Thoughts on cheap, multi CD re-issues

[ArtSalt]

I recently purchased a Sun Ra album from a so called "bootleg" label, it was not available on any legitimate release. So what choice did I have, I wanted to explore the music and so any moral questions as to Sun Ra, up there in some galaxy getting his cut, seemed somewhat ridiculous.

Ideally, I want my music mastered or remastered from the source tapes, or as close as possible, with due care and attention to packaging and liner notes and royalties paid to the artist or their estate. But I actually might not dig the estate, for example, I deplore the estate of the Beat writer Jack Kerouac whose treatment of his daughter, Jan when she was ill was quite deplorable leaving her to die. I care nought for them and wish them not a penny.

Who has the estate of Chet Baker? I dunno'.

[Face of the Bass]

These cheap CD reissues are the death of goodness.

[medjuck]

In my view, I have a moral duty toward the people involved with the making of the recording.

"Copyright holder" is a legal concept, a creation of the local government. I don't recognize a government to have the ability to create moral duties, and without knowing anything else about a situation, I would not feel a moral duty toward a copyright holder.

Anyone want to persuade me otherwise?

I'll give it a shot. This has little to do with government. It's not clear whether songwriters, for example, are paid for the use of their compositions. Moreover, Concord (to use one example) paid the original owners of Fantasy for the recording masters. Given the timing of their purchase (at the start of the record industry's decline), it's hard to say it was a wise purchase. Surely they have the right to make money off these masters. These cheap sets make it harder for them to do so.

My assumption is that Concord still pays royalties to the musicians (at least the leaders) and for sure to composers.

[mjzee]

But Concord did not pay "the original owners of Fantasy." They paid Saul Zaentz, who acquired the company in 1967, 18 years after Dave Brubeck's first recordings, which Fantasy obtained from Coronet Records.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_Records

Should I have a moral duty toward the current owner of tapes (which have changed hands many times) after the musicians, producer and engineer are dead?

Saul Zaentz paid the original owners of Fantasy, and of Prestige, and of many other companies. He did so with the aim of making a profit. It seems like he did OK in that regard. Concord, less so. The profit motive is a great motivator; people need to get paid for their work or their investments.

Let's not forget that the consumer will continue to pay, in one way or another. It's hard to imagine, but how much music will never be created because musicians or financiers don't see the ability to make a profit or to make a living? They'll do something else instead, and the jazz fan (the consumer) loses.

Even "free" models aren't really free. Remember when you could just watch videos on YouTube? Now you're inundated with ads. And how many torrents contain viruses? There's a profit motive for sure.

My assumption is that Concord still pays royalties to the musicians (at least the leaders) and for sure to composers.

Agreed. But do the producers of cheap, multi CD reissues do so?

[StarThrower]

Seriously, I don't care what people buy, or,really, why they buy it. But when the justification is blatantly and patently false (which I can't get this ANYWHERE else!!!!! is, then ooops, sorry, that's simple misinformation, now do you have a reason/rationalization that can be supported by reality? A simple "ah, it's cheap, it's right here in front of me, and I'm too lazy to go digging on the bit-torrent sites, or to bug my collector friends, and besides, it comes in its own box" is perfectly acceptable, but...is nobody that honest? No. It's always well if so and so wouldn't have done this or oif so and so WOULD have done this, then I wouldn't HAVE to buy this, and, hey, take responsibility for your own actions, don't be looking for misdirected absoltuion.

First person that says straight-up "Yes, there are other ways to get this material, to say otherwise is a fat-faced lie" gets a BIG box of raisins, one of the ones I buy for myself, and then we can all get back to going about our business.

But one of the big problems with these Real Gone titles is that they look respectable and legit. A jazz consumer who's not in the know (who, say, doesn't read this BB) could reason that Amazon is selling these, I see them in Half Price Books and other stores, so they're probably OK (similar to those Doxy LPs). Someone who does BitTorrent knows exactly what he's doing and why it's wrong.

