when is buddys music gonna be released on cd properly? I know there is legal hassles with his widow and family as to who owns the rights. but it seems to me the ones who are losing out are his fans. Whatever label owns his recordings really should put out buddy hollys music or a box set or something. i think its a joke someone of his caliber doesnt have a proper disc catolog that is remastered properly and collects all his music or even a a 2 disc set like the buddy holly collection on MCA but remastered and with some more tracks or even the apartment tapes. does any one know if buddys music will ever see the light of day properly mixed and mastered? I mean you hear some music from the 50s mastered and mixed and the quality is amazing I think buddy deserves that at least. is there any news on this front?

It's been going on for 46 years, all this legal hassle, and there's a strong bet that it's gonna go on for another 46 years before this gets resolved. With Buddy's music, the best thing you can do is be prepared to get lots of CDs with a lot of the same tracks and a couple new songs with every CD. Check Ebay for bootleg collections, such as What You Been A Missin and the Complete Buddy Holly, but that's about all the optimiscim I can offer you.
Paul Macarteny owns the songwriting rights, but apparently those must be different than those that are needed to produce a CD because although Paul has done us a great favour with the Real Buddy Holly Story, yes, we're still waiting for that all inclusive box set that is availble world wide without begging and bartering on Ebay nor will cost a flippin mint.

I understand that. but there is no reason, that they cannot release tracks that are already released in better sound quality like the "chirping crikets release" which had better sound. I think they can even rerelease the recordings they do have the rights to in new superior sound and a better compilation. Like i Said i think the parties involved would put their differences aside for buddy & his music which should be out and accesible for the public to enjoy. Yes the family and his widow deserve the royalties they have coming, but with no music out no royalties for anyone no music for his fans and that is just a sad legacy that i think is a disservice to buddy holly & his legacy.

i would advise against doing business with bootleggers....they are the lowest form of human debri on the planet; they contributed absolutely nothing to buddy holly's career or music, but like leeches, they suck the blood from his memory and legacy, and bleed his fans dry for another dollar. and they do it illegally.

i'm not sure what the legal issues are in regards to The Complete Buddy Holly, but it's a comprehensive collection that was released in 1979 on cassette and LP, containing over 100 songs, properly mixed and mastered. and it's a legal release from MCA, not a cheesy bootleg from some lowlife working out of his garage.

my suggestion would be to lobby MCA for this to be re-released on CD. it contains everything from the buddy and bob country stuff to the apartment tapes, interviews, etc....

as far as record labels releasing collections that have only one or two extra songs, with the rest being songs that have been released previously, that is standard procedure. there are very few, if any, 'best of' or 'greatest hits' collections that contain everything that artist did. the labels always hold something back so that you have to buy another product from them to get the additional song(s).

as rush always says, when you want to know the motive for something - follow the money. and in music, the motive is ALWAYS money. at least, when it concerns record labels. actually, it applies to bootleggers too, but at least the record labels are obeying the law and making sure the royalties are properly distributed. the bootleggers take all the money and put it in their bank accounts.

Bootlegs today via CD are vastley superior to what they were in the past when they were rip offs.
The first one -by Bob Dylan-came with a white label and no artwork nothing.
I only know of Beatles ones but they are so authentic looking that only the lack of a barcode tells you they are not official releases.
Thus the ANTHOLOGY 4 is exactly modelled on the 4 released Anthologies,has detailed sleeve notes
and inclusion or very rare material unobtainable elsewhere.
Like it says somewhere else on this forum-bootlegs with a conscience

And speaking of Beatles boots the clowns who put them out were so ignorant that they would mislead the consumer
Such as one called the Beatles at Shea Stadium was of a show recorded at the Forest Hills stadium!

Buy a mint copy of The Complete Buddy Holly on vinyl and burn it to CD. At the moment that's the only way to get all the official recordings on CD. Sure, it ain't gonna be true CD quality, but at least it's all there in a convenient format until something better comes along. That's what I did, and I'm glad of it.

Those, who hate bootleggers, have a problem.

Bootleggers get the money, they don't.

It's so easy to solve the problem.

Be ahead of the bootleggers, get the songs

published before any gangsters are tryin' to

make some illegal money !

IT'S SO EASY !

Those who have not yet published songs from

their vaults should know that time is not on

their side.

If they wait and wait and wait until they are

old and grey, the market for bootleggers is

wide open . . .

