Re: [ARSCLIST] Disposition of those bluegrass tapes

[steven c <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Ross" <johnross@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> At  6/27/2006 02:07 PM, Mike Richter wrote:
> >Interestingly, no one addressed the broader question: How does one
> >who is not involved with ARSC find a repository for such material?
>
> This is a growing for many communities. I've been calling it the
> "tapes in the basement problem." Here in Seattle, we have identified
> at least half a dozen separate substantial collections of folk music
> tapes that are sitting in various attics and basements, in need of
> both preservation and cataloging. Some are concerts or field
> recordings, but others are probably just dubs of some friends' record
> collections. Without a detailed survey, there's no way to know
> exactly what we have. And of course, there is no easy way to figure
> out who owns what rights -- performance, recording and composition -- 
> to most of this stuff.
>
> I'm sure there are plenty of other collections of jazz, classical
> music, radio transcriptions and oral history tapes facing the same
problems.
>
> It seems like there ought to be a local or regional institution who
> could take this stuff, but without a) staff, b) proper equipment and
> space to preserve the originals and make digital copies, and c) money
> to pay for a) and b), the tapes would just end up in some storage
> warehouse waiting for somebody to "do something with them."
>
Two thoughts...

First, the rights to the recordings would probably...at least in most
cases...
belong to the party who did the recording (this assumes they were on-scene
live recordings of musicians who weren't signed to a record label). If
the recordings are "bootleg" recordings of signed bands, any re-use would
require permission from both the artist(s) and the label(s) involved. Of
course, there would be more interest in the latter case (unless the
artist(s)
had gone on to later fame...which would also complicate the reuse
situation!).

Second, I agree with your analysis of the situation...and that an archive
for such recordings should be created posthaste. In fact, I have at least
a hundred or more tapes of my own blues band...I used to tape all our
performances for later critique, and saved almost all the cassettes. If
someone ever should want to research the musical history of Toronto &
district, these tapes would be a very useful research tool. However, I
suspect that when I finally ascend thegolden stairs to that great beer
joint in the sky, the mourners (I assume there might be at least one?)
will probably consign my half-vast cassette archive to whatever landfill
site or incinerator will be serving greater Oshawa by then (and the 40,000
78's as well? In fact, will analog music still exist?)...

Steven C. Barr