A good comparison would be those Applause LPs from the '80's that reissued some Blue Note titles. They were cheap and they looked like boots, so the average consumer wouldn't know they were actually licensed from BN. They were in record stores, so the average consumer figured they're probably legit. In the case of Applause, they'd be correct; in the case of Real Gone or Doxy, not so.

To the average consumer, I'll bet these look a lot alike:

The "average consumer" doesn't buy jazz records. Jazz fans know the difference, unless they're extremely naive or clueless. I prefer to buy the legit CDs for better sound (not always the case) and the photos and liner notes are nice, but I'm over 50 and I can't read the tiny print.

In the age of dollar store economics, people have become conditioned to getting stuff on the cheap, so why not get 8 albums for 8 bucks?

[JSngry]

Hmmm...I look at the Collectables and see three pictures, but only two pictures of album covers. And also, they've got the original label logos on them, to remind me of how old they are and that they have been out before and just all sorts of....bothersome peculiarity of periodic specificalities.

Then I look at the Avid and see FIVE pictures, all of them album covers, and if it looks like 3/5 or them are incomplete covers, that's still five pictures of album cover, to go with Four Classic Albums Plus in probably the finest sound quality ever, and besides, how do I know what those album covers really look like, this is the value here, maybe rectangles were records before records were round, either way - PHYSICAL OBJECTS - not nebulous digital soundsignals running across the insternet, physical object just like the old days when god intended for it to be that way, and to proove god was right in the first place - more pictures!!!

Why would I spend my money on anything else or look elsewhere to get a collection feeling of recorded music inside my house, where it's nobody's, after all, business but mine?

[Eric]

I find it rather humorous they feel the need to add the qualifier "probably" ...

[GA Russell]

In my view, I have a moral duty toward the people involved with the making of the recording.

"Copyright holder" is a legal concept, a creation of the local government. I don't recognize a government to have the ability to create moral duties, and without knowing anything else about a situation, I would not feel a moral duty toward a copyright holder.

Anyone want to persuade me otherwise?

I'll give it a shot. This has little to do with government. It's not clear whether songwriters, for example, are paid for the use of their compositions. Moreover, Concord (to use one example) paid the original owners of Fantasy for the recording masters. Given the timing of their purchase (at the start of the record industry's decline), it's hard to say it was a wise purchase. Surely they have the right to make money off these masters. These cheap sets make it harder for them to do so.

My assumption is that Concord still pays royalties to the musicians (at least the leaders) and for sure to composers.

Joe and Michael, I'm confident that Concord is paying somebody. But I doubt that they are paying the musicians and the composers because I suspect that for most of those great '50s jazz albums, the musicians and the composers are dead.

So Concord is paying "the heirs and assigns." You will recall that I assumed that I have a moral duty to certain people such as the musicians. Did they have a right to transfer my moral duty? It's not obvious to me that they did.

[medjuck]

Sonny Rollins, for example, is still alive.

[paul secor]

In my view, I have a moral duty toward the people involved with the making of the recording.

"Copyright holder" is a legal concept, a creation of the local government. I don't recognize a government to have the ability to create moral duties, and without knowing anything else about a situation, I would not feel a moral duty toward a copyright holder.

Anyone want to persuade me otherwise?

I'll give it a shot. This has little to do with government. It's not clear whether songwriters, for example, are paid for the use of their compositions. Moreover, Concord (to use one example) paid the original owners of Fantasy for the recording masters. Given the timing of their purchase (at the start of the record industry's decline), it's hard to say it was a wise purchase. Surely they have the right to make money off these masters. These cheap sets make it harder for them to do so.

My assumption is that Concord still pays royalties to the musicians (at least the leaders) and for sure to composers.

Joe and Michael, I'm confident that Concord is paying somebody. But I doubt that they are paying the musicians and the composers because I suspect that for most of those great '50s jazz albums, the musicians and the composers are dead.

So Concord is paying "the heirs and assigns." You will recall that I assumed that I have a moral duty to certain people such as the musicians. Did they have a right to transfer my moral duty? It's not obvious to me that they did.

