Re: [ARSCLIST] Copyright and Marston Records

[James L Wolf <jwol@xxxxxxx>]

Based on a close reading of Sutton and Nauck's book and what reserach I could do, here are a few more possible orphans.

There's some speculation that pre-November 1924 Vocalions are effectively orphaned, since there is some evidence that these items were not included in the sale of Brunswick music holdings to Decca in the 1930's.

Also, despite some claims that Capitol/EMI is the owner, Emerson seems to be another orphan. There is evidence that Capitol bought the pressing plant owned by the Scranton Button Company (at least that's all Sutton and Nauck said they bought), but none that Capitol purchased the entire Scranton company or the Emerson masters which it owned, which would have been worthless at the time. 

I've heard that Gennett is orphaned, though I've also heard that Fantasy claims it.

Paramount is another mystery, along with Black Swan which may or may not have been bought out by Paramount (accounts differ). George Buck claims to own Paramount's masters, but from what I've seen, it's not well backed up. Oberstein (I think) supposedly bought up all of Paramount's physical property, including many metal masters, but it's unclear if he bought the rights.

In the cases of Paramount and Emerson, the original contracts or bills of sale might clear up confusion, but to my knowledge, nobody has seen these in recent years.

Of course, these are only my opinions and speculations based on what I could find out. They are subject to change in the face of contradicting evidence, and in any case, don't necessarily reflect any official stance or policy of the Library of Congress.

James

>>> dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx 03/16/06 4:42 PM >>>
Bob Olhsson wrote:

> >I hope details will be forthcoming, especially if they can serve as a
> >badly needed licensing model for US companies.
> >
>
> There are no US companies for the early stuff and little need for a licensing model because Sony/BMG owns everything EMI doesn't and they both own a lot of it jointly. Universal kicks in during the '30s.

Nope..Universal owns Brunswick's pre-1932 catalog so it goes back to the late 1910s whether it knows it or not.

> Independent label ownership only begins in the '40s when the last of the electrical recording patents expired.

Crown, Hit of the Week, Grey Gull are among the more prominent independent labels and as far as I know, all are orphaned (despite the claims that Crown went to Oberstein and everything Obie owned became part
of Savoy).

dl