Who owns the copyright/distribution rights to the Crown Records (HK) catalogue?

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03-06-21, 02:49 PM
Ken Cheng

Who owns the copyright/distribution rights to the Crown Records (HK) catalogue?

During the 1970s and 1980s, TVB recorded and distributed the soundtrack music for many of its classic series through a Hong Kong-based record company called Crown Records. Literally dozens of classic TVB series including LUK SIU FUNG, CHOR LAU HEUNG, THE ROMANTIC SWORDSMAN, YESTERDAY'S GLITTER, THE SHELL GAME, and many others issued the soundtrack albums through the Crown label.

Crown Records went out of business in 2011, but no information seems to be available on what happened to the rights to its catalogue. It's not said if the Crown library was purchased by some huge international corporation such as Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, etc., but it appears that issues with the copyrights to the soundtracks is preventing TVB from playing the soundtrack music to their own classic series on their YouTube channel. Case in point: the YouTube playlist for the 1979 CHOR LAU HEUNG series starring Adam Cheng shows the visuals for the opening titles, but mutes out the song itself. If TVB used other music (such as Pink Floyd's music during certain action scenes in THE BUND), I'd understand, but how did TVB lose the rights to the music they themselves commissioned for their series? What the heck happened to the Crown catalogue and who currently owns the rights to that music?
04-19-21, 09:27 PM
wargods

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ken Cheng

During the 1970s and 1980s, TVB recorded and distributed the soundtrack music for many of its classic series through a Hong Kong-based record company called Crown Records. Literally dozens of classic TVB series including LUK SIU FUNG, CHOR LAU HEUNG, THE ROMANTIC SWORDSMAN, YESTERDAY'S GLITTER, THE SHELL GAME, and many others issued the soundtrack albums through the Crown label.

Crown Records went out of business in 2011, but no information seems to be available on what happened to the rights to its catalogue. It's not said if the Crown library was purchased by some huge international corporation such as Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, etc., but it appears that issues with the copyrights to the soundtracks is preventing TVB from playing the soundtrack music to their own classic series on their YouTube channel. Case in point: the YouTube playlist for the 1979 CHOR LAU HEUNG series starring Adam Cheng shows the visuals for the opening titles, but mutes out the song itself. If TVB used other music (such as Pink Floyd's music during certain action scenes in THE BUND), I'd understand, but how did TVB lose the rights to the music they themselves commissioned for their series? What the heck happened to the Crown catalogue and who currently owns the rights to that music?

The new owner posted a lot of songs to youtube and other sites to get Track IDs, so they can claim copyrights off the youtube videos.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjE...w9dT97ql8ms_eg

The company is called Forward Music (豐華唱片). You can see their logo if you buy those latest reissues.

https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/豐華唱片
04-19-21, 10:51 PM
Ken Cheng

Quote:

Originally Posted by wargods

The new owner posted a lot of songs to youtube and other sites to get Track IDs, so they can claim copyrights off the youtube videos.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjE...w9dT97ql8ms_eg

The company is called Forward Music (豐華唱片). You can see their logo if you buy those latest reissues.

https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/豐華唱片

Interesting. Does TVB have to negotiate a new deal with Forward Music so it can actually use its old soundtrack music on its old series? It's weird because the older series hosted on TVB's YouTube channel have entire scenes edited out or muted due to music copyright issues.
04-20-21, 11:32 PM
wargods

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ken Cheng

Interesting. Does TVB have to negotiate a new deal with Forward Music so it can actually use its old soundtrack music on its old series? It's weird because the older series hosted on TVB's YouTube channel have entire scenes edited out or muted due to music copyright issues.

They don't need to negotiate. They just need to pay the money to IFPI every year. https://www.ifpihk.org/en/

I am not sure if that includes online rights or not. I think they just don't bother complaining about the youtube copyright issues, because you would need to do it for every single video. LOL.....Plus all they want is for people to subscribe TVB Anywhere. They don't care if their youtube videos are completed or not. They just want to use youtube as a platform to promote TVB Anywhere. LOL.