Lasse Penttinen
4 Nov 2004 10:53
An article at The Register guided me to the online diary of Robert Fripp, a King Crimson band member. In the article and the diary were most interesting comments about online music trading, and un-authorized selling of King Crimson music on corporate web sites!
The license for the KC/RF catalogue expired on December 31st. 2004 with a six months sell-off period. This imposed the requirement that no further pressing of catalogue titles might take place, although existing stock may continue to be sold until 30th. June. No digital rights, for downloading, were ever granted to Virgin. When the reversion of the license was originally agreed in 1993 (under the Endless Grief out-of-court settlement) the technology was not available. And specifically, disagreement over the digital rights' issue ended DGM's re-licensing negotiations with Virgin/EMI last year.Article at The Register reminds you of the poor deal that the artists (or Apple!) are getting with the iTunes. Majority of the revenue still goes to record companies, even though the distribution has be de-materialized. The whole deal with the King Crimson music on the other hand shows how much they really care about copyrights.
Nevertheless, i-Tunes Europe began to add Crimson titles on June 27th. 2004 continuing into July; also on OD2. It took several weeks for us to have these downloads removed.