Re: [ARSCLIST] Brunswick Records rights/Universal

[James L Wolf <jwol@xxxxxxx>]

Yes, the 1923 date is the US public-domian cutoff for all published material except for sound recordings. Which means the "underlying works" of any pre-23 recording are automatically public domain, whereas the recordings themselves won't be until 2067. Unless there's another extension. Because Disney isn't just going to let Mickey go PD in 2023 or something, right? 

Europeans don't need to care about this, of course, though there are rumblings about taking recordings out of public domain over there, or at least extending the 50 years of recorded sound copyright to something much more American. Elvis is threatened, you know. 

But since I'm a person who works at a US government institution with a tremendous collection of pre 1923 recordings, and who would like to help put as many as possible of these recordings onto the web so that the history isn't lost, I hope you understand the enormous frustration I and others in similar situations feel. The issue of recordings copyright is truly central to the entire field of recordings preservation in the US, and is getting more worrisome as time goes on and more very early recordings dissapear and/or deteriorate. 

There is some cause for hope. Archeophone records, based in Illinois, decided at some point not to care about the state laws that cover pre-72 recordings, and have declared all the contents of their CD reissues to be public domain. Also, and unlike Yazoo and Revenant, they give all the information about the source recordings. Perhaps the law in Illinois allows them to do this. Perhaps they just have some huevos. But putting the same material on the web presents different problems, especially for an institution like the Library of Congress, so we have to be much more careful. 

James

The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Library of Congress policy, opinion, or action.


>>> stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 01/24/06 10:21 PM >>>
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Don Cox" <doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Is there any progress in the general drive to make earlier
> > sound-recording rights similar to other contemporaneous material (i.e.
> > pre-23 PD, post 22 into PD starting 2018)? With all this data about
> > unavailability, and now this first seeming corporate reaction, such a
> > schema should be an acceptable compromise to all parties.
> 
> The 1923 date applies only in the USA.
> 
To what? The new copyright law made ALL sound recordings cut in the USA
under copyright until 2067!

I assume this 1923 date must apply to the music, not to recordings of it?!

Steven C. Barr