Bob Dylan - The Copyright Extension Collection, Volume 1

quote:

---

"Even record executives occasionally stray into honesty," says James Boyle, a law professor at Duke University. "This is, in fact, a copyright extension collection. That's what it is."

Boyle says Dylan's label appears to be exploiting an obscure but potentially lucrative change in European copyright law.

The European Union recently extended the term of copyright for sound recordings from 50 years to 70 years. But, there's a catch.

"You actually have to have, at some point, distributed these songs during that initial 50-year period. These were masters that were lying in the vaults," Boyle says, "and none of them had ever seen the light of day. And so he had to get them out before that 50-year period expired in order to get the extra 20 years."

Because this material was recorded in 1962 and 1963, the label essentially has to use it or lose it to the public domain.

---