New Motown titles on Hallmark

[wichmanne]

Amazon UK has some strange Motown titles out early next year on a label called Hallmark.

They appear to be straight reissues of very early Motown albums including Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye and Hi We're The Miracles.

The price is suspiciously low at £2.21

Anyone know anything more about these releases?

[jobeterob]

I think someone on here posted that these had passed into the public domain which I assume means "no universal, no motown, no emi etc"..........I wonder if it means no royalties to those that were still receiving them.

Someone else will elaborate.

[reese]

Hello.

In this thread, there is a topic entitled "Are These For Real?" A lot of info re these releases can be found in there.

[mr_postman]

http://soulfuldetroit.com/showthread.php?4353-Are-these-for-real

[Strange]

I think someone on here posted that these had passed into the public domain which I assume means "no universal, no motown, no emi etc"..........I wonder if it means no royalties to those that were still receiving them.

Someone else will elaborate.

Briefly, unlike the US [[which I believe is 75 years, or maybe 99 even) the European Union allowed copyright ownership to lapse after 50 years and especially since 2006 [[the 50th anniversary of the rock era commencing) their have been multiple releases by numerous companies of recordings from these years.

A few months back the lobbying to change things to 70 years was successful and this will be the last year I believe that old tracks will be available as a free-for-all. So anything prior to 1962 is fair game, and you and I could copy them on our computer jobeterob and make up a label and CD and sell them...sort of!

Ironic that just as the first Beatles recordings are threatened with this cheapskate attitude that the law is re-drafted/extended. Just funny that...

And yep, no royalties for those recordings either. They are now 'public domain' for ever in Europe. Hallmark are a budget company who can and do take advantage of such things.

[jobeterob]

Incredible.

Good information Strange. Thanks.

Also, not very artist friendly information.