"The Executioners"/ "Ticket To Ride" rights

[Ash Stewart]

Are the songs on Flipside actually *performed* by the Beatles?

If not, that's why. It's only the Beatles' performances that cause rights problems, not the songs themselves.

[Simon Tarry]

Of course the huge irony of this whole situation is that the clip in The Chase is the only existing footage of The Beatles appearance from this particular episode of Top Of The Pops.

And I'm positive Kramer's version of Do You Want To Know a Secret came out after The Beatles version, though as his actually came out as a single it's far more likely that it would have been in a jukebox than The Beatles version, which was an album track. Unless the jukebox was playing EPs...

Could the Beeb marry up the visuals with the Beatles BBC radio recording (from 'the Beatles invite you to take a Ticket To Ride' tx 7th June 1965) of Ticket to Ride?

It might be a BBC recording but you hit the same problem of Beatles performance/commercial exploitation again. Otherwise the BBC would have issued albums of their Beatles sessions themselves years ago. Nice idea though.

I do think though, that if someone could present a strong enough case and managed to catch someone at Apple in a good mood one day, that they may well allow The Chase to go out with the performance intact. After all, weren't The Beatles originally going to appear in the program themselves? (Or is this another long standing fan rumour?)

Sorry for the bump.

[Phillip Culley]

Guest-Simon said:

After all, weren't The Beatles originally going to appear in the program themselves? (Or is this another long standing fan rumour?)

I'm pretty sure they were supposed to appear as themselves, albeit made up as old men, however their manager vetoed it at the time.

[Simon Tarry]

Guest-Phillip said:

I'm pretty sure they were supposed to appear as themselves, albeit made up as old men, however their manager vetoed it at the time.

Yes, that's what I'd heard too. But what I was wondering is there any BBC paperwork to confirm this? I've seen this fact mentioned in a couple of DW reference books, but I've never found it mentioned in any Beatles reference books, hence I wonder were they really going to appear, or was it always planned to be a clip of them? I'd love to know what the paperwork says either way.

[Ian Potts]

How about getting "soundalikes" (The Bootleg Beatles?) to record "Ticket to Ride" for it?

[Wright Blan]

Just for update's sake, it looks like the whole ownership situation is about to hit the fan.

link:
money.cnn.com/2005/05/05/news/newsmakers/jackson_loan/index.htm?cnn=yes

[Ash Stewart]

The situation with Jackson will have no bearing on things.

Jackson owns the rights to the *songs*.

Apple own the rights to the actual *recordings*.

And the one that's important for DVD release is the recordings...

[Wright Blan]

Ash said:

The situation with Jackson will have no bearing on things.

Jackson owns the rights to the *songs*.

Apple own the rights to the actual *recordings*.

And the one that's important for DVD release is the recordings...

And if I remember correctly from doing research looking for a good link, Captiol EMI holds the recordings.

Of course, I could be wrong.

[Simon Tarry]

Guest-Wright said:

And if I remember correctly from doing research looking for a good link, Captiol EMI holds the recordings.

Of course, I could be wrong.

EMI made the recordings and up until the early 1990s (approx) they also contolled the use of them. However, The Beatles had for many years been negotiating (ie fighting) with EMI over royalty payments (this "negotiating" by the way, is why it took a couple of years longer than expected for the Beatles CDs to come out in the 1980s). As part of the settlement with EMI in the early 90s, control of the Beatles catalogue was handed over to Apple. EMI no longer has any say in what happens to the Beatles recordings and cannot licence them to anyone without Apple's blessing.

[Peter Chadwick]

Michael Jackson owns the publishing rights to the Beatles songs originally owned by Northern Songs. Macca owns the rights to 'Love Me Do' & 'P.S. I Love You'. The delay in the Beatles albums being released on cd was partly due to the Apple negotiations, and partly due to a lack of cd manufacturing capacity at the time. The EMI/APPLE negotiations were as a result of EMI planning to issue an album of unreleased tracks & alternate takes called 'Sessions' in late '84 or early '85. Apparently, EMI were planning to pay the band the original 1960's royalty rates for the album (as they were not new recordings). When the band heard about it, the fertiliser hit the air extractor.

[Peter Chadwick]

Just remembered another royalties bit. In the States, McCartney has always been with Capitol/EMI. However, in the early eighties, he signed with Columbia for several albums (McCartney II through to Pipes Of Peace); after which he re-signed to Capitol/EMI. When he re-signed, he negotiated a higher royalty rate for his Beatles material (which he was quite entitled to do), but this didn't go down too well with his former band-mates, who had both long since left EMI. This, coupled with the 'Sessions' episode seemed to be what kicked Harrison and Starr (with Apple, of course) into action to finally get onto EMI and get them to look at the (rather mean in retrospect) contract The Beatles signed in 1967, which is when the royalty rate was 'locked-in' for Beatles records. Harrison and Starr left EMI in 1976 when that nine year 1967 contract expired. After 1976, EMI were entitled to release all those pointless compilations, as long as they didn't remix or alter the original recordings. The irony is that people now blame the remaining members for being obstructive rights-wise, when really they're making up for years of having no control whatsoever over their own recordings, and being paid pennies per record sold.

[Steve Boyce]

I assume the performance rights run out in 2014, so expect a DVD of The Chase in 2015...