General thoughts on missing radio

[T Morgan]

Jul 5, 2022 20:44:59 GMT Stuart Monk said:

Interesting comments on The Radio Circle, which was put together when people communicated by letter and telephone and long before the widespread use of digital storage - collections of radio programmes were gathered with great efforts from the four corners of the world at significant expense and almost always on a trading basis.
So I'm not surprised if an unsolicited email asking for some rare recordings was met with a brick wall if the sender had nothing to trade!
Members of the Circle have been able to provide recordings from their collections to the BBC for broadcast on 4 Extra and as a thank you have managed to get 4X to broadcast a few things that were otherwise missing from collectors' circles and I think that's a fair reason not to just hand out Gb's of stuff to anyone who asks, to keep Auntie sweet.
I've never known the Circle refuse a recording that was otherwise missing and I know that members have put a lot of effort into improving sound quality where needed - again, offering a low bitrate copy of an MP3 rather than access to the original recording is likely to have a predictable outcome. You're attempting to deal with Collectors, not Philanthropists...
I'm not suggesting that you personally have made any of these 'errors', just trying to give a flavour of what it is to be an analogue human in digital times - I don't think you'll get many 'rarities' thrown onto Archive.org in the foreseeable future!
Stuart

Good thing you clarified your comment at the end, as I wouldn't say I emailed just asking for rare recordings. I was never given the impression that they operated on a "trading" basis anyway.

You say "You're attempting to deal with Collectors, not Philanthropists...". That's surely part of the problem, there are too many collectors who are unwilling to share their collection and just keep things for themselves. And do Auntie really care about these recordings being circulated? My guess is no, assuming it is done discreetly and not on an industrial scale (even then, they might not give a damn). I mean, look at the Old Radio Collectors' Association. They're in no danger of being shut down.

Thankfully the internet has made it a lot easier to share archive material.

[Natalie Sinead]

The problem for those of us interested in the classic era of American and Canadian top 40 personality radio (WABC, KHJ, WLS, CHUM, CKLW et al) is that most home tapers were kids who wanted the music, not the DJs (and now as adults posting to radio forums say they wish it had been the other way around), and most of the recordings that were made were either taped over or later thrown out.

[Richard Marple]

I've still got some tapes of the Radio 1 Chart show I made in 1986-7 where I just left the tape running & recorded all the links.

I digitised them a few years ago.

[Dan S]

Jun 14, 2022 12:57:12 GMT T Morgan said:

A lot of old British radio is surely Public Domain now

How old does a BBC recording have to be to be classed as public domain?
I've seen some people say it's anything earlier than 1963 (aka 'The Beatles Law'), can anyone confirm?

[Natalie Sinead]

The copyright in the song (the words and music) is life plus 70 after the death of the last contributor in the UK. So, John Lennon songs (including "Imagine") are out of copyright at the end of 2055 but Lennon/McCartney songs will be in copyright until 70 years after McCartney's death.

[Dan S]

I was talking about BBC radio shows in general, non music shows. I only tossed in "The Beatles Law" as a joke because it's some peoples belief that the public domain date of BBC radio shows is fixed at 1962 because certain people don't wan't all the Beatles stuff to become PD.

[Dan S]

double post

[T Morgan]

Jul 12, 2022 12:30:26 GMT Dan S said:

I was talking about BBC radio shows in general, non music shows. I only tossed in "The Beatles Law" as a joke because it's some peoples belief that the public domain date of BBC radio shows is fixed at 1962 because certain people don't wan't all the Beatles stuff to become PD.

Yes, that's the EU copyright law we signed up to. The law was changed just in time to stop the Beatles most famous (lucrative) recordings from becoming Public Domain. The UK Government website isn't very accurate, since it's essentially 50 years for pre-1963 sound recordings, and 70 years for post-1963 recordings. So it's at least another ten years before "She Loves You" is public domain. Natalie is right, but the copyright for the words and music is completely separate to the recording copyright.

Copyright Notice

For broadcasts: "50 years from the year in which the broadcast was made."

But surely the line between what is a broadcast and a sound recording is quite a thin one.

