Associated Press The Village People in 1979. Victor Willis, center top, will regain control this year over his share of many of the group’s songs, including “Y.M.C.A.,†under a copyright provision.January 2013 is perhaps a month like any other to you. But in the record business, it’s the calm before the storm.
An old copyright law stipulated that musicians who released work starting in 1978 could invoke a “termination rights†clause and regain full ownership over it 35 years later â€" in other words, now. On this week’s Popcast, host Ben Ratliff talks to The Times’s music-business reporter Ben Sisario on how this and other rights-reversion issues might affect big labels that depend on back-catalog revenue, the shifting power relationships between artists and their corporate minders, and what major labels can still do for musicians.
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SPOTIFY PLAYLIST
Tracks by artists discussed this week. (Spotify users can also find it here.)