But publishing some gems officially before

others are trying to do the same without

legitimation makes them stronger and stronger,

that's the way it goes.

I don't understand that there are 4 parties

talking about publishing the rest of the Buddy

Holly legacy, 3 of 4 say "yes", 1 says "no" and

nothing happens.

Those who sell bootlegs to get a lot of money

on their bank accounts have a big grin on their

face and hope that the actual situation will

last another 46 years longer.

Most Buddy Holly fans are no teenagers, that

means that those who buy the products will

dissapear from this world within the next 10

or 20 years.

Those who are fighting about the rights to

release all unissued material and additionally

the songs, that were only released on vinyl,

should wake up soon and do what they must do for all of us, the ardent Buddy Holly fans.



From the other side of the planet

Buddy's German buddy

HANS

http://www.buddyhollylives.info/

the problem isn't the 'publishing' of the songs, Hans, with due respect. the problem is the ownership of certain recordings. the rights to 'recordings' aren't the same as the rights to 'publishing'.

in the case of Buddy Holly, you have songs that were recorded in his bedroom, at age 13, all the way up to songs recorded in his apartment, one month before his untimely death. the cover songs represented in these recordings were all legally published. the original songs were not. but the ownership rights to the recordings were the issue, since publishing of a given song or recording is simply a legal formality beyond a certain point. it's true that in the basic order of things, a song is first published, then later recorded. but it often doesn't work out that way, especially when dealing with posthumous recordings and/or demos.

again, in the case of someone who's died, such as Buddy, the question becomes: do we release these recordings to the public in their raw form or would Buddy have wanted that? and if it's decided that he would've wanted that, then how do we release them and make them available? these are the questions that should have been asked, but for one reason or another, due to grief, wrong motives, misunderstandings, and even greed, they were not. and some Holly recordings were overdubbed and/or released without proper consideration of his memory and/or what he might've or would've wanted. we can't possibly assume that Buddy would've wanted his rough demos released to the world - either overdubbed or in their raw form.

those who had a say in what was released to the public should've based their decisions on the legacy and memory of Buddy Holly, rather than on what some people, who were supposedly fans, wanted. instead, many of the decisions were made in haste, based on the huge demand for Holly recordings, in the years after his death. and of course, greed played a role.

you and i love Holly and his music, and anything he did. but those who loved him, worked with him, and were related to him, bore a certain responsibility to his memory, in what they chose to release or not release. since so many mistakes were made in the first few years after his death, by allowing his demos to be overdubbed and released, with little regard for what he might've wanted or not wanted, cooler heads prevailed ultimately, and decided to be very cautious about anything that was released. perhaps the caution was a little overdone, but it was in response to the rush to release literally everything he'd ever played on, which proved to be a mistake, at least at it pertains to the overdubbing, and insensitive things that were added to certain demos and unreleased songs.

but in regards to what the bootleggers did, ultimately, in my view, they proved themselves to be sleazy, without conscience, acting illegally and totally against the wishes of Buddy's family. i don't consider them fans. they are lowlifes, who put financial gain ahead of all other considerations, as they deceived Ella Holley and hid tape recorders in their backpacks while she played music that was never meant for public release, thinking that the people in her living room were die-hard fans who loved Buddy.

i have no respect for bootleggers - they are opportunists of the worst order - making money off the hard work of other people, without concern for that person's wishes, for their reputations, their legacy, or their loved ones.
certainly, many in the 'legitimate' music business had exactly the same motives, tendencies, and lack of integrity, and unfortunately, still do today.

or as the Apostle Paul once said "love of money is the root of all evil."

In Britain any recording thais is over fifty years of age is now public domain, any of those recordings can be released by any label, of course they still have to pay the royalites to the writers of the songs.

A bad law I think, I believe in America the copyright of recordings goes on much longer.

What it boil;s down to over in britain is that
the next of kin of many singers form the fifty's who have died are not getting the money to help them through their retirement .

J. B. Franklin

To clarify the present Copyright Law In the United Kingdom.
Royalty’s paid to the Composers of a song are payable up to fifty years after the death of the writer, in the case of a song having more than one writer, royalty’s will be paid up to fifty years after the death of the last surviving writer.

With regards to the payment of a royalty (Artist / Arranger Royalty
Of that song , This is payable for fifty years from the day the song was released for retail. After that time those recordings go into Public Domain, So in fact any one can copy those recordings, without any permission from the original copyright owners of those recordings, and release them for Public sale, Of course they must still pay composer royalty’s, as explained at the top of this post .

