The Beatles and iTunes just showed us how broken the copyright system is

This week, fans of The Beatles received an early Christmas present when the group's label, Apple Corps, surprise-released on iTunes a rare, two-hour collection of obscure demos, studio outtakes, and live BBC performances from the band's early mop-top days.

Indeed, The Beatles Bootleg Recordings 1963 has a lot of material for the Fab Four's fans to comb through: 59 raw, unpolished tracks — including three different versions of "From Me to You" — available for the non-bootleg price of $39.99.

But there was much about the release that struck many as odd. Why would a group with a historical imprint like The Beatles go the Beyoncé route and suddenly drop a surprise album out of nowhere? And why is the album an incoherent arrangement of unpolished bootlegs that — quite noticeably — haven't been re-mastered?

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It turns out that the real purpose of the album could be to extend the label's expiring copyright.

As several reports have pointed out, the material's 50-year copyright was up on Jan. 1, 2014. But thanks to an obscure 1993 revision to the European Union's existing copyright laws, releasing the songs to the public — however briefly — grants the label another 20 years of exclusive ownership.

In other words, the songs never enter the public domain, and independent labels can't cobble Beatles recordings together to sell or distribute. (At least not legally.)

Although Apple Corps declined to comment to CNN on its motivations for the surprise Christmas gift, there is some recent historical precedent: Back in January, Sony Records similarly "issued" 100 physical copies of a little-heard Bob Dylan compilation recorded in 1962. Sony's not-so-subtle title?

(via Wikipedia)

Consequence of Sound reports that in some countries, The Beatles' bootleg collection was pulled from iTunes after just a few hours of availability, swaddled anew in another two decades' worth of restrictions and left once again to gather cobwebs.