Have you ever received a bequest or legacy of any kind? Do you plan to leave one to your family? Musicians are people and citizens, and they have the right to leave what they have to their families.

[duaneiac]

I am very skeptical that the huge multinational conglomerates which have control of the recorded music industry today are at all interested in paying royalties to artists they consider to be nothing less than has-beens. if we know that 60 years ago, in the glory days of the record industry, the business was run by shysters, weasels and mob associates who regularly screwed their recording artists out of money, what reason is there to believe that the situation is any better now that the record industry is in the even more unseemly hands of corporate accountants and lawyers (no offense to any lawyers or accountants here, who I am sure are groovy folks). The corporate execs would rather spend bucks having lawyers finding obscure clauses in long ago contracts that can be used to show the artists are not owed one damn dime. To pay a washed up and forgotten (by the public at large) musician royalties for music they recorded before most of today's music industry execs were even born would set a bad precedent in their minds.

As I said earlier, unless a musician or their estate can afford to have their own accountant or lawyer go over the music conglomerate's records and accounts, they are likely getting screwed. And how many musicians who have recorded works from 50-60 years ago -- say Sonny Rollins, Jimmy Heath, Roy Haynes, McCoy Tyner -- are in a position to afford a team of accountants and lawyers? And which deceased musicians have a family in such a position? The Coltrane family? The Davis family? The Brubeck family? The Ellington family? The Armstrong family?

[mjzee]

Songwriters have ASCAP and BMI behind them, as well as the publishing companies. I'm sure they still get paid by legitimate record companies.

[JSngry]

waitwaitwait...am I being told that paying somebody else to repackage (and pretty poorly at that) stuff that is (in the case of the type of sets being discussed here) at the very best straight rips of shit that's already out there somewhere (and at worst, poorer versions of stuff that's already out there somewhere) is not a concession to one's one laziness/technophobia/whateverelse, but is in fact a Libertarian Moral Obligation If One Is To Avoid The Imposition Of The Tyranny Of Government Based Anti-Liberty Economics?

Seriously?

Kid: Hey Dad, you know that Gigi Gryce album you were looking for? I found it on a torrent site, straight up exact copy of the Japanese reissue. You want it?

Dad: No son, that's not the American Way. Wait for somebody else to steal it and then pay them for it. Let them know that's there will always be a market for dirty deeds done dirt cheap, especially where there's variances in international laws to loophole in and out of.

Kid: So Dad, what about that $5 hooker you were wanting me to line up for you?

Dad: $5 my ass! Tell her it's $3.50 or she can stay home! And she better bring a friend this time.

Kid: Geez dad, why don't you do all this yourself?

Dad: Dammit boy, you're not paying attention. The purpose of life is not to steal for yourself, it's to get somebody else to steal it for you, and for as little as possible. Quality be dammed, the cheaper the better. Anything else is TYRANNY!!!! Why don't you pay attention?

Kid: Oh, I am, Dad, I am.

[felser]

So Francis Scott Key's descendents should be owed a whole lot of mechanical performance royalties.

[Aggie87]

let me add that I feel no guilt in buying any of this stuff because I have supported this industry with a LOT of my semi-hard-earned dollars since 1968. The record/cd business received more of my cash than anything, other than my kids.

I find this comment interesting. If you have no problem acquiring music without paying the artists or their estates or rights holders what is due them, do you have a problem with people acquiring your music without paying you what is due you?

[jlhoots]

let me add that I feel no guilt in buying any of this stuff because I have supported this industry with a LOT of my semi-hard-earned dollars since 1968. The record/cd business received more of my cash than anything, other than my kids.

I find this comment interesting. If you have no problem acquiring music without paying the artists or their estates or rights holders what is due them, do you have a problem with people acquiring your music without paying you what is due you?

I don't believe that's what he's saying - but will wait for his reply.

[Aggie87]

Could be. It seems like that is a consequence of buying public domain releases though, particularly when they're technically not meant for sale in the U.S.

