Beatles bootlegs in HMV?

[Tim D]

I use the term bootleg loosely as I'm not 100% certain.
This is not really missing episodes, but will be of interest to many who collect pop footage on this forum.

A few weeks ago I bought a DVD from HMV in Nottingham called "Beatles Around The World" which features the following.

Around The Beatles (Rediffusion) In full! Not the Dave Clark edits.
The Beatles b/w concert footage in Washington D.C
The Beatles concert footage at the Budokahn Stadium in Japan. (A very poor colour film recording)

Surely there's no way this could have been cleared by Apple?

It's a good disc and cost £13.99. If you want a good quality copy of 'Around The Beatles' it's worth every penny. It's a pretty rough film recording, but the transfer is good.

When I lived in the London area, HMV on Oxford Street used to stock a few bootleg CD's...so who knows?

[Ian West]

Doesn't seem possible that it could be legit. Does it include performances of Lennon / McCartney songs? That alone would be enough for Apple to put a stop to it, I would've thought. Sounds like someone at HMV has mistaken it for one of these unofficial documentaries (of which there are plenty) which don't normally feature performances (and usually have a disclaimer on to that effect.)

I'll look out for it next time I'm in, anyway - cheers.

[H Hartley]

It might be hard to believe Apple may not have all the rights?
A similar situation
with Michael Jackson and Rockin Robin on TOTP , they can show that whenever they like without permission, and just a standard musician fee, because of the contract he signed at the time.

Around the Beatles was available in portions and complete on super 8 film for a few years even under a different title and sold quite legit.

[Tim D]

I've just had a look at the packaging for the disc and it appears to be licenced by 'Entertainment Properties Inc 1988'
Maybe it is part of a super 8 style licencing agreement?
It also carries an 'E' Exempt from Classification logo.
If it is legit, good on them whoever they are! ;D

[Tim D]

Must be legit... just done some searching.

Entertainment Properties Inc is owned by Seatle based Vulcan Northwest Inc which is owned by Paul G Allen who also owns 5% of Microsoft....phew! Isn't the internet a wonderful thing !!

[H H]

Tim another possibilty of these cheap licencing deals is the fact that Apple probably owns all the cleanest copies (or nearest to the master). So they could say "sure you can licence it cheap but you have got to find your own copies" .
So little upstart company has to get what it can,where it can and obviously his cheap package is not going to look nearly as good as an Apple release.

just a thought

[Tim D]

Yes, that would make sense too.

Let's hope they release some more

[Laurence Piper]

Didn't know about or have ever seen any of these - I would have bought them otherwise!