Indeed, the United States Congress has overwhelmingly favored copyright
holders (in the form of large businesses) with little evidence of balancing
the needs/rights of the population.
Recently I was thinking of Napster. The original Napster is dead; but
YouTube is alive and doing exceptionally well. According to Statistica.com,
"As of February 2020, more than 500 hours of video were uploaded to
YouTube *every
minute*. This equates to approximately 30,000 hours of newly uploaded
content per hour." That puts Napster to shame. I can find much (but not
all) of my favorite recordings on YouTube. I smirk and smile when I see
commercial recordings - clearly uploaded not by a copyright holder -
remaining on YouTube for years with no evidence of being taken down.
I'm not the only one who believes that the oppressive U.S. copyright laws
have led to more and more people accessing recordings of questionable
legality, in large part because most people are unable to determine whether
something is a bootleg or a legal issue, and most don't care. For better
or worse, YouTube enables this. (Even if YouTube were taken down, the
Internet world has already accepted that a majority of music will be freely
available.)
Bob Kosovsky, Ph.D. -- Librarian, Rare Books and Manuscripts,
Music & Recorded Sound Division
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts - Dorothy and Lewis B.
Cullman Center
40 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023
www.nypl.org
On Fri, Nov 12, 2021 at 1:53 PM John Haley <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I have a law degree and 40+ years of commercial law practice in my
> background, so I think I do, but do I really want to bother? If you look
> at this and think, this is truly insane, you are not wrong.
>
> They "fixed" what was already a horrible mess by creating a bunch of new
> layers of complexity. Thanks a lot.
>
> The rest of our planet does not do anything like this. Most major
> jurisdictions other than the U.S. approach Public Domain in a rational way,
> and their statutes are pretty clear on their face.
>
> The whole original idea of copyright and other forms of protection of
> intellectual property, back when kings ruled, was to be certain that
> artistic creations, scientific inventions, etc., would finally get to the
> public, to benefit humankind, after a reasonable period of protection to
> the author, inventor, etc. And the monarch could not claim perpetual
> ownership. The idea was not to tie things up for multiple lifetimes, and
> the original purpose was to be sure that the public would ultimately
> benefit. In the U.S., that original concept has been eroded almost out of
> existence. Fortunately, that is not true around the world.
>
> Best,
> John Haley
>
>
>
> On Fri, Nov 12, 2021 at 1:16 PM CBAUDIO <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > One has to be somewhat of a 'Legal Beagle' to understand it all. Having
> > studied the commercial code in college, I usually reserve legal
> > documents for sleepless nights. That includes everything generated by
> > the US Government. However, there are those who routinely read these
> > docs & actually understand them.
> >
> > :)
> > CB
> > Corey Bailey Audio Engineering
> > www.baileyzone.net
> >
> > ------ Original Message ------
> > From: "Brewster Kahle" <[log in to unmask]>
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Sent: 11/12/2021 8:05:51 AM
> > Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] The American Zonophone Discography and others
> >
> > >
> > >Someone just pointed out this page
> > >
> > >https://www.pdinfo.com/copyright-law/public-domain-sound-recordings.php
> > >
> > >is the table there what others understand? gosh this is confusing.
> > >
> > >-brewster
> > >
> > >
> >
>
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