Posted before about mysterious appearances of vintage soundtracks from no name labels on iTunes and other services, often different editions of scores in release by FSM, Intrada and the other speciality labels. Now, just weeks after FSM puts out that Lassie box -- something I never in life thought would ever get released by anyone -- Lassie Come Home and Courage of Lassie are now suddenly on iTunes and Amazon mp3. So is Eye of the Devil, for that matter. Is there a connection? Same source material/masters used? Are distribution rights being violated?
The studios retain all rights to the music beyond whatever limited CD release FSM, Intrada, or the like has secured, including download rights. (The very rare exception in the recent Ron Jones set, which FSM is now selling on iTunes.)
Yeah... something similar happened to me when I copied my CD of House of Usher over to my i-tunes.
It found a cover (which surprised me - 99% of the albums I copy to i-tunes don't have covers and sometimes no track listing - I have to add all that stuff later) but it was an alternate cover.
So I virtually strolled over to the i-tunes store to take a look and another company's version of House of Usher had been released on i-tunes on the same day as the Intrada one, for much less price.
I wasn't that worried about the price because, frankly, I'd take a physical CD over a download anytime but the inclusion of this and some other albums I subsequently checked out which were on there for download did give me pause for thought.
Surely i-tunes wouldn't carry bootleg recordings, right? What's the story here? Anyone know?
Hmm. I was hoping this would be about Adrian Johnston's Lassie, which I don't think has ever been released.
As for your question, the labels emphasize frequently that they only have the rights for their limited physical editions; they don't have download rights, nor do their rights extend to download restrictions. The labels are, basically, (as I understand it, anyway,) leasing the music rights for a limited pressing. The owners of the material are free to do what they want with the music after that.