It was actually nicknamed "Cliff's Law" because of the lobbying by Cliff Richard to extend the copyright term for sound recordings from 50 to 70 years.

[Dan S]

So for a radio show - let's take music out of the equation completely because I'm not interested in the PD date for that specifically and wish I'd never mentioned it - so let's say an episode of The Archers or some dull Radio 4 discussion show or something, something is Public Domain after 50 years? So currently it'd be anything earlier than 1972?? But what about that 1962/63 date? A few things I've read have said that's set in stone and isn't moving any further for some reason.

[T Morgan]

Jul 13, 2022 10:00:56 GMT Dan S said:

So for a radio show - let's take music out of the equation completely because I'm not interested in the PD date for that specifically and wish I'd never mentioned it - so let's say an episode of The Archers or some dull Radio 4 discussion show or something, something is Public Domain after 50 years? So currently it'd be anything earlier than 1972?? But what about that 1962/63 date? A few things I've read have said that's set in stone and isn't moving any further for some reason.

According to that UK Government website, broadcasts over fifty years old are PD.

For sound recordings (material originally issued on shellac, vinyl etc), it was fifty years, until EU copyright law changed (perhaps as a result of lobbying by Sir Cliff, or The Beatles). The law changed in 2013, I think. That meant that sound recordings which were already PD at the time remained so: everything up to and including 1962. The copyright expired at the end of the calendar year in which the recording reached fifty. So recordings from 1962 were PD in 2013. EU law was then extended to 70 years, but not retrospectively - meaning that if it was already PD, it would remain so. Therefore, it will be 2034 before sound recordings from 1963 are PD, unless the UK Government decides to amend that particular law now it's free to do so (post-Brexit).

I don't know if the same EU law covered broadcasts, though it looks like it's a UK piece of legislation. If it worked the same way as for sound recordings though, you'd be right, anything earlier than 1972 would be a PD broadcast. That's my interpretation of the terms. Use of the broadcasts presumably still requires mechanical copyright fees to be paid though, ie. for music, lyrics and the script used in the broadcast. Arthur Wood, who composed Barwick Green (The Archers theme) died in 1953, so I suppose in 2024, his works will become PD. The scriptwriter for the programme in question would also be due royalties I assume, unless it's been 70 years since their death.

I'm by no means an expert, as you can tell. I don't think the laws have really kept up with the internet age either, when so much stuff is just freely available on YouTube et al.

[Dan S]

Thanks. Yes it's a complicated area. And am I right in thinking that if a radio show (from 1960 for example that would otherwise be PD) had been released on an LP in 1980 for example then it wouldn't become public domain until 50 (or 70?) years after the 1980 release date rather than the original airdate?

[T Morgan]

Jul 14, 2022 14:54:17 GMT Dan S said:

Thanks. Yes it's a complicated area. And am I right in thinking that if a radio show (from 1960 for example that would otherwise be PD) had been released on an LP in 1980 for example then it wouldn't become public domain until 50 (or 70?) years after the 1980 release date rather than the original airdate?

I think that's only the case if 1980 was the first time the recording had been made available. Sound recordings which were unreleased at the time of recording have a copyright date starting from when they were first issued. I suppose it would be the same for radio broadcasts, as they would be unreleased sound recordings if they hadn't been aired at the time?

[Natalie Sinead]

Most recordings of top 40 era radio won't be that interesting to historians. Young kids did most of the tapes that have survived and they wanted music, not the DJ patter, the news, the station jingles/promos and the commercials. I have lost count of how often I have been offered a recording of a Top 40 station from the Golden Era only to find it all but useless for the reasons i have stated.

[George D]

I have mixed opinions of long copyrights.

Initially it was meant to give creators a period of exclusively to recover creation expenses and profit.

Unfortunately it's evolved to a legal game to create legacies for corporations and people who had nothing to do with the shows chasing down relatives to sign over rights which may never have been willed to them. Examples of this is what was done with "happy birthday " where the courts discovered after years the illegatmacy of the copyright claim


If people were still doing business with the property i get it.. but many of these things have fallen into a black hole where the copyright might cause them to become lost.

