Heard about this last week, not a bad idea.

Money...it's a hit.

that's just really fucking shitty

Pink Floyd should be in public domain. Their music should be taught in schools around the world. Maybe it would decrease the amount of fuckheads there are out there.

It is shitty, but I'd probably do the exact same thing if I were in their position.

but do they really need the money that desperately? pretty shitty

it's all about the Benjamins what

I heard David Gilmour is pretty strapped for cash after the massive success of Rattle That Lock.

oh wait

yea fuck this band seriously hope they all go bankrupt

"Pink Floyd should be in public domain. Their music should be taught in schools around the world. Maybe it would decrease the amount of fuckheads there are out there."
born in the wrong generation much?

"born in the wrong generation much?"

someguest is like in his 40s I'm pretty sure.

so just your ordinary "get off my lawn" kind of fella?

Had no idea you could avoid public domain that way

Just to be sure, we're mad that a band wants to keep the copyrights to their own songs?

No opinion on the matter myself, in france public domain for most art including films/music starts at 70 years minimum so by then the artist is pretty much always dead and everybody is very happy to be able to appropriate themselves the concerned little piece of culture/history to be able to have fun with it and use it royalty free.

When the artist is alive it's definitly weird. Still, holding hostage your 50 year old past songs this way seems a bit like an unhealthy relation towards to your own work, like can't they just let go of it? but in the end I wouldn't know how it feels obvs

@Fieryfenderz That's not why, it's more to what extent the band would go just to keep it. It's pretty uncool for a band with this many fans to secretly release something in their own country with only limited copies. Basically, the fans are suffering at the expense of the artist getting some money. It also doesn't help with the kind of legal back-and-forth that happened in the 80s.

So is it like, if the band didn't release these old songs now, when they *did* release them (in the future) they'd automatically be placed in the public domain so anyone could rip them off without permission? So by releasing them now they establish that they will get all royalties for them, at least for a few decades? Seems pretty OK to me.

makes sense they want to make money off songs they put the work into just like any of their full-length albums, stop bitching errbody

"yea fuck this band seriously hope they all go bankrupt"

Lol shut the fuck up

Lol no

Just to be sure, we're mad that a band wants to keep the copyrights to their own songs?

Man I love how copyright systems in the US and UK work.

50 years is just some arbitrary amount of time, if they want to make a profit off the work that they did good for them

50 years is just some arbitrary amount of time, if they want to make a profit off the work that they did good for them.

"Do you consider the laws that protect your rights and safety as arbitrary?"


no but my safety isn't endangered if a band wants to capitalise on music they released 50 years ago lol

Good job missing the point. All laws are equal regardless of where you rank them in importance to your life or viewpoints.

and who decides if they're equal, you based on their importance to your life or viewpoints?

They are equal because they're all passed by the same practice and enforced in the same manner. Whether you think it's important is besides the point.

Disney just pulled some shit similar to this with their character trademark for the mouse here in the United States. And in that case it stifles innovation. In this case it just shows you some greedy old men.

The reason we have copyright and trademark law is to give ample time for an artist to reap the benefits of their work. Fifty years is ample. It isn't arbitrary - it's law. Do you consider the laws that protect your rights and safety as arbitrary?

There shouldn't be loopholes to them. The rights should expire as intended.

You're obviously misreading into these laws. They apply after 50 years that the work has not been released. Therefore, it would become public goods IF they didn't release it now, which they're doing. Which makes them 100% correct to do so. They're still alive, it's their work. Why the fuck would I want to give something I created during my lifetime to someone else? Does that mean that everybody should give their personal valuables up after 50 years has passed and they told nobody about them?

Yeah, that's the loophole in the law. This is a re-release. As far as I'm aware these songs have been out there before.

If it was new material we wouldn't have an issue. I've already said fifty years is more than enough to make money off of something.

...interested to hear these.

there's nothing special but it's not terrible either

it's their music. The law should not have any rights to give their music away for free. a lot of people will download it for free anyway.a lot of laws are bullshit

"Good job missing the point. All laws are equal regardless of where you rank them in importance to your life or viewpoints."

Including the law that they used as a "loophole?" You know there are ways to extend copyrights for a reason right?

God people here are stupid, reminds me why I left.

Sure its theirs and they were completely within their rights but being within your rights doesn't automatically make what you do right/not asshole-y.

If these songs were too subpar for release for the past 50 years that isn't going to change overnight. Releasing subpar material to make a quick buck and stop a few people from getting them free (lets be honest, how many peoe would've actually cared enough to notice and go dig these up?) is a pretty shitty move.

Either these songs are so shitty that no one but the 1% would want them, or there is enough of a market for Pink Floyd to release these songs and make some money from the material they put effort into producing. In my mind that people are getting butthurt about this is absurd. If the case is the former, then as if people suddenly give a shit about the 1% of fans who wouldn't mind listening to this crap for free (spare us please, there's worse things to worry about in the world/trash a band over) and if the case is the latter (i.e. there is a market for this music, implying that its GOOD music) then I see no issue with Pink Floyd making money off of their own hard work.

@someguest your opinion about laws is naive. Things are a lot darker and depressing than what you say.

Yeah well... It's a given is all for the $$$

Still, it's Pink Floyd so I will listen anyways...

"or there is enough of a market for Pink Floyd to release these songs and make some money from the material they put effort into producing."

of course there is, do you have any idea how many people will drop money for every single thing they release? (speaking from experience here)

if this were 2003 id prob buy 1965, but alas it is 2015

perhaps the only immoral thing about it is this is all syd material, like nearly 100% syd these songs, but the pink floyd name is gilmour and masons at this point (gilmour didnt join the band until 4 years after '65)

This wasn't about cash... if it were, they would have released far more than 1,000 copies of the EP. It was about ownership and musicians (or the Pink Floyd name in this case) wanting to continue to OWN the rights to their own material. Did anyone else actually see it was only 1,000 copies? They could have released 10,000 and it would have sold out in like 10 minutes at 100 bucks a pop.

This EP is the lethal combination of not just it being early Pink Floyd... but early Pink Floyd/Syd Barrett era. Hard to find many more hardcore collectors than those Syd fans.

Overall, this was a smart decision. As a musician, ownership is a BIG part of the game--if not the only one when you get to this point.

as one of those syd fanboys i will say these songs are generally really good and worth checking out

Don't see anything wrong with this. It's still their work (work they never released). Just because everyone now-a-days feels entitled to be giving everything they want (when it comes to entertainment anyway) for free doesn't mean an artist (or anyone) has to oblige them.

The comments here sum up this site in a nutshell.

how?

Love Pink Floyd and always will.

bubye

I really don't care about the semantics behind it, all that matters is that new Barrett-era tracks were released to the public and that makes me happy. I just hope this gets a wider distribution on CD soon.

i love music as much as the next guy but come on guys just fucking download it

i heard most of the material on the album like 15 years ago

they dont need the money and that wasnt even why they released it, they dont care