firstly, because that is what the legal notice printed on the release would actually state: eg…
“This compilation ℗ 2016 Sony Music Entertainment …” — it specifically tells you that the phonographic copyright year refers to the compilation. often, though not always, such compilations might further detail the individual ℗ dates of the tracks (which invariably would be earlier than that of the compilation ℗ year), so those would apply to the associated recordings, and would be true for all other releases those recordings are also included in.
if we added all compilation ℗ years to the recordings, and we have various different compilations from different sources over the years, it would be rather confusing, especially when they likewise would show up in all other releases that include those same recordings.
it’s a judgment call, but i feel it’s a sensible one based on those considerations. if there were ever any indication that a single date shown on the release applies individually to all the tracks/recordings (let’s say we know it’s a studio album), then of course it would be a different case.
the other aspect one might point out is that of the renewal of copyrights, but then, i believe those have a set or even predictable number of years of validity to them. eg back in the day, it was 28 yrs renewal up to 56 yrs, though i’m less sure what the current status on copyrights protection is. but i don’t think it’s a situation where copyrights of original sound recordings are just randomly ‘updated’ every time a new compilation is released.
perhaps we could consider each distinct compilation as an aggregated recording of its own, comprising all of those individual tracks/recordings (much as we already do with compiled/composite recordings vs. the component recordings that are compiled within them). so the ℗ year applies to that compilation as if it were just another “recording”; and so that date doesn’t apply to the original individual recordings that are included in it. i hope that makes sense.
“Compilation ℗2017 Company Name” isn’t that company claiming any rights to the individual tracks. They’re claiming rights to the compilation (the selection & ordering of the tracks) only. See, e.g., page 4 of Circular 56, “Copyright Registration for Sound Recordings”:
Compilation of Sound Recordings · A “compilation” is a work formed by collecting and assembling preexisting materials that are selected, coordinated, or arranged in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original
work of authorship.
When an author contributes a certain minimum amount of authorship in the selection and ordering of preexisting sound recordings, the author produces a copyrightable compilation. The copyright in the compilation of recordings is separate and distinct from copyright (if any) in the recordings themselves. It extends only to the selection and ordering of the recordings on the disc or tape.
That’s probably more or less worldwide via copyright treaties.
Since it’s “separate and distinct from copyright in the recordings themselves” that AR goes on the release not the recordings.
(Ok, you could argue it goes on the release group, not the release, in many cases. Not sure if MB allows that.)
i’d additionally compare it with Circular 3, “Copyright Notice” so it’s clearer how phonographic copyrights of compilations must necessarily differ from those of original releases containing the component sound recordings (page 3, “Phonorecords of Sound Recordings”)
in order that compilations (should they choose to) are able to refer to the ℗ copyrights of specific tracks from any number of different original releases they come from, the ℗ copyrights in all of those original releases have to be resolved down to recording level to make this information accessible to any such compilations/reissues.
Those two pages at least should contain something like:
When « ℗ 19XX Label » is printed, phonographic copyright applies to recordings.
When « (This) Compilation ℗ 19XX Label » is printed, phonographic copyright applies to release.
When « ℗ 19XX Label » is printed, phonographic copyright applies to recordings.
When « (This) Compilation ℗ 19XX Label » is printed, phonographic copyright applies to release.
cannot be a hard rule.
There’s also plenty of examples of releases where the ℗ credit in Country A is different from in Country B, even when the recordings are identical. Here are 2:
When « ℗ 19XX Label » is printed, phonographic copyright applies to recordings.
When « (This) Compilation ℗ 19XX Label » is printed, phonographic copyright applies to release.
So how do you know that Label A is associated with Release B, but Label B is associated with Release A, if you’re not going to link the Labels to the Releases? (I’ve actually seen editing to delete the Label-Release copyright relationship!) Conversely, Recording X would report multiple copyright holders which are often not true in a generic context. I don’t see how this is a good idea for MusicBrainz data.
For my understanding it is as valid as having all the new ISRC on the same recording.
But I cannot say I fully understand what is a photographic copyright, nor a copyright anyway.