In America the period of time that a recording stays with that particular Copyright owner remains , for a longer period, but I am not sure of the length of that particular period , hopefully some one in the know can tell us.
We are talking of Recordings Copyright and not Song Copyright.

Could someone from say Britain, legitimately release any of Buddys recordings , for sale , as and when the copyright period expires under British Copyright Law, as these recordings become fifty years of age in the next two years. ?

J.B. Franklin

intriguing questions, all.

in America, the period is 75 years. but it is possible for family members and/or the copyright holder of that song (publisher, record label, what have you) to renew the copyright protection for an additional period.

as to master recordings, and who owns the rights to them, that is typically spelled out in a given contract at the time the recording is made - one that all parties have signed and agreed to. of course, in the case where no contract ever existed, such as with posthumous recordings and/or demos, then it becomes a legal question. whoever is in possession of the recordings has a certain advantage obviously, although music lawyers, hired by other concerned parties, have fought to recover the rights to these type of recordings. but meanwhile, they may have been released. it can get rather messy, in regards to the legalities and rights of those concerned. in the case of someone who's relatively unknown, with only moderate interest from the public sector, then of course you would have less pressure on the various parties because of the lack of potential monetary gain. but in the case of someone huge like Buddy Holly, the stakes were quite high, and before his family, Maria, Coral Records, and Norman Petty could amicably work out what would be done, each of the parties made certain decisions for their own particular reasons, irrespective of the others. and that of course, led to the circumstances i spoke of in the previous post. the public had a lot to do with the bad decisions, in that there was enormous pressure on everyone to release anything and everything that Buddy had ever done.

as to whether Britain could release certain recordings due to the 50 year period, i don't believe they could. the reason is that those recordings were made in the USA and the copyright agreements and contracts were all made under US law and are under the juristiction of US courts. performing rights organizations like ASCAP and BMI have agreements with foreign countries, and those are for the most part, honored. so i doubt any label in Britain would try to get away with releasing anything that was legally not theirs to release. an agreement could be reached wherein certain songs were released - that is common - but royalties would have to be paid to the writers, according to US law, and released 'by permission' of the holders of the copyrights and owners of the master recordings.

i believe Paul McCartney owns virtually all of the copyrights to Holly songs, though ownership of the master recordings is another matter altogether.

Hi Jerry,

It makes sense, what you have explained, about American Copryright Law, and as you say recordings are frequently licensed, by other foreign countrys, mainly for compilation albums. I would suppose that any Rcordings made in America released in a foreign country would be subject to the Copyright Laws of the Country they were released in, after all if an American Commits Murder in Britain, under British law (at present) he would not be executed, where as the same crime commited in America, he could get the death Penalty.

Surely one cant force the laws of Copyright of one country onto another. ?

Each country has trade barriers on certain goods, and when you sell goods in foreign Country's your monetary returns can be less,
I hope you are right I could ask the M.C.P.S.
to clarify the situation as we are members .
Sio I will do that and post again.

John Berry Franklin

Also to the above,

Yes of course when recordings are made and issued for public sale those Recordings are the property of the Record Company/Producer, who made them, but those recordings, (In United Kingdom) are ocnly copyright for a period of Fifty Years, from the first day of release , to the public
After that fifty years they are Public Domain
Any Record company can release them without taking out a license to the original Copyright owners, as i said before Composer Royalties are payable up until fifty years after the death of the writer, and where the song is a collaboration, after the death of the last surviving writer.

This all works two or more ways, A recording company based In thr U.K. can now release any songs (Without permission) that are over fifty years , Composer royalty's must still be paid.
until such a time that the Composer Royalty's period goes into Public Domain.

In effect every single song that is made in America is licensed to a Record Company in The U.K. to produce and distribute those records
and many American Publishers use U.K. based Sub Publishers to addminister royalty's.

If Jerry is right on his assumption that American Recordings sold in the U.K. are subject to American Copyright Laws. That means that by 2015 Many of the Beatles Recordings can be produced and sold in America
without any payment to the original Copyright owners of those recordings.

Does that seem fair?

So what I am saying is that should work Two Ways. we should be governed by the Copyright laws of the country that those record were made and sold, just like any other product that is sold under license in a country different from it's origin

John Berry Franklin