Copyright and Archiving

[David Ayers]

see here

[Chuck Nessa]

I've been warning about this for years.

[B. Clugston]

Those filthy rich aging rockers just can't keep away from the trough.

And while I've got problems with naming people Sir this and Lord that, what country in its right mind would name Cliff Richard a Sir?

[Chuck Nessa]

The real problem is not about some "filthy rich aging rockers" but saving "primary source material" in posession of the folks paying for it.

To take one huge international company - Universal. They spend tons of money to preserve the masters of Brunswick/Vocalion (teens-early '30s), Decca ('30s- whatever), Verve, Impulse, Dot, etc. Why spend the tens of thousands of dollars to preserve the source material if it "belongs to all".

I do not think "all" will pony up the bucks to do this work.

[David Ayers]

Seems in the case of the British Library that they could get the resources to preserve this stuff if they had the legal right to do so. I think they are looking for a modification of copyright law with reference to archiving. It may be, with respect to recorded music and film, that copyright holders take steps to preserve the physical integrity of their archives, but it seems that other material is not so preserved and will depend on library work to preserve it. I dare say that applies to much of what they have in the archive at the BL.

[Chuck Nessa]

FUCK!

Time to pay attention or lose it.

[Chuck Nessa]

Why should Universal (just an example) preserve original masters of Armstrong, Dodds, Ellington, etc (at a significant expense) if the shit belongs to ALL?

Does ALL have a huge temp/humidity vault prepared to store and preserve this stuff?

[Chuck Nessa]

Enjoy your convenient "Adorran/Spanish" reissues. They are in business to "preserve" the music, so I hear.

[Larry Kart]

A link to another, somewhat more fleshed-out story that at least quotes someone on the crucial point that Chuck makes about who pays for preserving the primary source material if it belongs to all:

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/st...1925067,00.html

[Claude]

Seems in the case of the British Library that they could get the resources to preserve this stuff if they had the legal right to do so. I think they are looking for a modification of copyright law with reference to archiving. It may be, with respect to recorded music and film, that copyright holders take steps to preserve the physical integrity of their archives, but it seems that other material is not so preserved and will depend on library work to preserve it. I dare say that applies to much of what they have in the archive at the BL.

Indeed, the issues of copyright duration and the right of public archives to preserve recordings for posterity should be dealt with seperately.

I think the British Library is just using the current debate on duration to point out their specific problem with copyright law. An exception for the purpose of public archiving should fix that.

It must also be pointed out that the British Library is only archiving copies of music recordings (LPs, cassettes, audiotapes, videotapes) and not the master tapes. These belong to the copyright holder, who may destroy them if he likes. So the issue here is not about the preservation of master tapes.

[chris]

Why should Universal (just an example) preserve original masters of Armstrong, Dodds, Ellington, etc (at a significant expense) if the shit belongs to ALL?

Does ALL have a huge temp/humidity vault prepared to store and preserve this stuff?

So what's your answer? Keep extending copyright and ENSURE that the materials in question in this article CAN'T be preserved?

The fact is that there are rightly two issues here being conflated as one: the right to archive material and the length of copyright... a tactic unfortunately espoused by the monopolist-minded in the entertainment industry.

This is going to continue to be an issue for all attempts at digitizing information. The monopolists would have it that archiving is wrong even if the contents are never made available in their entirety, but just for searching, and even if that searching is tied to monetary gain for themselves. That's a real problem.

Similarly, some of us believe that a reasonable copyright duration is a good thing, but that what we have now is far FAR from reasonable. Thank Sonny Bono (may he continue to rot) for much of that in the U.S.

[Neal Pomea]

Doesn't section 108 of US copyright law enable a library and archive exception? I thought UK would have one.

In any case, in the US or the UK, a few copies scattered here and there among libraries and archives is hardly what anyone would understand to mean "available." The only things available are things that continue to make money (or might conceivably make money in the future) for copyright holders, whether we agree with that or not.

If the UK libraries want the masters, they should pay for them. I don't think US libraries and archives store masters but I might be wrong.

But I doubt that masters would be preserved well without the incentive to preserve them for the sake of future sales. In the US, there would be strong calls for cutting funds for preserving our history and culture, the way "nonessentials" like libraries are among the first to get the knife. At least that seems to be the way the thinking goes. Personally I would never say libraries are nonessentials.

