Re: [ARSCLIST] Who Owns the Live Music of Days Gone By? (NY Times 03/12)

["Steven C. Barr(x)" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dave Nolan" <davenolanaudio@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/12/technology/12video.html?
> _r=1&8dpc&oref=slogin
>
> Who Owns the Live Music of Days Gone By?
>
> By ROBERT LEVINE
> Published: March 12, 2007
>
> When it began in 1973, the “King Biscuit Flower Hour” was very much of its
> time.
<snip>
First...there is also a major battle about the name, "King Biscuit Flower/
Flour!" The original King Biscuit Flour (the sponsor's name) program was
a live blues radio program of the postwar era, featuring "Sonny Boy
Williamson" (II-Rice Miller)...broadcast in the Helena, Arkansas area
on a low-power station. These days, Helena presents a "blues festival"
which, until corporate lawyers intervened, was called the "King Biscuit
Flour Festival." The lawyers, of course, felt the festival should pay
gazillions of dollars for using the name. Meanwhile, the original King
Flour Mills are long since defunct...and didn't assign their name to
anybody, insofar as is known! This has generated a "take sides" battle
in the world of blues...

Second...since the audio portion of any surviving video/film archives
is probably covered under the current copyright law...which places
sound recordings fixed since 1/1/72 (and previously, albeit indirectly...)
under pseudo-eternal copyright (it currently lapses on 1/1/2067, but
a few pen strokes and an approving vote can extend that for the life
of the planet...) it is possible that the video version could be
legally made available...sans audio! ("We regret being unable to
provide the audio portion of this item, but it is under copyright...").

Meanwhile (in the USA) about 99.9% of "the music of days gone by"
continues in its "dog in the manger" limbo, under the ownership
of huge multinational firms ("You can't reissue it, because it's
ours...and we won't reissue it, because our accounting department
doesn't foresee a large enough profit...!").

Fortunately, my hundred-or-so cassettes I made of live performances
of my blues band back in 1986-88 aren't in dispute...nobody else
WANTS the dommed things...!

Steven C. Barr