[GA Russell]

Sonny Rollins, for example, is still alive.

You bet! And I certainly feel a moral duty to buy the issues of his recordings which will result in his getting paid.

[JSngry]

There's a lot of Moral Midgetry that comes out in discussions like this, all the Corporate Greed/Corporate Rights/Consumer Greed/Consumer Rights/BlahblahblahBlah BLAH. Whatever. Justify your own positions how you will. But broken down to its basics, here's the deal:

• The notion that there are things that you "can't get anywhere else" is just pure bullshit. If it exists, you can get it, or die trying. When it comes to old jazz records that have already seen the light of day, it will be very unlikely that it will come to that. These triflin'-ass EuroMusiPorn Boxes are getting it, so if they can get it...
• If you want it badly enough, you will try to get it yourself. You will network, you will search out alternative means of distribution, you'll call in or ask for favors, but there are ways.
• The less you really want it, the less effort you will make to get it yourself. You'll settle. And don't kid yourself, the only people who don't settle sometimes are either assholes or devils.
• Either way, you make the decision. Nobody forces you to get it or strong-arms you into not being able to get it.

This blaming others for what is a totally free individual choice seems to me to be rooted in a desire to cover up the "fact" that we all steal something, sometimes and/or that we're all comfortable with getting a bargain at somebody else's expense, sometimes. Hell, remember when Home Taping was Killing the Music Industry? Well hey, I confess, I'm the guy who did it, Music Industry blood on my hands, currently awaiting extradition to RIAA Hell, yeah, that was me. I'm The Motherfucker That Killed The Music Industry With Home Taping.

And nobody made me do it. I didn't have enough money and/or access to everything I wanted/needed/thought I needed to hear, so by god I taped it. And then, next time around, i bought it, or got MP3s of it. And then next time around, I bought it new or used. And at some point, shit, I might just give it all away, the hometaped cassettes, the CD-Rs of the MP3s, all the shit I bought new, used, traded, borrowed and not-yet returned (a few people have died before I got their stuff back to them, seriously). Just give it all away, a delayed catch-and-release program for recorded musics, you got the truck and the backbone to walk it all out of here, it's yours. But not yet.

And I want to be alive on the plane that allows me to see who takes up that offer and then gets all sniffy about what's what and what's not what.

Like Allen, I have bought a lot of shit legitimately, and plan to keep doing so. None of that, however, none of it, was or is because of some "moral duty" to behave one way or the other, it was/is all a choice that I made/make for myself based on what I want, when do I want it, and badly do I want to have it, and how soon do I need/"need" to have it? Nothing else. no copyright law has infringed upon my personal ability to procure, nor has any desire to give people money through standard business practices stopped me from doing so in the face of a less personally expensive alternative.

Just...own your behavior people. Own your own freakin' behavior. You want ____ and will not do ____ to get it.

And then when you do/do not get it, that needs to be why/how., always. Just that, only that. If what is in the blank ends up at odds with what actually happens, even just once, you filled in the blank wrong. What, did The Government or The Music Industry fill in that blank for you? No, they did not.

And let's not limit it to just music, ok? That would be, like, waaaaayyyy too easy.

Sonny Rollins, for example, is still alive.

You bet! And I certainly feel a moral duty to buy the issues of his recordings which will result in his getting paid.

So, the day he dies, your moral duty expires, is that how that works?

If so, I'd suggest you get a live feed running anywhere and everywhere that might give you the earliest possible breaking news of his demise, lest you spend unnecessarily.

[GA Russell]

Joe and Michael, I'm confident that Concord is paying somebody. But I doubt that they are paying the musicians and the composers because I suspect that for most of those great '50s jazz albums, the musicians and the composers are dead.

So Concord is paying "the heirs and assigns." You will recall that I assumed that I have a moral duty to certain people such as the musicians. Did they have a right to transfer my moral duty? It's not obvious to me that they did.

Have you ever received a bequest or legacy of any kind? Do you plan to leave one to your family? Musicians are people and citizens, and they have the right to leave what they have to their families.