I leave it up to the experts, I just need a simple guideline that non experts like me can apply with their releases in hands editing MB.
You can have multiple ℗ on the same recording, and it’s going to happen for a variety of reasons. Even in the same country, the since we re-use the same recording for remasters (which the label will surely claim a new copyright on). E.g., the Elgar collection I have been entering recently has, listed in the booklet, two ℗ dates and sometimes companies for almost every track. The later one is typically for the digital remaster.
I think it depends on whether the copyright relationships are meant to represent a copyright statement or a term of copyright (a span of time of copyright protection). If it’s a statement, then I think I agree with keeping the relationship on the release level, as a statement (eg. “℗ 2015 Naxos Rights US, Inc.”) is release-specific information.
Use of the recording-level ℗ relationship could be restricted to (only) the original copyright holder and year of publication.
That’s a different relationship. It’s in edit release (not relationships) and shows up on the right under “Labels”, along with the catalog number. There are also a bunch of release-label relationships in the relationship editor, not just phonographic copyright.
I don’t think anyone is saying we shouldn’t link the releases to labels.
Not really sure how that follows from it being a statement of copyright. Releases can state they claim copyright on the compilation (thus on the release) or on the individual recordings (thus on the recording) or, even, on both.
Saying “whatever! we don’t care! Multiple dates is ugly! Put it on the release” also doesn’t work. For a fair number of releases, different tracks have different ℗ dates and companies. Having a pile of ℗ dates and companies on a release without any way to tell what tracks they belong to is far less useful. So essentially then we’d be left with using the release annotation for any hope of accurate information—and that’s also far less useful, as its not standardized or easily machine parsable.
Take a look at https://musicbrainz.org/release/db77f67d-9e9b-4623-8ea1-baab173cbe49/cover-art — the booklet gives ℗ dates and companies for each track on 19 CDs and then a separate ℗ date and company for the compilation. By putting track ℗ on the recordings and the compilation ℗ on the release, that is essentially all represented in the MB schema (the only thing not represented is which of the dates is the digital remaster). Your proposal would have (quick guess) 40+ ℗ relationships on the release and convey significantly less information. It would also mean that the work that went into entering that information can’t be shared with other releases of the same recordings, even things like https://musicbrainz.org/release/2546da4f-9402-4ada-9426-3a79b8ed2e5e which share the same discs (down to disc ID and content, at least).
Copyright law considers anything that has some minimal level of creativity in it a new work, eligible for a new phonographic copyright. Each of those typically only has one date (though if its worked on by one person/company over the course of two years it may wind up with two years). But at MB, we consider all those different (from copyright’s perspective) works as one recording. So a recording will naturally end up with multiple ℗ dates, potentially from many labels. So even with first-date-only, you’d still get a bunch of dates/owners on the recording. (There are more reasons to get multiple, of course, that’s just one).
I don’t know if you’re being facetious, but in modern releases, copyright holders are nearly always different MB Label(s) than what we’d use as the release label. If you need details or annotated examples, please ask.
Ok—let me see if everyone agrees. I’ve never played the the poll tool before, so… an excuse to play with it
Obviously, some of these conflict (in particular, 3 vs. 4 and 5 vs. the rest). I’ve set the max to 3, as I think you can’t pick more than that without contradiction.
3 vs. 4 is intended to capture what the default should be—℗ defaults to recordings or to releases.
If a release says “compilation ℗year company”, that should be entered as a relationship on the release
If a release gives “℗year company” on a per-track (or per-track-group), that should be entered as a relationship on each recording it applies to, not on the release.
If a release gives “℗year company” for the whole release, not explicitly saying which tracks it applies to, it should generally go on the recordings, unless there is some reason to believe it doesn’t apply to all of them.
If a release gives “℗year company” for the whole release, not explicitly saying which tracks it applies to, try to determine if it likely applies to all tracks (for example, if it’s within a year of the performance dates listed for the tracks, it probably does). Only if you have reason to think it does, apply it to all recordings; otherwise, put it on the release.
℗ relationships should only go on releases, not recordings (with the exception of standalone recordings.)
