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Re: [ARSCLIST] Britain reverses position on copyright extension
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Fitzgerald" <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
At 05:49 PM 1/20/2009, Paul D wrote:
The Constitution states for a limited time. That could be
interpreted from 1 day to the lifetime of the artist.
Boy, those would be great minimum/maximum limits. The problem is that
Sonny Bono himself said that his interpretation of "a limited time"
was "forever minus one day". And that's a problem.
Exactly as his copyright-law admendments all but officially enshrined!
There is, admittedly, a difference between "Forever minus one day" and
January 1, 2067...but not for most of us old-timers who inhabit
78-L and/or ARSCLIST...?! As of RIGHT NOW, we have 57 years,
eleven months and ten days before we can sell ANY existing sound
recording...including, should we find the original, Thomas Edison's
recitation of "Mary Had a Little Lamb"...!
(In eleven more months and ten more days they're going to turn me
loose"...?!
And research suffers. What is fair game and absolutely routine for
scholars of the baroque is verboten for scholars of twentieth century
music. Our hands are tied and we have a tough time doing work on
music where we could actually speak to the participants and get
firsthand answers.
We can SPEAK to them all we want...we just CAN'T sell copies of
their sound recordings (or, in most cases, buy copies, unless we can
locate an original plus the machine needed to play same...?!) THIS
is why I own 54,000+ 78rpm phonorecords (which I COULD legally
reissue here in Canada, but CAN'T down in the US Of A...?!)
FEH!!
Steven C. Barr