[NewsPoster]

A new Beatles album replete with songs previously available only as bootlegs will appear on iTunes on December 17, beating a copyright expiration in the United Kingdom. The album, called The Beatles: bootleg recordings 1963 will be exclusive to Apple's download service, and will serve to extend the copyright over the recordings for another 20 years. It is not known if the tracks will make it to iTunes radio.

Copyright protection on the 59 tracks rumored to be on the album expires at the end of 2014 thanks to a copyright reform bill recently signed in the UK. Should the tracks not be officially released before then, the Beatles copyright owners lose control of the songs to the public domain.

Roger Stormo, Norwegian blogger from the Beatles-centric "Wog Blog" broke the story last week. The BBC followed up with his report, and expects a large amount of similar releases from the music industry just before expirations to refresh the copyrights for two decades. The BBC pointed to an extremely limited edition of a Bob Dylan album from 2012 subtitled "The Copyright Extension Collection, Vol. 1" as what the music industry will be pumping out at the end of calendar years going forward.

Stormo reports the track list as follows. He noted that the recordings are from the Beatles' archives and are likely of better quality than the versions floating around that were originally recorded by private citizens or radio stations on reel-to-reel tape.

1. There's A Place - Takes 5, 6 (2:19)
2. There's A Place - Take 8 (1:58)
3. There's A Place - Take 9 (2:04)
4. Do You Want To Know A Secret - Track 2, Take 7 (2:17)
5. A Taste Of Honey - Track 2, Take 6 (2:12)
6. I Saw Her Standing There - Take 2 (3:07)
7. Misery - Take 1 (1:54)
8. Misery - Take 7 (1:56)
9. From Me To You - Take 1 & 2 (3:24)
10. From Me To You - Take 5 (2:17)
11. Thank You Girl - Take 1 (2:09)
12. Thank You Girl - Take 5 (2:04)
13. One After 909 - Take 1 & 2 (4:29)
14. Hold Me Tight - Take 21 (2:42)
15. Money (That's What I Want) - RM 7 Undubbed (2:48)
16. Some Other Guy - Live At BBC For "Saturday Club" / 26th January, 1963 (2:02)
17. Love Me Do - Live At BBC For "Saturday Club" / 26th January, 1963 (2:31)
18. Too Much Monkey Business - Live At BBC For "Saturday Club" / 26th January, 1963 (1:50)
19. I Saw Her Standing There - Live At BBC For "Saturday Club" / 16th March, 1963 (2:38)
20. Do You Want To Know A Secret - Live At BBC For "Saturday Club" / 26th January, 1963 (1:50)
21. From Me To You - Live At BBC For "Saturday Club" / 26th January, 1963 (1:54)
22. I Got To Find My Baby - Live At BBC For "Saturday Club" / 26th January, 1963 (1:59)
23. Roll Over Beethoven - Live At BBC For "Saturday Club" / 29th June, 1963 (2:29)
24. A Taste Of Honey - Live At BBC For "Easy Beat" / 23rd June, 1963 (2:01)
25. Love Me Do - Live At BBC For "Easy Beat" / 20th October, 1963 (2:29)
26. Please Please Me - Live At BBC For "Easy Beat" / 20th October, 1963 (2:08)
27. She Loves You - Live At BBC For "Easy Beat" / 20th October, 1963 (2:29)
28. I Want To Hold Your Hand - Live At BBC For "Saturday Club" / 21st December, 1963 (2:19)
29. Till There Was You - Live At BBC For "Saturday Club" / 21st December, 1963 (2:16)
30. Roll Over Beethoveen - Live At BBC For "Saturday Club" / 21st December, 1963 (2:16)
31. You Really Got A Hold On Me - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 4th June, 1963 (2:54)
32. The Hippy Hippy Shake - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 4th June, 1963 (1:43)
33. Till There Was You - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" /11th June, 1963 (2:14)
34. A Shot Of Rhythm And Blues - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 18th June, 1963 (2:06)
35. A Taste Of Honey - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 18th June, 1963 (1:56)
36. Money (That's What I Want) - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 18th June, 1963 (2:41)
37. Anna - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 25th June, 1963 (3:02)
38. Love Me Do - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 10th September, 1963 (2:29)
39. She Loves You - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 24th September, 1963 (2:16)
40. I'll Get You - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 10th September, 1963 (2:05)
41. A Taste Of Honey - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 10th September, 1963 (2:00)
42. Boys - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 17th September, 1963 (2:12)
43. Chains - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 17th September, 1963 (2:22)
44. You Really Got A Hold On Me - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 17th September, 1963 (2:57)
45. I Saw Her Standing There - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 24th September, 1963 (2:41)
46. She Loves You - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 10th September, 1963 (2:15)
47. Twist And Shout - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 24th September, 1963 (2:36)
48. Do You Want To Know A Secret - Live At BBC For "Here We Go" / 12th March, 1963 (1:55)
49. Please Please Me - Live At BBC For "Here We Go" / 12th March, 1963 (1:57)
50. Long Tall Sally - Live At BBC For "Side By Side" / 13th May, 1963 (1:49)
51. Chains - Live At BBC For "Side By Side" / 13th May, 1963 (2:23)
52. Boys - Live At BBC For "Side By Side" / 13th May, 1963 (1:53)
53. A Taste Of Honey - Live At BBC For "Side By Side" / 13th May, 1963 (2:04)
54. Roll Over Beethoven - Live At BBC For "From Us To You" / 26th December, 1963 (2:17)
55. All My Loving - Live At BBC For "From Us To You" / 26th December, 1963 (2:06)
56. She Loves You - Live At BBC For "From Us To You" / 26th December, 1963 (2:21)
57. Till There Was You - Live At BBC For "From Us To You" / 26th December, 1963 (2:12)
58. Bad To Me - Demo (1:29)
59. I'm In Love - Demo (1:32)

[Inkling]

At least John Lennon's "Imagine" isn't on the list. No one on the planet is more zealous at defending "their" intellectual property right than the Beattles, and yet one of Lennon's songs includes these lines:

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

Of course that sort of sharing is just for the "little people." The really important people get to keep their stuff, although they may claim others. Note these closing lines:

I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one.

Sorry, but that'd only be true if Lennon had given up all his possessions. Color him a monumental hypocrite.

[mac_in_tosh]

Inkling: I don't necessarily want to defend Lennon, but I and maybe you don't know what he did behind the scenes with his money. Maybe he gave a lot away, maybe not, who knows. Imagining a new world with no possessions doesn't imply that the songwriter should give up all of his - after all, in the present world he would then be homeless and not cared for by society. I think he was imagining a new kind of world where possessions would not be necessary as everyone would have what they need. Or maybe he just wrote a song to make money, who knows?

[Arne_Saknussemm]

@mac_in_tosh
good insight