The original 28 years was good enough unless a strong case of continued usage could be proven.

[Ed Brown]

I'd like to make a heartfelt request that folk discontinue using the term 'public domain', please.

That term is an American one, which applies only to Amercan copyright law. There is no such phrase in UK copyright law. UK law uses a generic expression, 'out of copyright'.

In the UK, there was a Copyright Act passed in 1911, in 1956, and in 1988. The current law is set out in the 1988 Act, and it applies to all copying after 1988, i.e. any copy made today, even if the work being copied was created before 1988. So the earlier Acts have no legal effect today.

The 1988 Act has a separate section for Broadcast copyright. This covers both television and radio broadcasts.

But first, a brief explanation of UK copyright law in general. A 'work' has copyright protection. A 'work' includes - for example - a book, a tv script, a radio script, and a piece of music. The 'author' of the 'work' is the person who owns the copyright: that is, the right to control copying of the work.

A book or a script has an 'author', obviously. A piece of music has two 'authors', the man who composes the music, and the man who writes the lyrics. But -- in a sense -- a broadcast has an additional author, the organisation who broadcasts it.

So, a radio show has lots of 'authors'. The people who write the script [for example, ISIRTA: Graeme Garden, Bill Oddie, John Cleese, etc] are all the 'author', at least of the sketch each man wrote. But each piece of music, whether theme music or incidental music, also has an 'author', i.e. its composer.

Every episode of a sketch show will have multiple authors, as each sketch will potentially have one or more individual writers. And each piece of incidental music will have a composer, as will the theme tune for the episode.

An 'author' has a legal right to control the copyright, which currently lasts for the life of that author plus 70 years. This is so whether the 'work' is the script for the episode, or a single sketch from the episode, or a piece of music used in the episode. But the 'author' will always have a contract with the BBC, issued by the Variety Booking Manager, if it's a BBC radio show; and that contract might transfer the 'author' copyright to the BBC -- in which case only the BBC can enforce that copyright, for 70 years after the death of the 'author'.

Only the BBC Written Archive Centre knows for sure who owns the 'author' copyright: the scriptwriter/composer or the BBC. But in many cases, the contract allowed the scriptwriter/composer to retain this 'author' copyright.

Additionally, the BBC has an independent copyright of its own, in the complete broadcast of the episode, a copyright which lasts for 50 years from the date of the 1st transmission. This is called 'broadcast copyright'. It has now expired for all tv and radio episodes which were transmitted on or before December 31st, 1971.

It was 'author' copyright, only, which was given an extended term of life plus 70 years by the EEC directive (in a human rights context: the BBC is deemed to be 'not alive', so it has no human rights).

Today, John Cleese could sue you if you sell his 1960s radio shows commercially, without his permission; but the BBC - mostly - could not, because their 50 year fixed period 'broadcast copyright' has expired. Nevertheless, John is still alive, so his 'author' copyright survives along with him.

So, it is a bit complicated, but not too complicated.


Addendum --

For every individual BBC broadcast made after July 1957, their copyright in it (called the broadcast copyright) runs from the date of its 1st transmission, and endures for 50 years (in fact, until the end of the 50th calendar year). So a programme which first airs during 1972, for example, remains protected by copyright until the end of 2022 (i.e. until December 31st, 2022). Thus everything which was first aired before 31st December 1972 has no broadcast copyright now, as the 50 year period has expired.

Any repeat of such a broadcast has no legal effect: the copyright period is not extended by a re-broadcast.

The BBC had no copyright of its own in a broadcast previously. It only acquired such a right in July 1957, the point at which section 15 of the 1956 Copyright Act came into force. So where a broadcast had its first transmission before that point, the 50 year period only starts on the date of the 1st transmission occuring after that point.

If, for example, a pre-1957 broadcast is never repeated, it never acquires broadcast copyright, because that protection only applies to the first transmission after July 1957. Before the invention of the tape recorder, in 1948, copying a broadcast was impossible; so such a right had not previously been needed.

Issuing a programme on cassette or CD, or on VHS or DVD, has no legal effect: the broadcast copyright protection only attaches to an actual broadcast, not to some other action.