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Post by Ed Brown on Aug 17, 2022 9:32:21 GMT
In contrast, Music copyright is very uncomplicated.
Paul McCartney is still alive, so his composer copyright still exists.
The Beatles' music cannot be out of copyright while he lives, because he wrote the music and lyrics to the songs -- or co-wrote it -- and the UK's copyright duration was never for a shorter period than the life of the composer plus 50 years.
Addendum --
What I said originally in this post is probably not true. What I should have said is that this is the copyright law if Paul McCartney currently sues in the UK. The copyright law if he sues in other countries will be different.
Many countries, including the UK, are parties to the international Berne Copyright Convention, by which they agreed to adopt into their domestic law at least the minimum period of copyright specified in the Convention. The EEC later imposed its own minimum period, for human rights purposes only, an extension which currently still applies in the UK (but now that the UK is not in the EEC, that extension won't necessarily apply there in the future).
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Post by Natalie Sinead on Aug 20, 2022 7:56:55 GMT
As Mark Ayres pointed out on the old RT forum, Lennon/McCartney songs will not be out of copyright until 70 years after Paul's death.
George Orwell is out of copyright in Europe and here in Australia but will remain in copyright in the USA until the end of 2044 *if* there are no more Mickey Mouse Extension Acts. And since the USA is where Hollywood is, um yeah.
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Post by Natalie Sinead on Jan 15, 2023 23:14:21 GMT
Today, in hindsight, having the newscasts is really, really cool.
The problem is that those originally doing the recordings were usually kids and they didn't care about the news. They also didn't much are about the ads. Much of what is not in an aircheck is a consequence of the original recording.
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Post by Ed Brown on Jan 22, 2023 2:00:46 GMT
As Mark Ayres pointed out on the old RT forum, Lennon/McCartney songs will not be out of copyright until 70 years after Paul's death. George Orwell is out of copyright in Europe and here in Australia but will remain in copyright in the USA until the end of 2044 *if* there are no more Mickey Mouse Extension Acts. And since the USA is where Hollywood is, um yeah. It is not certain that McCartney has any legal copyright in the USA. As a resident of the UK, if he published a song in the UK, without simultaneously also jumping through all the correct hoops in the USA, his song might only have copyright protection in the UK, i.e. in the country of first publication. American copyright law is very complex, partically for non-resident foreigners, especially in the decades prior to the USA finally agreeing to adopt the Berne Copyright Convention rules, which only occured in the late 1970s. There used to be many onerous legal requirements, in the 1960s, including registration of the work with the American copyright office; and you had to publish the work simultaneously in the USA, when you first published it in the UK; and you had to renew that registration periodically thereafter. There were many pitfalls, it was never a formality. Each individual song or vinyl record would have to be considered individually, they cannot be dealt with collectively. The American copyright might exist, but, unlike English copyright, it is not just a matter of publishing the song. Even an English composer, resident in England, can end up with no enforceable UK copyright, if - for example - he publishes a song abroad, without simultaneously publishing it in the UK. There is much more to be considered than the date when the song was composed, and whether the composer died more than 70 years ago. Especially under the torturous American copyright laws. |
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Post by rmackenziefehr on Jan 25, 2023 5:16:08 GMT
Late, I admit, but a thought relating to the discussion as it started:
It seems in certain regards to have a focus on recordings in the tape era, for which there are indeed important technical issues at play.
However, it neglects one matter of importance- namely, there were other ways for radio recordings to exist. Home recording on discs appears to have been introduced to the United Kingdom no later than the start of 1931 (there are recordings of dance bands taken off-air known to exist from early 1931), and studios that would record programming off-air via commission also were around by the 1930s (there are a couple of recordings that have recently emerged with such an origin).
As such, it points to possibilities that are still around- and, importantly, for radio broadcasts from periods that are very poorly represented in archives indeed.
Moreover, it is highly possible that these discs are still durable- they still emerge with frequency in the United States, and in the current era can often be transferred with better sound quality than a lot of earlier dubs.
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Post by garygraham on Jan 31, 2023 12:58:09 GMT
I'd like to make a heartfelt request that folk discontinue using the term 'public domain', please. Thanks for making these points. As someone who has had to argue this many times regarding my own work. There's a lot of wishful thinking when it comes to copyright. And some people are convinced that what they "think" should be how it is and will even argue it with someone who has been creating and licensing work for 40 years. |
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Post by Ed Brown on Mar 5, 2023 12:18:01 GMT
Home recording on discs appears to have been introduced to the United Kingdom no later than the start of 1931 (there are recordings of dance bands taken off-air known to exist from early 1931), and studios that would record programming off-air via commission also were around by the 1930s (there are a couple of recordings that have recently emerged with such an origin). My technical knowledge is rather limited. But as I understand it, the type of early discs being discussed had very short durations. I seem to recall hearing of some home formats sold to the public which had a playing time as short as 5 minutes. One reason why these discs have very limited importance is that even a professional disc recorder could only store about ten minutes of audio on a commercial 78 rpm disc, at most, and consumer equipment only did about half of that, and in poor quality. There are no recorded comedy or drama shows pre-dating 1939, in the UK, because you would have needed many such domestic discs to store a single half-hour programme. |
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Post by Frank Shailes on Apr 5, 2023 23:39:18 GMT
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Post by sonnybh on Apr 6, 2023 10:22:46 GMT
Some good shows listed, I didn't get to hear The Mary Whitehouse Experience on radio but saw some of the TV show, which was hilarious! |
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Post by Natalie Sinead on Apr 6, 2023 15:41:14 GMT
Electrical transcriptions were made for broadcast in other time zones and for overseas. Those "ET"s is why so many old time radio shows have survived. The survival rate for radio's second golden age of Top 40 personality radio stations - WABC, KHJ, WLS, CKLW etc. - is much poorer in comparison.
