Fresh Sound & Lone Hill Reissues Discussion

[clifford_thornton]

Forgive me if this has already been discussed, but Jazz Track is here and rather egregious.

[Cliff Englewood]

Forgive me if this has already been discussed, but Jazz Track is here and rather egregious.

Yea they even use the original art work, they really don't give a shit do they but methinks it's only going to get worse.

Edited August 13, 2010 by Cliff Englewood

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Forgive me if this has already been discussed, but Jazz Track is here and rather egregious.

Yea they even use the original art work, they really don't give a shit do they but methinks it's only going to get worse.

Well, these are in the public domain in the EU so they can do what they want. At lease these releases are legal in the EU, unlike some of their releases.

[philtenb]

Hello,

These reissues are legit in UE . If we waited after the North American or European majors, long time ago that there would be no reissues.

Vive Fresh Sound and others!

[paul secor]

Forgive me if this has already been discussed, but Jazz Track is here and rather egregious.

Yea they even use the original art work, they really don't give a shit do they but methinks it's only going to get worse.

Well, these are in the public domain in the EU so they can do what they want. At lease these releases are legal in the EU, unlike some of their releases.

It may be legal to issue the music in the EU, but is it legal to reproduce the art work?

[CJ Shearn]

Wow, if those are considered legal I sure as hell wouldn't buy them. Glad for the official US releases by the labels themselves.

[AllenLowe]

I'd buy 'em in a minute. As long as they abide by the international publishing rules (which I'll bet they do or they would have Euro distribution problems) they're no worse than any other label.

Edited August 14, 2010 by AllenLowe

[JSngry]

It may be legal to issue the music in the EU, but is it legal to reproduce the art work?

No more calls please, I think we have a winner...

Hello,

These reissues are legit in UE . If we waited after the North American or European majors, long time ago that there would be no reissues.

Vive Fresh Sound and others!

There would also be a big gap in what was available to reissue...

[Kevin Bresnahan]

It may be legal to issue the music in the EU, but is it legal to reproduce the art work?

As far as I know, the artwork is in the public domain as well. Why wouldn't it be?

[AllenLowe]

also realize that when I was a wee boy, there was almost nothing available of the old stuff EXCEPT through bootlegs. Without all those bootleggers I would:

1) never have heard J.R. Morton, Bird "live", Al Haig, every jazz broadcast ever made, lots and lots of blues, the A and P Gypsies;

2) not have ended up in rehab

[JSngry]

It may be legal to issue the music in the EU, but is it legal to reproduce the art work?

As far as I know, the artwork is in the public domain as well. Why wouldn't it be?

Do those PD laws cover everything equally? Or do the recordings themselves and the art itself fall under different laws?

[JSngry]

also realize that when I was a wee boy, there was almost nothing available of the old stuff EXCEPT through bootlegs. Without all those bootleggers I would:

1) never have heard J.R. Morton, Bird "live", Al Haig, every jazz broadcast ever made, lots and lots of blues, the A and P Gypsies;

2) not have ended up in rehab

Bootleggers are friends of mine too, but there's a difference (in my mind anyway) between putting out a product that had never had ironclad "commerical ownership" & simply laying in wait to grab something "legally" and then snatching it up & claiming it as your own "as is". Legal or not, it shows a disgusting lack of/unwillingness/inability to contribute creatively to the product itself.

BTW - those Everest issues of the entire Period catalog were, I'm pretty sure, legit. That was a Jerry Newman thing, iirc.

[AllenLowe]

agreed - but, in a way, if they use the same cover art, it's kind of a way of admitting that it's NOT theirs -

Everest Archive of Jazz was, of course, completely bogus and illegal. Haig always complained about Jazz Will of the Wisp ("I sent them a letter, they know where I am, so where's my money?")

And anyway, the regular companies found a "legal" way to avoid payments to musicians with the whole cutout scam - deleting records so they would be off the books basically. This was Mo Levy's original idea,and when I worked for Minuteman Records in the early 1970s in Cambridge (which later became Strawberries) he was the silent partner, and they had a warehouse full of Roulette cutouts. Mo never said much, just grunted at we kids.

Edited August 14, 2010 by AllenLowe

[felser]

agreed - but, in a way, if they use the same cover art, it's kind of a way of admitting that it's NOT theirs -

Everest Archive of Jazz was, of course, completely bogus and illegal. Haig always complained about Jazz Will of the Wisp ("I sent them a letter, they know where I am, so where's my money?")

And anyway, the regular companies found a "legal" way to avoid payments to musicians with the whole cutout scam - deleting records so they would be off the books basically. This was Mo Levy's original idea,and when I worked for Minuteman Records in the early 1970s in Cambridge (which later became Strawberries) he was the silent partner, and they had a warehouse full of Roulette cutouts. Mo never said much, just grunted at we kids.

For that matter, how many of the artists actually were paid commission on their sales. Didn't Blue Note, Prestige, etc., just pay double scale to the session leader with no commission?

[paul secor]

It may be legal to issue the music in the EU, but is it legal to reproduce the art work?

As far as I know, the artwork is in the public domain as well. Why wouldn't it be?

