Re: [ARSCLIST] When you die...

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

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob Olhsson" <olh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> -----Original Message-----
> >From Don Cox: "...Everyone is paid the least their employer can get away
> with..."
========
> True however when any individual's name on the package drives sales, they
> are in the position to choose whoever is willing to pay them the highest
> percentage rather than simply an hourly wage. It's no different than a
> salesperson demanding a commission.
> 
Which explains why men are paid tens of millions of dollars annually
to play games in public...?!

> In a great many cases and contrary to a lot of what gets spouted on the
> internet, the artist actually owns the master recording and has only leased
> limited replication rights to a record label.
ONLY if he/she/it were smart/clever enough to insist that such terms were
in the recording contract...or if the original "record company" was a
creation of that artist in order to sell recordings...!

> In my opinion intellectual
> property should never revert into the public domain. It isn't fair to the
> artist's heirs and it isn't fair for up and coming artists to be forced to
> compete with a large body of free music. The government seizing intellectual
> property to subsidize publishers is what I think is truly draconian.
> 
And here I MUST respectfully disagree, as both a collector of
shellaciana and an occasionally-working musician...!

First, in many, if not most, cases, the artist(s)'s heirs have minimal
interest nor claim to their ancestor(s)'s earnings! In fact, in "worst-
case scenarii," different parties among the descendants are still dragging
one another into courts of law, trying to establish who owns what, or has
the right to say what to whom...? In fact, this means that should I carry
out my intentions to re-issue items from my "half-vast shellac archive,"
I would have to identify EVERY player involved in making the recording...
and then track down the heirs and/or descendants of each such party...!

Second, this practice would effectively cut off us current North
Americans from much...or most...of our heritage (particularly 
were it applied to ALL copyrights on "intellectual property!!").
I suspect that I am part of a VERY small group of folks who still
enjoy the recordings of the Peerless Quartette...which means that
CBS is HIGHLY unlikely to issue an 8-CD box set of the group...!
We will still get the endless chain of reissues (by owner, of
course...?!) of Elvis, Glenn Miller (and whom?!)...but, beyond
that...?!

Third...as an occasionally-working blues musician, I DON'T feel
that my recordings are directly competing with reissues...
official or otherwise...of earlier blues artists...! The
typical skateboard enthusiast, who MAY (or may not...?) be
interested in neo-punk product, is extremely unlikely to
be interested in "Sam Lanin's Greatest Hits"...?!

Steven C. Barr