From: "Malcolm Rockwell" <[log in to unmask]>
> Well said!
> *******
> On 3/23/2011 5:09 AM, Tom Fine wrote:
>> Just to be clear, I didn't comment on the law, I commented on the 
>> defacto practice in the marketplace today. Take a look at the numerous 
>> US-based companies who reissue "golden era" classical titles on CDR 
>> media, generally "mastered" from old duped tapes or LPs. The 
>> megaglomerates are very well aware that they exist, but choose not to 
>> go after them. That's the defacto way of things. In many cases, the 
>> niche market is too small to justify the lawyers. Plus, if a 
>> megaglomerate risked the bad publicity and spent the money shutting 
>> down some little guy who is publishing what the megaglomerate themself 
>> lock in their vault and refuse to put in print, they still have the 
>> issue of the likes of Naxos, the Spanish jazz reissuers and numerous 
>> other companies operating in places with lighter-than-US copyright 
>> laws and selling the same material all over the world (although, 
>> technically, not in the US, but this is easily bypassed as well if 
>> someone really wants to listen to the material -- in fact the Spanish 
>> jazz CDs are sold on Amazon).
>>
>> As in most cases, the defacto "street law" is very different from the 
>> dejure "book law." But, the fact is, for anyone based in the US, you 
>> are at risk when you do this because the copyright owner has the very 
>> heavy weight of the law on his side. Again, in the defacto world, if 
>> you're not mining a pot of gold, for instance putting something on 
>> YouTube (which has a policy of taking down anything they get copyright 
>> complaints about), it's generally not worth the owner's time to pay 
>> someone to bring the hammer down on you. The hammer is probably more 
>> likely to drop if you are profiting from the copyright violation, but 
>> see the paragraph above.
>>
>> Finally, again just to be clear, I'm not endorsing these companies 
>> that violate US copyright laws, especially in regard to recordings 
>> made in America by Americans. We have laws here and they need to be 
>> changed, but for now they are the laws. The laws right now dis-serve 
>> the American people because they put the full weight of legitimacy and 
>> enforcement behind those who would deny access and keep things locked 
>> in vaults rather than those who would serve the market and the culture 
>> by keeping recordings in print.
>>
In theory an item (here a sound recording) remains under international
copyright for the term defined in the copyright laws of the country in
which it was fixed. However in current practice, the copyright term
of the reissuing country is deemed to apply; this is why so many
reissue CD's come from companies (nominally!) headquartered up
here in Canada...with our (so far) 50-year copyright term on sound
recordings. Since the US has no specific terms of copyright for
sound recordings...there exists an outside possibility that all the
multi-CD sets of material PD in Canada (but NOT in the US)
could wind up in court...?!

Steven C. Barr