Pink Floyd recently — and quietly — released a trove of 12 live albums on Spotify and other streaming services. The band hasn’t publicly commented on the recordings, all of which document its early ‘70s period.

These widely circulated titles are They Came in Peace, Live, Leeds University 1970 Washington University 1971; Live at Grosser Saal, Musikhalle, Hamburg, West Germany 25 Feb 1971; Mauerspechte Berlin Sportpalast, Live 5 June 1971; Live, Lyon 12 June 1971, Tokyo 16 March 1972; Live in Rome Palaeur 20 June 1971; Amsterdamse Bos Free Concert 26 June 1971 (Live); Live in Montreux 18 & 19 Sept 1971; KB Hallen, Copenhagen, Live 23 Sept 1971; KB Hallen, Copenhagen, Vol II, Live 23 Sept 1971; Over Bradford Pigs on the Groove Bradford University, Live 10 Oct 1971; Embryo, San Diego, Live 17 Oct 1971; and The Screaming Abdabs Quebec City, Live 10 Nov 1971.

As noted Tuesday on Twitter, a commenter on a Pink Floyd fan site recently posted about the recordings, with news appearing to circulate from there. All of the albums boast a copyright of Pink Floyd Music Ltd.

While the band hasn’t acknowledged this mass release, it’s possible they’re taking a similar strategy from artists like the Beach Boys, the Beatles and Bob Dylan — all of whom have issued collections as a form of copyright protection, adhering to a 2011 change in European law.

In 2012, Dylan released a limited-edition collection of outtakes from 1962.

An employee for the Sony label told Rolling Stone at the time, “The copyright law in Europe was recently extended from 50 to 70 years for everything recorded in 1963 and beyond. With everything before that, there's a new 'Use It or Lose It' provision. It basically said, 'If you haven't used the recordings in the first 50 years, you aren't going to get any more.’”

In other words, Dylan’s unreleased works would have soon become public domain, so the label pressed roughly 100 copies and distributed them to stores in France, Germany, Sweden and the U.K.

Pink Floyd Albums Ranked

Three different eras, one great band.

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