Re: Music Industry Halting Mass Suits

*** thaxter <dthaxter@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:902b4ed0-fcdc-4848-b29f-a19ab0681625@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

On Dec 22, 1:08 pm, Steve Hawkins <res0p...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
*** thaxter <dthax...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote
innews:41737c63-2d43-46d5-8fcb-1d
2569387bdb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:



On Dec 22, 11:44 am, Steve Hawkins <res0p...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
*** thaxter <dthax...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:c07c676e-3e6c-40ad-be10-
bbc4a2e93...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

On Dec 21, 11:42 pm, Jenn <jenncondu...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
In article
<f5f5337d-b93d-467c-a181-cfdba6a50...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
om> ,  "Tom Hendricks / Musea" <tom-hendri...@xxxxxxx> wrote:

Here's something no one is considering.
the copyrights have been extended too long, and NO ONE should
own their music after 50 years.

I'm sure that I'll be sorry for asking, but...why?

This thread is probably not the best place to discuss the
extensions of copyright that have occurred in the last 30 years,
but here's some basic info:

Copyright was (until the 1970's) for a term of 28 years,
optionally renewable for 28--but you had to renew or lose your
copyright. Various laws have extended the term almost
indefinitely, and recorded sound in particular has been
grandfathered in so that almost nothing after 1923 is public
domain.

This means that the vast majority of recordings made between
1900 and 1960 or so are commercially unavailable and won't be
reissued.  So they will go unheard--unless you're a professional
researcher who has the time to come to somewhere like the
Library of Congress to listen. Can't put them up on the web and
publishers won't really give up any rights even if they have no
commercial plans for these libraries.

Why shouldn't the original Mickey Mouse cartoons from the 1920's
pass into PD?  Why should Irving Berlin's copyrights from the
1920's be still enforced?  This was not the law when they were
published and registered, but Congress has voted with the
Hollywood lobby time and time again to almost indefinitely
extend copyright when the law for over a century had never
intended that.

Granted, Hollywood has locked up a lot of material in a cover all
the bases, just in case move, but I still disagree from the
viewpoint of an individual artist.  Is the real issue having to
pay Hollywood to use an
d
distribute those works?

What's wrong with handing down the rights, especially if the
material was valuable/popular, to your family or whatever?  Might
be a charit
y
or school, for that matter.  What about the young artist who has a
still popular hit when he reaches middle age?

It's almost like "Nationalizing" someone's private property.  The
decision should belong to the artist, IMHO.

Steve Hawkins

Steve,

Who said anything was wrong with handing down rights to next
generations?  No problem with that, but it's never been intended to
b
e
in perpetuity.

And why not?  Why is art not governed by the same rules as other
privat
e
property?  Picture all private property subject to such rules.



The original term of copyright throughout most of the 20th Century
was 28 + 28.
The extension to life plus 50 years is plenty.  Recent extensions
hav
e
gone beyond that and the complicated case of sound recordings
(which were not covered at all under federal law until 1972) has
everything from 1923 and on protected until 2067 or later.

Do you honestly believe that NOTHING should be public domain?  The
copyright laws always recognized that there was a limited term.

If you're interested in reading more here's a couple of articles on
the impact of keeping all of this vast body of recorded sound
unavailable.

http://www.arsc-audio.org/pdf/ARSC-MLAcopyright.pdf

http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub135/contents.html

I'm a bit confused.  You talk about taking an Artist's property and
making it Public Domain, whether they or the holder want to or not.
 Th
e
articles you cited seem to be only concerned about using modern
technology to preserve music written prior to 1972.  Apparently,
curren
t
Copyright laws make that difficult due to concerns about the ease of
unauthorized distribution on the web or something to that effect.

I see no reason the law can't be tweaked to allow preservation
efforts and still leave the ownership with the artist or their
estate.

Steve Hawkins

Steve,

I'm talking about the term of copyright ending at some point as the
laws of almost every country provide. I'm confused by your view--is
copyright in perpetuity? So the works of Homer, Shakespeare, Bach,
Beethoven should all be protected? There's a real public benefit to
works passing into the public domain. Otherwise, there's the danger
of them being lost forever. And that would be the case with the vast
majority of intellectual property that's produced--say by Homer's less
famous cousin Jethro.

The articles I referenced aren't about music--they are about sound
recordings. Music has been covered by the U.S. copyright laws since
their inception. Sound recordings--the fixing the of the sound of a
performance--were not covered until 1972 and are now in kind of a
strange limbo. They are deemed to be covered by various state laws
before that, but the net effect is that no sound recording from 1923
on passes into p.d. until at least 2067.

There are 3 million sound recordings in the building I'm sitting in.
Ninety something percent would probably be considered "orphaned"--
there's no reissues, there's no possibility of future reissue because
it's not commercially viable, there's no tracking down the original
copyright holders. So the only way anyone would ever hear it is to
come to DC and listen in person. And to do that we require that
you're working on a serious research project. We'll be digitizing it
systematically and would love to make it widely available.

We have millions of p.d. works on our website. If copyright were
forever all of those civil war photos and maps, Edison motion
pictures, 19th century *** music publications, the papers of George
Washington, etc. would not be easily available. I can't believe that
would be a good thing.


At what point is anything you own or create not yours? All I've heard is
people not wanting to do and/or pay what is necessary for works to be
made available. As far as I can tell, the public has long been getting a
free ride.

The solution seems to be steal it or take it away by "legal" means.
Sorry dude, you've had X number of years to make money off your art, it's
ours now and we don't have to pay you or your designates, bupkus.

You cite some very extreme and quite long dead examples above. Again, if
the only issue is moving them to current media for preservation, that can
be fixed without stripping people of their rights.

If you want to make the material available online and the owner hasn't
released it to public domain, go the iTunes route and pay them their cut,
give then a tax deduction to donate or buy the rights. How much of the
visual art on display was purchased by museums or is on loan from private
collectors?

I'm afraid the only thing I see really keeping things from being "easily
available" is cost. I am, however, under no illusion that the Artist
will come out ahead on any of these issues.

Great discussion though! :-)

Steve Hawkins
.

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