and used the then-current status, instead)).

Ownership of the physical and tangible asset (the acetate) probably remains with the song publisher, I'd think and would go to John and/or Paul along with the copyright, but ensuring that (when the acetates have been openly bought/sold/traded) would be hard to enforce...
musigny23
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Re: Who owns the music on early Beatles acetates?

Post by musigny23 »

Tapes and acetates legally in the possession of an individual are the property of that individual. However they probably don't also own the the rights to the song(s) and performance(s). So they can't commercialize the material on their own without seeking permission etc. At the same time the artist/rights holder can't either if they aren't in possession of the physical recording. They must work out a deal with the owner of the physical recording. That often makes artists annoyed and unwilling to pursue it. Physical recording owners have been known to make unrealistic demands for compensation.
jgjohnson
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Re: Who owns the music on early Beatles acetates?

Post by jgjohnson »

So for example the “What Goes On Acetate”. It’s just John and Paul. If you owned the acetate, you would have to get permission from Paul, even though this was a recording that was not made with commercial intentions? I don’t see why Apple would get involved, unless it’s as was pointed out here, just to make things difficult.
dk2600
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Re: Who owns the music on early Beatles acetates?

Post by dk2600 »

Have a look at https://copyright.gov/ and you'll know much more of US copyrights.

Search copyright records and you'll get this:
https://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebr ... 728&SID=27

Type of Work: Music
Registration Number / Date: RE0000682887 / 1995-10-30
Renewal registration for: EFO000112089 / 1966-02-10
Title: Woman. w & m Bernard Webb, pseud. of Paul McCartney & John Lennon.
Copyright Claimant: Paul McCartney (A), Yoko Ono (W), Sean Ono Lennon & Julian Lennon (C)
Variant title: Woman
Names: Webb, Bernard, pseud.
Lennon, John
McCartney, Paul
Ono, Yoko
Lennon, Sean Ono
Lennon, Julian

Please notice that Johns part is now with Yoko, Sean and Julian, and thus Julian gets money from the rights.

The newest document is:
V3622 D267 P1-3 dated 2012-12-28

https://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebr ... Fa3O-HdIfD

Paul has terminated his part of the composition

Woman. EU922868 (1966) Termination effective 1Feb22.
Woman / EFO112089 (1966) Termination effective 10Feb22.

Please notice. The copyrights at Library of Congress is only for the US.

There's so many many facts even with lots of un-released releases.
stereoman33
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Re: Who owns the music on early Beatles acetates?

Post by stereoman33 »

this is kind of ironic, being worried about being sued for posting an old unreleased recording of peter and gordon, when this entire website is full of old unreleased and released beatles recordings...not to mention the unreleased peter and gordon recording that seems to sit happily on youtube
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Golem
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Re: Who owns the music on early Beatles acetates?

Post by Golem »

stereoman33 wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 3:44 pm this is kind of ironic, being worried about being sued for posting an old unreleased recording of peter and gordon, when this entire website is full of old unreleased and released beatles recordings
well yeah but when you buy an acetate you give your name and details to the auction house you buy it from, nothing would probably happen but there's a chance you could get in trouble if you leaked a song directly after buying it
stereoman33
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Re: Who owns the music on early Beatles acetates?

Post by stereoman33 »

well it seems that at least one side of the acetate is on youtube...so somebody has already leaked it...8 years ago!
and it's been played now over 15,000 times...
and I just found another you tube posting of the complete song ...under Gordon Waller (the other posting was missing the last 6 seconds)
so i think the cat's already out of the bag on the woman acetate
whilst people were arguing about making it available, the thing is actually freely available on a very public forum..and has been for years!
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