Do those PD laws cover everything equally? Or do the recordings themselves and the art itself fall under different laws?

I would guess that they're seperate issues. Many of the EU issues don't duplicate the artwork.

[JSngry]

Everest Archive of Jazz was, of course, completely bogus and illegal. Haig always complained about Jazz Will of the Wisp ("I sent them a letter, they know where I am, so where's my money?")

Haig might have had a legit beef with Jerry Newman, whose label Period was, but it's my understanding that Newman's deal with Everest was one that both parties agreed to.

[king ubu]

It may be legal to issue the music in the EU, but is it legal to reproduce the art work?

As far as I know, the artwork is in the public domain as well. Why wouldn't it be?

Do those PD laws cover everything equally? Or do the recordings themselves and the art itself fall under different laws?

I would guess that they're seperate issues. Many of the EU issues don't duplicate the artwork.

I think with pictures (as with books, texts...) it's more like "70 years after the death of the creator/originator". That's why Lone Hill and Definitive and Fresh Sound (the long-term projects among these labels) usually don't display cover art (though Fresh Sound has started to display small images of the covers inside their booklets more and more often in the past few years).

[mjzee]

Maybe it's a calculated gamble on their part, such as "it's probably not economically feasible for the record companies to sue us over THIS." The majors are also weakened financially by this point. I saw on Amazon that one of the bootleggers plans to put out Kind Of Blue. It'll be interesting to see Sony's reaction to that!

[AllenLowe]

truth is, even the "honest" labels probably cannot be trusted - my one CD with a well known and respected Euro jazz company resulted in non-payment of the Euro publishing, which they collected without giving me a penny, though they had agreed to pay me.

so my motto is: Every Nun for Himself.

[Cliff Englewood]

I saw on Amazon that one of the bootleggers plans to put out Kind Of Blue. It'll be interesting to see Sony's reaction to that!

It's already been released. That's kinda what I meant by saying that this is the shape of things to come, it's pretty much the way things are going to be for the next 5 to 10 years.

[clifford_thornton]

It seems so... pointless.

[david weiss]

It may be legal to issue the music in the EU, but is it legal to reproduce the art work?

As far as I know, the artwork is in the public domain as well. Why wouldn't it be?

Do those PD laws cover everything equally? Or do the recordings themselves and the art itself fall under different laws?

This is a very good question....

I'll have to inquire.

Most labels don't bother to chase these guys down because it is too much trouble and too expensive to sue these guys in European courts.

One point that was made to me a while ago (though they still didn't pursue it) is that it is not 50 years from when it was recorded but when it was issued so alternate takes that were first issued when they came out on CD and then picked up by these bootleggers were clearly breaking copyright law with this. As I said before, they didn't even bother to try to prosecute this glaring infraction.

When I recorded for Fresh Sound, I had the it might be legal but it's still wrong conversation many times.......

[david weiss]

agreed - but, in a way, if they use the same cover art, it's kind of a way of admitting that it's NOT theirs -

Everest Archive of Jazz was, of course, completely bogus and illegal. Haig always complained about Jazz Will of the Wisp ("I sent them a letter, they know where I am, so where's my money?")

And anyway, the regular companies found a "legal" way to avoid payments to musicians with the whole cutout scam - deleting records so they would be off the books basically. This was Mo Levy's original idea,and when I worked for Minuteman Records in the early 1970s in Cambridge (which later became Strawberries) he was the silent partner, and they had a warehouse full of Roulette cutouts. Mo never said much, just grunted at we kids.

For that matter, how many of the artists actually were paid commission on their sales. Didn't Blue Note, Prestige, etc., just pay double scale to the session leader with no commission?

Blue Note does pay it's artists royalties once they are in the black. Some time ago (within the last 20 years or so), Blue Note wiped the slate clean for all it's artists from the original label so they all started from a zero balance from that point on (very good news for the fusion artists from the '70s).

I can't say this for 100% certainty but my source for this information is pretty reliable (and in a position to know)

[ejp626]

It may be legal to issue the music in the EU, but is it legal to reproduce the art work?

As far as I know, the artwork is in the public domain as well. Why wouldn't it be?

Do those PD laws cover everything equally? Or do the recordings themselves and the art itself fall under different laws?

This is a very good question....

I'll have to inquire.

Most labels don't bother to chase these guys down because it is too much trouble and too expensive to sue these guys in European courts.

One point that was made to me a while ago (though they still didn't pursue it) is that it is not 50 years from when it was recorded but when it was issued so alternate takes that were first issued when they came out on CD and then picked up by these bootleggers were clearly breaking copyright law with this. As I said before, they didn't even bother to try to prosecute this glaring infraction.

When I recorded for Fresh Sound, I had the it might be legal but it's still wrong conversation many times.......

Actually, there is enough wiggle room in the current EU statute that most people go with 50 years from recording date, and it certainly would not be worth trying to sue.

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32006L0116:EN:NOT

My understanding is that EU copyright is in a bit of a limbo with the Parliment extending this to 70 years but it hasn't been adopted by the Council of Ministers.

[BillF]

Hope they don't adopt it,'cos if they do, I'll be in my nineties and past buying records when those great post-1960 discs come out!