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Post by Natalie Sinead on Apr 6, 2023 15:42:21 GMT
As Mark Ayres pointed out on the old RT forum, Lennon/McCartney songs will not be out of copyright until 70 years after Paul's death. George Orwell is out of copyright in Europe and here in Australia but will remain in copyright in the USA until the end of 2044 *if* there are no more Mickey Mouse Extension Acts. And since the USA is where Hollywood is, um yeah. It is not certain that McCartney has any legal copyright in the USA. As a resident of the UK, if he published a song in the UK, without simultaneously also jumping through all the correct hoops in the USA, his song might only have copyright protection in the UK, i.e. in the country of first publication. American copyright law is very complex, partically for non-resident foreigners, especially in the decades prior to the USA finally agreeing to adopt the Berne Copyright Convention rules, which only occured in the late 1970s. There used to be many onerous legal requirements, in the 1960s, including registration of the work with the American copyright office; and you had to publish the work simultaneously in the USA, when you first published it in the UK; and you had to renew that registration periodically thereafter. There were many pitfalls, it was never a formality. Each individual song or vinyl record would have to be considered individually, they cannot be dealt with collectively. The American copyright might exist, but, unlike English copyright, it is not just a matter of publishing the song. Even an English composer, resident in England, can end up with no enforceable UK copyright, if - for example - he publishes a song abroad, without simultaneously publishing it in the UK. There is much more to be considered than the date when the song was composed, and whether the composer died more than 70 years ago. Especially under the torturous American copyright laws. Mark Ayres was meaning the copyright in the words and music not the recordings. |
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Post by Ed Brown on Apr 9, 2023 2:58:56 GMT
Well, the article you cite is mostly talking rubbish. The radio broadcasts mentioned are not all inaccessible, as many of them have not vanished down some mythical digital black hole. The Pychedelic Spy is on Archive.org, archive.org/details/PsychSpyR4, and in fact is presented there in a couple of places: archive.org/details/ThePsychedelicSpy1Of5I, for one, still have a recording of the 1978 panto, ' Black Cinderella Two Goes East', because it's freely available online. Currently, it's even on YouTube The Mary Whitehouse Experience has been on Archive.org since 2017: archive.org/details/SafetyCatchR4Five minutes work with Google would have told him this. YouTube and Archive.org are obvious places to look for all of this sort of radio material. It seems to me that the author of the article cited was just having a pointless whinge, merely because these programmes are not being sold on CD in WH Smith or Waterstones. |
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Post by Ed Brown on Apr 9, 2023 3:03:14 GMT
It is not certain that McCartney has any legal copyright in the USA. As a resident of the UK, if he published a song in the UK, without simultaneously also jumping through all the correct hoops in the USA, his song might only have copyright protection in the UK, i.e. in the country of first publication. American copyright law is very complex, partically for non-resident foreigners, especially in the decades prior to the USA finally agreeing to adopt the Berne Copyright Convention rules, which only occured in the late 1970s. There used to be many onerous legal requirements, in the 1960s, including registration of the work with the American copyright office; and you had to publish the work simultaneously in the USA, when you first published it in the UK; and you had to renew that registration periodically thereafter. There were many pitfalls, it was never a formality. Each individual song or vinyl record would have to be considered individually, they cannot be dealt with collectively. The American copyright might exist, but, unlike English copyright, it is not just a matter of publishing the song. Even an English composer, resident in England, can end up with no enforceable UK copyright, if - for example - he publishes a song abroad, without simultaneously publishing it in the UK. There is much more to be considered than the date when the song was composed, and whether the composer died more than 70 years ago. Especially under the torturous American copyright laws. Mark Ayres was meaning the copyright in the words and music not the recordings. And, indeed, all the contents of my post, which you quoted in full, relate solely to the copyright in the words and music, and do not even mention the completely separate issue of broadcast copyright. Further, McCartney has no broadcast copyright, as that belongs to the BBC (i.e. it exclusively belongs to the broadcaster). |
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Post by Natalie Sinead on Apr 9, 2023 12:34:49 GMT
Mark Ayres was meaning the copyright in the words and music not the recordings. And, indeed, all the contents of my post, which you quoted in full, relate solely to the copyright in the words and music, and do not even mention the completely separate issue of broadcast copyright. Further, McCartney has no broadcast copyright, as that belongs to the BBC (i.e. it exclusively belongs to the broadcaster). Sorry, i got confused. I thought Ayres would be authoritive because he is a composer. I apologise. |
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