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?