Sony halts licensing to third party vendors. Bad news for the Bond soundtrack titles (1 Viewer)

[Nelson Au]

A friend just made me aware of this news that Sony will no longer license to third party record companies. There is a thread on this in the Hoffman forum and Film Score Monthly, I’ve included the Film Score Monthly link below. I haven’t read the whole thread yet. The first post is very bad news for us who like to collect soundtrack albums when third party vendors can do a deluxe complete score. This has implications for all music, but soundtracks being affected are a by-product. I would think this is very bad news for the James Bond series as it would be great to get complete scores of the older titles.

https://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=134259&forumID=1&archive=0

Maybe those with more insight can chime in, Neil S. Bulk? Maybe I’m not reading it right?

 

[Lord Dalek]

Sony only owns the rights to the soundtracks to Casino Royale and Skyfall. Universal Music Group and Warner own the rest of 'em.

 

[Nelson Au]

Thanks, that’s good news about the Bond titles other then Skyfall and Casino Royale.
But there are other film soundtracks that Sony and it’s other studios owns.

 

[Neil S. Bulk]

So they won't work with a third party label. Nothing is stopping them from hiring a producer to shepherd a project through.

Neil

 

[Traveling Matt]

A hypothetical question perhaps but would such a project then be issued on CD? An article linked in the FSM thread points out a new, seemingly parallel action to move away from physical product within Sony Music, which some of us took to be related to this decision.

 

[Neil S. Bulk]

No idea.

Neil

 

[Nelson Au]

Neil, you know the business. Hopefully any desired titles from all of Sony’s holdings will get some nice deluxe releases. My impression is the soundtrack business that La La Land, Intrada and others have is but a infinitesimal business and a corporation like Sony Music wouldn’t have any interest like the small labels do who cater to the soundtrack collectors? A remastered complete score for The Sound of Music I imagine is a title of interest as it’s a very popular film still. But the soundtrack to Beneath the Planet of The Apes might not get the same interest, unless it’s a box set of all the Ape scores maybe.

 

[Lord Dalek]

^The Amos catalog (or at least part of it) appears to be with UMG (there were a few reissues of their output in the 80s on MCA).

The rights to Beneath the Planet of the Apes actually reverted back to Fox Music so in a roundabout way they're with Disney.

 

[Nelson Au]

Joel, I was using Beneath the Planet Of The Apes as an example of a title that might not generate much interest for a large label like Sony, but the third party labels have released this. FSM has released it. ( I have the release from Varese Sarabande of Jerry Goldsmith’s Planet of The Apes and that’s a great score and album with previously unreleased material. Maybe I’ll collect the Beneath album too. )

 

[Traveling Matt]

My impression is the soundtrack business that La La Land, Intrada and others have is but a infinitesimal business and a corporation like Sony Music wouldn’t have any interest like the small labels do who cater to the soundtrack collectors?

Not the same interest anyway. A chief reason is because label heads and producers like Neil are soundtrack fans first and are therefore deeply committed. It's not the same for the studios. As mentioned at FSM the decision makers on this probably don't even know of the working relationships involved here. They may not even be aware film music itself is involved.

 

[Osato]

No 007 release from la la land this year...

: (

https://mobile.twitter.com/nsbulk/status/1199081038040797184

 

[Lord Dalek]

Not like they could release Moonraker anyway. The tapes are lost.

 

[Osato]

Not like they could release Moonraker anyway. The tapes are lost.

lost is easier to say than they were never looked for. : )

in 2003, Lukas Kendall was sent the scores on a hard drive. Moonraker wasn’t looked for at that time. Same with octopussy, a view to a kill, spy who loved me...

The drive did have the full golden gun score but it was too costly to finish. He had already started live and let die so that was a choice.

we’re the tapes used in the 90s to master the film audio? This is a rumor that I Heard a while back.