Roots Archives Forum

Does anyone know why Prince Buster has never undertaken a serious reissue program of his music? Other than the sporadic compilations that have appeared over the years, many not on CD, I am surprised that he hasn't licensed to a good reissue label like Pressure Sounds and released original albums with bonus tracks (ideally with remastered sound). I have to believe there has been a market for this, especially now with all of the streaming and online music outlets like iTunes, Pandora, Spotify, etc! Such a shame!

The rumors always have it that he wants big, big money and can be difficult to work with. It's too bad, as he pretty much missed the boat on cashing in on the reissue market of the 90s, overall the music market seems to be in a pretty bad state now.

Granted, if he doesn't start putting stuff out soon, it'll be fair game in Europe, as the copyright lapses after 50 years if the owner doesn't make any attempt to release the music themselves.

Well, that was the case but I think it was recently changed to 70 yrs before copyrights go to public domain. Seems very shortsighted on Prince Buster's part.

those 70 years only counts for books...not music

Changed to 70 years in Europe, got to protect the Beatles.

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/directive201177eu.pdf

Other than the expensive (but excellent) Rock A Shaka Prince Buster sets, chapmanra is right - there's never been any serious reissues of Buster's catalog. I believe the Prince continues to press some of his collections on vinyl, but they're not very good quality and many of the scorchers are missed.

Right, it changed to 70 years, however the owner must do something with the material, or it drops into PD. This is why labels like Columbia have been releasing things like that limited to 100 copies Bob Dylan rarities album in Europe.

ReggaeFire wrote:Right, it changed to 70 years, however the owner must do something with the material, or it drops into PD. This is why labels like Columbia have been releasing things like that limited to 100 copies Bob Dylan rarities album in Europe.

It only reverts to 50 years if it has never been released, all Buster's material has, as far as we know, the other clause in the legislation to do with 50 years is that the rights revert to the performer if the label hasn't made the material available in physical and digital form, again this won't apply to Buster accept for the RCA album which is available. The PDF I linked to is well worth reading, there are some interesting things in the legislation that will surely lead to a lot of legal actions.