Paul, each of us has the legal right to bequeath our possessions (less estate taxes!!!), but (unless someone can convince me otherwise) I don't think that my moral duty belongs to a musician to give away.

[JSngry]

Paul, each of us has the legal right to bequeath our possessions (less estate taxes!!!), but (unless someone can convince me otherwise) I don't think that my moral duty belongs to a musician to give away.

You are allowing for the possibility of being convinced of something that you don't think regarding a moral duty which you stated earlier is something that you feel?

In other words, you have a feeling about not having a feeling that will continue to not be there until it is put their by somebody else?

All this over estate taxes?

[Teasing the Korean]

I find this comment interesting. If you have no problem acquiring music without paying the artists or their estates or rights holders what is due them, do you have a problem with people acquiring your music without paying you what is due you?

Those of us who are selling our own music know that we are losing money. It is very helpful, though, for us to be put in our place by people who know how things should work in theory. Thank you for advocating for us.

[Daniel A]

Just a very minor correction to a post upthread: composer's rights extend to 70 years after the death of the composer.

[mikeweil]

There's a lot of Moral Midgetry that comes out in discussions like this, all the Corporate Greed/Corporate Rights/Consumer Greed/Consumer Rights/BlahblahblahBlah BLAH. Whatever. Justify your own positions how you will. But broken down to its basics, here's the deal:

• The notion that there are things that you "can't get anywhere else" is just pure bullshit. If it exists, you can get it, or die trying. When it comes to old jazz records that have already seen the light of day, it will be very unlikely that it will come to that. These triflin'-ass EuroMusiPorn Boxes are getting it, so if they can get it...
• If you want it badly enough, you will try to get it yourself. You will network, you will search out alternative means of distribution, you'll call in or ask for favors, but there are ways.
• The less you really want it, the less effort you will make to get it yourself. You'll settle. And don't kid yourself, the only people who don't settle sometimes are either assholes or devils.
• Either way, you make the decision. Nobody forces you to get it or strong-arms you into not being able to get it.

.....

In other words, do I buy a used LP for 100 $, or a 10 € box set from one of those "triflin'-ass EuroMusiPorn" labels. We are the collectors, we are the buyers, weare the standards, but I'm afraid we here are an elite, the average jazz buyer, even musicians I know, has not a fraction of the discograpical information nor the money to get it or buy the rare LP. I know plenty jazz lovers of this type.

I'd really want to kow how many copies of these boxes are made and sold, and to whom, besides us.) That said, how about those who sell these boxes? What about their morality, not to mention amazon?)

I'm with you Jim, we have to keep up the standards and pay the price - but I doubt anything would change if we here all did. Labels must make money, legit or not, and the way the majors are run they will not make money from boxes made the Mosaic way.

As one German philosopher recently put it discussing such questions, "there is no way to live right in a world all wrong". Moral decisions whevever I am buying groceries, or CDs, phew .... it's a hard life, and I'm not kidding.

[AllenLowe]

"I find this comment interesting. If you have no problem acquiring music without paying the artists or their estates or rights holders what is due them, do you have a problem with people acquiring your music without paying you what is due you?"

ah, Aggie is back and misses no opportunity to fire some arrows; but, whoa, pardner, you need an industry reality check - first of all, even PD labels are required to pay publishing;

as for the musicians, they are not paid session money for reissues unless it's in the contract anyway; you really think the estates are getting anything significant? When Fantasy reissued a few Al Haig things his widow got nothing, and they knew where she was. And those were not boots.

but as I said above, I do not believe even leaders are due pay for reissues unless the contract is very specific. As for royalties on sales, good luck, because nobody pays them, legit or not. I am still waiting for Enja to pay me a penny on sales and publishing for the thing I did for them in the '90s.

and yes I do like to get paid for my music, but I won't be worried about this when I am 90, as I do believe in the 50-year rule. So set your alarm clock, Aggie, for 2044.

Edited May 10, 2015 by AllenLowe