Re: [ARSCLIST] ASCAP follows RIAA down the road guaranteed not to make friends

[Bob Olhsson <olh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
>From Steven C. Barr: "...in the days of Bach and Beethoven, neither musical
"copyrights"
nor performing-rights organizations existed, so one could use <composer>'s
second movement from rent arrears without paying for the privilege...!"

Bach and Beethoven BOTH had publishers. Copyright in the modern sense of
being controlled by the author also dates back to 1709.  Prior to that,
according to Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, "the sovereign asserted
control over printing by issuing patents or privileges to individuals or by
organizing publishers' guilds with monopoly rights." I'm pretty sure
performance rights also very much existed for both music and drama by the
time of Bach and Beethoven.

The predecessor of copyright laws was unlimited copyright under common law.
The trend has been almost entirely in the direction of weakening creators'
rights. A recent exception has been the lengthening of US and a few other
country's copyright terms to match those of other countries. Historically
the US has had some of the weakest copyright laws in the world.

Bob Olhsson Audio Mastery, Nashville TN
Mastering, Audio for Picture, Mix Evaluation and Quality Control
Over 40 years making people sound better than they ever imagined!
615.385.8051 http://www.hyperback.com