Reply-to: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxx>
At 6/27/2006 07:33 PM, Steven C. Barr wrote:
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).
That's not consistent with the information my copyright lawyer has
given me, but the law could be different in Canada. In the US, every
recording is protected by three different forms of copyright -- on
the performance, on the recording and on the composition.
Just because I own the tapes, and I have a chain of possession from
the person who recorded them, I still don't own any rights to the
performance unless each performer has assigned them to me, or there
is some kind of blanket contract that covers all members of a band or
orchestra. So, for example, I need to obtain a release from every
sideman in a jazz combo. And if I have a tape made at a pick-up
session, I have to identify everybody who is playing.
Royalties are even more complicated, because different rules apply to
different types of distribution. U.S. copyright law requires radio
and TV broadcasters to pay composers' royalties, but they don't have
to pay a performer each time they play a recording.
Fortunately, there is an exemption in the U.S. copyright act that
allows access and very limited distribution for "research," so I can
allow visitor to my museum to listen to recordings on-site.
As I said, it's complicated, and I'm sure it's different in other
countries. But it does become a problem if I ever want to release a
recording on a commercial CD, or make it available for download
through the 'net.