Next year, a time bomb embedded in the Copyright Act of 1976 starts to detonate, as valuable copyrights fall back into the hands of artists who decide that they would prefer to own their songs, rather than allowing their label and publisher to keep selling them…

…One magical option for the labels would be to create a new sound recording copyright for these songs - say, by remastering them for iTunes. It did seem a bit odd that Apple, after listening to audiophiles complain for nearly nine years about the sound quality of songs sold in iTunes, would unveil its “Mastered for iTunes” program the very year before these old copyrights started reverting. Could the labels’ ace in the hole be a plan to sell newly-copyrighted remasters while allowing the old and busted ones to revert?

…Steve Gordon summed things up by phone, putting our mind at east that “Remastered for iTunes” cannot be a copyright land-grab disguised as an improvement in compressed sound quality. Casey Rae-Hunter, deputy director of the Future of Music Coalition agreed, saying that there’s not enough change in expression between the original and the remaster. (Apple and all four major labels declined to respond.) Then we heard back from New York entertainment lawyer John Tormey III, Esq. with a remarkably in-depth explanation of why Remastered for iTunes won’t stop copyrights from reverting to artists starting next year.