Since this is an emotional political issue, I thought it would be in the politics thread and had a hard time finding it once it wasn't in my View New Posts section.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

But I doubt that masters would be preserved well without the incentive to preserve them for the sake of future sales. In the US, there would be strong calls for cutting funds for preserving our history and culture, the way "nonessentials" like libraries are among the first to get the knife. At least that seems to be the way the thinking goes. Personally I would never say libraries are nonessentials.

I think you're wrong there. Look at the enormous effort that goes into preserving ancient texts. This is not done for the sake of future sales.

The real difficulty is that the amount of material has increased exponentially over the last fifty or sixty years. And who shall say what is worth preserving for the next thousand?

MG

[Neal Pomea]

But I doubt that masters would be preserved well without the incentive to preserve them for the sake of future sales.

I think you're wrong there. Look at the enormous effort that goes into preserving ancient texts. This is not done for the sake of future sales.

The real difficulty is that the amount of material has increased exponentially over the last fifty or sixty years. And who shall say what is worth preserving for the next thousand?

MG

I would be glad to be wrong in my remarks! Good point about the efforts to preserve old texts, and not merely for the sake of future sales!

Who'll say what's worth preserving? Good question...

[chris]

One thing's for sure-- it's complicated. And changes in technology are making it moreso. I agree with Chuck that the abstract "all" is not going to do the preservation... but I think there are many other models besides overly extended and onerous copyright laws. Foundations, for one thing.

And there is still money to be made with material that is out of copyright-- more than enough, I would think, to enable preservation of these items, if not the kind of absurd profits on the backs of artists who see little of it that some labels (and their lobbyists) have come to enjoy. These copyright owners have had their chance-- excessively so.

And I'm not talking about pirating music here... I'm talking about a reasonable copyright span with provisions for archival material AND digitization for searchability and access in useful, incomplete forms.

[Chuck Nessa]

Lots of stupid, impractical stuff in this thread. I don't give a fuck about the media conglomerates EXCEPT they do spend the money to preserve the original sources.

Commercial master owner's concerns do have contractual obligations not passed on to the PD folks - Sony/BMG have to pay royalties to the estates of Ellington and Armstrong (for example) not paid by companies in "50 year" countries (JSP, Definitive, etc). Add to that the expense of preserving the masters and you have a recipe for a huge cultural purge.

I'm just presenting the dilemma.

I do have a "fish in the pond". In 1967 I borrowed money to record some music and continued to work this way until today. Eleven years from now this material will be PD and subsequent sessions fall by the year. If I had spent the money on "physical" property, I could pass this on to my children and they to their children, etc.

In numerous threads on this topic I have suggested a compulsory license as used in the print music business, but nobody seems to care. These folks don't want solutions, they want cheap music when they want it. Selfishness on all fronts.

[Neal Pomea]

Lots of stupid, impractical stuff in this thread. I don't give a fuck about the media conglomerates EXCEPT they do spend the money to preserve the original sources.

Commercial master owner's concerns do have contractual obligations not passed on to the PD folks - Sony/BMG have to pay royalties to the estates of Ellington and Armstrong (for example) not paid by companies in "50 year" countries (JSP, Definitive, etc). Add to that the expense of preserving the masters and you have a recipe for a huge cultural purge.

I'm just presenting the dilemma.

I do have a "fish in the pond". In 1967 I borrowed money to record some music and continued to work this way until today. Eleven years from now this material will be PD and subsequent sessions fall by the year. If I had spent the money on "physical" property, I could pass this on to my children and they to their children, etc.

In numerous threads on this topic I have suggested a compulsory license as used in the print music business, but nobody seems to care. These folks don't want solutions, they want cheap music when they want it. Selfishness on all fronts.

Who's been impractical and stupid? The public or Ellington and Armstrong, etc. for not providing for their estates? Look, copyright is just supposed to promote creativity. It is not and never was meant to be the vehicle for social welfare and covering risk takers. This is Thousand Points of Light politics for artists, with entrepreneurs unjustly bearing the burden of caring for the heirs of creative people, when really there should be better care all around, no matter if your dad or mom was a genius or worked hard for the sake of art.

"These folks don't want solutions, they want cheap music when they want it. Selfishness on all fronts."

Don't impute motives to me, please, as we should not impute motives to you. Do you have a sense of the public domain, and our grant of copyright, or are we just nothing because we are not entrepreneurs?

What's this about a compulsory license in the last paragraph? That might be interesting and practical after all.

Edited October 22, 2006 by It Should be You

[Chuck Nessa]

Look, copyright is just supposed to promote creativity.....

Don't impute motives to me, please, as we should not impute motives to you. Do you have a sense of the public domain, and our grant of copyright, or are we just nothing because we are not entrepreneurs?

