The real work behind copyright clearance

Hi everyone,

It’s Anton here.

Over the past couple of weeks, copyright clearance has become one of the central parts of Revibed. It is no longer a back-office formality after a preorder opens. It is the place where we decide whether a release truly belongs on the platform, whether Revibed can play a real role in its return, and whether there is a serious path toward bringing culturally valuable music back into circulation in the right way.

Recently we’ve been in contact with artists, management and rights holders across a range of very different situations.

With Kim, around Dance Speak, the conversation quickly became concrete. We discussed the fact that master tapes may no longer exist, and made clear that this is not a dead end for us. A lot of the music we care about comes from analogue and pre-digital catalogues where masters are lost, incomplete, or simply gone. In those cases, Revibed can still help by sourcing the best available copy and handling the transfer, restoration and mastering ourselves. The key question then becomes the exact shape of the catalogue, which releases can be included, and which still need extra clearance.

With Paul Welding, the focus was more on structure and terms. In cases like that, we always try to understand the real production picture before talking too much about percentages or exclusivity. There is a major difference between working from existing masters and having to rebuild a release from rare physical sources, restoration work and editorial support.

We also had the opposite kind of contact, where the conversation starts with a complaint rather than cooperation. One recent example was the takedown case around MD Connection, raised by Mark Potts on behalf of Mike Dunn Management / Dance Mutha Records. Cases like this matter because they test whether a platform responds clearly, lawfully and without confusion when a rights holder comes forward.

So this is what copyright clearance means for us today. Not a box-ticking exercise, but slow, manual work around trust, rights, context and care. The broader goal is to help make Revibed a place where difficult, forgotten, under-reissued or never properly digitised catalogue can be checked, structured and, when possible, revitalised in a fair and civilised way.

Next week we’ll continue this conversation and explain, step by step, how preorder moderation actually works and how decisions get made on each incoming release.

And before I go, please support the artist who trusted us, and trusted all of you, with the revitalisation of a catalogue for which no masters survive. This is exactly the kind of work that sits at the heart of underground archival dance culture, bringing music back not as content noise, but with context, care and human curation:

60 Demarkus Lewis releases to be digitally reissued by Revibed

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Anton