Re: [ARSCLIST] Folkways Reissues

[Steven Smolian <smolians@xxxxxxxxx>]

Yep.  What you left out are the lawyers.

Steve Smolian

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Ross" <johnross@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, December 14, 2007 12:31 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Folkways Reissues


> There's a huge difference between your making a one-off CD copy of a 
> recording and operating a business that provides a similar service from a 
> catalogue of several thousand titles.
>
> First, there's staff: not only a technician to burn the copies and 
> maintain the equipment, but also one or more archivists to catalogue and 
> maintain the collection; somebody to accept orders and handle billing and 
> payments; a webmaster to create and maintain the online catalogue; and 
> somebody to handle marketing and publicity. I'm probably leaving something 
> out.
>
> Second, in order to provide that special-order service, it's necessary to 
> create and maintain an extensive archive of audio files, cover art and 
> images of the booklets that accompanied every Folkways LP. That's another 
> cost.
>
> Third, unlike Moe Asch, who was notorious for being slow (or stagnant) 
> about paying royalties, the Smithsonian actually keeps track of sales of 
> those special orders and sends royalty payments to the performers on those 
> special-order items. As Tony Seeger, the former director of 
> Smithsonian/Folkways once told me, "As an agency of the U.S. Government, 
> we have an obligation to respect copyrights and performing rights."
>
> Or consider the same question from another direction: If you're really 
> efficient, it might take you an hour to make a clean copy of a 45-minute 
> LP; more if it requires noise reduction, de-clicking or other processing. 
> Isn't your time worth more than $15 per hour?
>
> John Ross
>
> At  12/14/2007 07:35 AM, Garr Norick  wrote:
> > Don't get me wrong... please understand that I admire what Folkways is 
> > doing, and it is something that needs to be done... Maybe this 
> > illustration will show me what I mean... I have a private collection of 
> > music... I have been collecting for 20 years, and I am 23 years old... Say 
> > someone wanted a CD dub of a recording in my collection... I could 
> > transfer it onto CD and xerox the liner notes for them, and this would 
> > cost me at most one dollar. I could charge them five dollars for the whole 
> > thing, plus shipping, and make a 500% profit... Smithsonian, a government 
> > entity, owns the rights to all these masters outright... they probably buy 
> > blank CDs, labels, and paper for insert materials in massive quantities... 
> > thereby saving money... in other words, they probably don't have 
> > considerable overhead aside from paying someone to do these transfers 
> > (which, understanding the importance of keeping this music alive, would 
> > gladly do for them free of charge)... what I am trying to say
> >  is, all things considered, considering that they own the masters and 
> > probably get the raw materials at or below wholesale pricing, they could 
> > easily charge $10 a CD and make a nice profit on it (and it probably 
> > costs them less to make a custom CD than it does me, because I buy my 
> > supplies in retail quantities at retail prices). I guess part of my point 
> > of view is that I am a collector who has always been on a shoestring 
> > budget. I sincerely hope I did not offend anyone.
> >
> >   Most Sincerely Yours,
> >   G.E.
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------
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