American Top 40

I have about 13 of these 3-disc box sets from the 1970's....I tried listing them on EBay, but they were rejected for copyright infringement....does anyone here have any interest in these or perhaps know of someone who does?

These should not be copyright infringement, because they were legally made at the time. Somebody at eBay is nuts. They are no different from the K-tel and Ronco collections.

Even the Pickwick and Hit collections using substitute bands are legal. They paid the mechanical royalty fees and produced their own recordings of the songs - perfectly legal.

These records were intended only for broadcast use. And since these programs are still aired, the Casey Kasem voiceovers and the AT 40 trade dress are still protected. So, Premier Radio Networks who currently own and air the program may have objected to the sale of these LP discs on eBay. Premier owns the rights to this show.

We may be talking about two different things. Are these radio station records of a radio program, or are they the albums you could buy in the record stores? There were some commercially sold sets called "American Top 40" which had the top 40 songs of the year. I used to have one on 2 cassettes from 1978.

Apparently AT40 radio show LPs on eBay are kind of hit n' miss.

www.charismusic.com claims on their website that they are currently the only ones allowed to sell the radio shows on eBay. (They've remastered them for Premier Networks... and will sell you any particular show that you're looking for.) They are a good source of material and will offer to sell collections for you on eBay.

However, in the last few months, I've also been able to get some original shows on LP and CD from other sellers on eBay. I've also watched a couple of listing that have just "disappeared" before the end of the auction. (Removed or sold before the end?)

I've also had success with purchasing shows on eBay that have been "mis-labled" or have come from other countries (i.e. Canada.)

Not totally sure what is happening.

Anyways, if you're interested in selling the shows privately, please drop me a line!

Davester.

If the shows were sold at normal retail in record stores, the copyright holder has granted the usual private use and used item resale license to the purchaser. They do not have the right to rescind it later. Be sure to state in the ad that these were the retail versions sold in stores by AT40, not the radio station copies.

These records were never for the public to purchase. For broadcast use only. http://www.charismusic.com are the only authorized ebay buyers and sellers of these discs. They were authorized to do this by Premiere Radio Networks, the owner today of American Top 40. These records when new and later compact discs were how this program was distributed to affiliated stations. These were broadcast transcriptions never ever sold at retail in a record shop when new. Never marketed to the public. Only to radio stations.

The radio station copies were not sold to the public. But I used to have a set of about 20 cassettes that were sold to the public. They were songs from the 1960s. Revco Drugs was selling them as a special promo. I don't have them anymore because my ex wife took them as part of the divorce settlement.

There ARE commercially sold recordings (and I KNOW these radio station music programs were not distributed on cassettes).

Also note that NO copyright holder has the right to take any recording made before 2/15/1972 off of either eBay or YouTube, because recordings themselves could not be copyrighted before that date.

That only covered that one cassette release. Casey Kasem's voice overs and the American Top 40 trade dress otherwise on LP or CD releases is still owned by Premier Radio Networks. Charis Music are the only authorized ebay buyers and sellers of the transcription LP and Compact Discs authorized by Premier Radio Networks, who own the show and it's intellectual property rights. Your cassette set was the only exception ever sold for public sale.