Photo Credit: Will Fresch / CC by 2.0

Oasis is opposed to the auction of over 100 hours of early recordings, but the sale is apparently legal. However, any buyer would be unable to commercialize the archive without the band’s consent.

An archive of over 100 hours of early Oasis recordings and outtakes is up for auction despite objections from the band. Currently, the collection is priced at between £1.2 million and £1.6 million, with the sale due to take place on October 3.

It contains recordings of numerous soundchecks, rehearsals, and candid conversations. The collection also includes what is believed to be the only recording of Oasis’ 1996 concert on the banks of Loch Lomond in Scotland.

The collection was amassed by the band’s sound engineer, Huw Richards, who worked with Oasis from their 1994 debut album until 2001. The archive comprises 209 DAT tapes, 73 analog cassettes, and three MiniDiscs. Richards’ son, Owain, is selling the archive, which includes 209 DAT tapes, 73 analog cassettes, and three MiniDiscs. Owain, a sound engineer himself, said that he had previously been in discussions with Oasis’ management after the band sought some of the recordings.

“It really is a piece of history,” Richards said, explaining that his father had meticulously preserved the recordings during a time when concert attendees were less likely to be able to make their own recordings on cell phones.

“The Oasis camp is aware of the auction and has expressed concerns, which is entirely understandable given the scale and significance of the material,” said Ben Homer, Managing Director at Littleton Auctions in Worcestershire.

However, Homer said that the auction house was handling the sale through the appropriate legal process and that the recordings were being sold with verified provenance. Crucially, the recordings cannot be released commercially by whoever buys them, as Oasis retains the intellectual property rights. Any release of the material would still require the band’s consent and cooperation.

“This case illustrates that physical recording materials can be owned independently of the IP rights embodied in those materials. In practice, however, the position is rarely entirely straightforward. Sound engineers are usually engaged in contractual terms that give them no express rights in either the tapes or files themselves, or the IP embodied in them,” explained Euan Lawson, Managing Partner at law firm Simkins, LLP, in a statement to Digital Music News.

“Even if a sound engineer owns the physical recordings, there is very little they can do with them. It is highly unlikely that the engineer has any ownership interest in the IP or has the artists’ consent to exploit their performances. So while the physical tapes may be potentially bought and sold, what a purchaser can actually do with the recordings is a very different question.”

“Oasis may be able to prevent a buyer from commercially exploiting the recordings without their consent by exercising their performers’ rights,” shared Ben Gisbey, Partner at Simkins LLP. “However, it would be shortsighted to view this simply as a sale of memorabilia.”

“The band may wish to exploit the recordings themselves in the future, leaving them with a difficult decision: do they buy the archive themselves now, or do they risk any buyer demanding a substantial fee for access to the recordings down the line?”

The auction will feature other Oasis memorabilia, including a pair of Adidas Kegler Super Ostrich sneakers given to Noel Gallagher.