What's this about a compulsory license in the last paragraph? That might be interesting and practical after all.

Copyright was supposed to protect creativity.

Sorry, didn't know I umputed your motives. Are you insulted 'cause you are cheap or 'cause you are selfish? I'll have to go back and check.

You don't get it. I'm trying to protect the source material AND the creation of more original material.

Simple research on "compulsory licensing" should answer some of your questions about that.

[Guy Berger]

You don't get it. I'm trying to protect the source material AND the creation of more original material.

Maybe there are ways of protecting source material without preventing stuff from becoming public domain.

Guy

[chris]

Compulsory licensing doesn't fix the fundamental problem with current copyright law, though it does address the issue of archive preservation. I still believe there are other ways that problem could be approached-- and it has nothing to do with wanting to make music cheaper, it has to do with the fundamental goodness of having a rich public domain.

Chuck's flat wrong if he thinks all copyright legislation is about protecting creativity. The IDEA of copyright is about promoting creativity. In fact, though, it has become a capitalist tool of the media conglomerates. The Founder's Copyright was a great idea. Live + 70 or 90 or even 108 years is crazy.

And, further, the original idea of copyright was that it was meant to be TEMPORARY, otherwise the proposition is relatively untenable. It was about BALANCING rights, which copyright protection does not do because it has become-- for most practical purposes-- so long that it may as well be unlimited.

It would appear that Chuck would like that kind of eternal protection so it can pass on through the generations forever. Many don't agree with that proposition. There is no reason that a copyright holder-- artist, family, or company-- should feel a right to the fruits of artistic production FOREVER. Why? Because Chuck feels that intellectual property should be just the same as physical property even though it ISN'T, and like most intangible properties in our lives, it is handled differently. If Chuck wanted physical property to pass to your kids foever, then he should have bought some!

This conflation of physical and intellectual property is a significant philosophical problem (a failure, in my opinion) which is amply discussed elsewhere.

In fact, there are ways to handle the preservation of material even if it passes into the public domain. It doesn't rely on the deep pockets of big media to have that happen. As I said-- there is still profit in there even if it's not on the scale that labels would like-- and there are plenty who would participate on a cost basis to preserve. Paying of royalties and licenses on such material is a non-issue because it would have-- by definition-- passed into the public domain.

All the sky is falling rhetoric about cultural purging is equalled by the gutting of the public domain culture. There ARE multiple side to this issue NOT counting the pirates and the no-copyright folks. We stand where we do on copyright today not because of people looking out for the interests of artists, but because of media conglomerates, most significantly Disney and their ilk, looking to protect their profits beyond all reasonable timeframes.

Edited October 22, 2006 by chris

[RDK]

This should get interesting...

[Guy Berger]

What if new masterings were given some sort of shorter protection (10 yrs) ? That way companies might have incentive to maintain archive material for their own releases, but older versions would be public domain.

Guy

[Brad]

As the second article indicates, the solution is an exemption so the material can be copied.

[Claude]

What if new masterings were given some sort of shorter protection (10 yrs) ? That way companies might have incentive to maintain archive material for their own releases, but older versions would be public domain.

To give remasterings some copyright protection seems like a fair idea, but imagine court judges having to compare the sound from different CDs to see if an original or a remastered release has been copied

Anyway, those who buy the cheap public domain reissues generally don't care much about the sound, so if the public domain labels can't use the latest remasterings it won't affect their business that much.

Edited October 22, 2006 by Claude

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

As the second article indicates, the solution is an exemption so the material can be copied.

In fact, preserving material doesn't require that it be copied at all, as far as I can see. If the British Library, or any other academic institution such as the Institute of Jazz Studies at Ruttgers, holds recordings, they don't need to be digitised to be preserved for future generations. Such organisations could think about the task in a different way.

Instead of continually copying enormous quantities of material into the latest version of whatever the technology is, why can't these organisations start departments of historical engineering? The purpose of such a department would be obvious - to maintain, and rebuild when necessary, the machinery, from cylinders onwards in the case of audio material, to enable the material to be reproduced in the way that it was manufactured/created. On the face of it, this looks to be the most economical way of ensuring continual access to material, since the number of different technologies, though quite large, is tiny compared to the number of recordings. Similar considerations apply to all kinds of intellectual property.

That solution means that the main work of preservation is the physical preservation of the cylinders, shellac, vinyl, tape, CDs or whatever. Fortunately, the material is not nearly as perishable as parchment or paper. But some of it is breakable.

Copyright issues wouldn't exist in such a preservation regime.

MG