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   Hi All,

   Is this via an earmark or outright theft  from the taxpayer who is  
too busy watching the mainstream media and newspapers covering up   
the shenanigans of our elected officials?

   There must be a pro taxpayer website  that reports this kind of  
egregious waste. If so, I bet  they can't find the time to post all  
the crap that goes on in DEE CEE.

   It's hard  to keep my posting on this site free from political  
opinions when this type of thing comes to light.

   Mad and getting madder, Ken Fritz

On Jan 10, 2011, at 6:07 PM, Tom Fine wrote:

> Hi Karl:
>
> I agree with you. The American taxpayers shouldn't be Universal's  
> transfer and mastering engineer, and archivist/storage facility for  
> that matter. I think the deal should be done this way:
>
> 1. The Universal masters transfer to the LOC and become the  
> property of the US taxpayer, including all outstanding copyright  
> ownership. There should be a tax writeoff of some sort on this in  
> order to encourage all the vaults of the teetering megaglomerates  
> to be preserved.
>
> 2. The LOC agrees to transfer this material to digital format  
> within a reasonable timeframe. One possible funding mechanism is  
> described below.
>
> 3. Universal then gets a limited time (I'd argue the max time be 2  
> years after digitization of a given piece of content) to  
> commercialize anything the LOC has transferred, paying a mastering  
> charge and royalty on sales to the US Treasury. In other words,  
> they get one bite on the apple, but they may keep something in  
> print commercially as long as the copyright on the new version  
> lasts. If they take it out of print, I think everything should  
> revert back to the US taxpayers. Universal could choose to make its  
> "claim" and then sub-license material to Mosaic or other boutique  
> labels, but the material must remain in print and royalties be paid  
> to the Treasury in order for Universal to have its exclusive bite  
> of the apple.
>
> 4. Anything not chosen to be commercialized by Universal should be  
> put in the public domain by the LOC. There may have to be a  
> download charge of some sort in order to pay performance or  
> publishing royalties, where these are still due. If none of these  
> royalties are due, then the material should be widely available for  
> free to its owners, the US taxpayers. Obviously, the way to do this  
> is via a free download site. All of this could be supported by the  
> royalties from what Universal chooses to commercialize. I can see  
> that the LOC might need to charge a small amount to support all of  
> this, rates akin to Amazon and iTunes downloads would seem  
> reasonable (ie market prices). The goal of the PD element is not to  
> get something for nothing as much as to get all this stuff back in  
> print and readily available to be enjoyed.
>
> One taxpayer's views ...
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Karl Miller"  
> <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, January 10, 2011 5:44 PM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Your taxpayer dollars being given to the  
> Universal Music Group.
>
>
> --- On Mon, 1/10/11, Michael Biel <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
> From: Michael Biel <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Your taxpayer dollars being given to the  
> Universal Music Group.
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Date: Monday, January 10, 2011, 11:56 AM
>
>
> On 1/10/2011 11:14 AM, Karl Miller wrote:
>> If you read the article below you will not that Universal will  
>> retain copyright ownership to their recordings.
>> Karl
>>
>>
>
> That is the same deal that the NBC collection is under.
>
> ******************************************************************
>
> Same as most of the unique recordings held at LOC and other  
> institutions...yet as we approach copyrights in perpetuity, the  
> rationale for spending taxpayer money for this sort of activity  
> seems questionable to me, especially when there will not be  
> reasonable access and even more so when the copyright owner has  
> stated upfront that they plan to use the digitized recordings for  
> their own profit.
>
> Will LOC get a cut of the profit from the sale of the recordings  
> they have digitized?
>
> For me, there are substantive ethical questions on both sides of  
> the argument, but it seems to me that there is room for questioning  
> the use of public funds for this purpose.
>
> Karl
>
>
> Karl