Why Recordings From World War I Aren't Public Domain

An anonymous reader writes "While Disney and others have done a great job pushing the end date for works entering the public domain ever further forward, most people have assumed that anything from before 1923 is in the public domain. However, it turns out that this is not true for sound recordings, in part due to an accidental quirk in copyright law history — in that Congress, way back in 1909, believed that sound recordings could not be covered by copyright (they believed the Constitution did not allow recordings to be covered), and thus, some state laws stepped up to create special copyrights for sound recordings. A court ruling then said that these state rules were not overruled by federal copyright law. End result? ANY recorded work from before 1972 (no matter how early it was recorded) won't go into the public domain until 2049 at the earliest."

Comments

That's a shame.

[Kireas]

It looks like my epic youtube video made up entirely of WWI soundclips will have to be put on hold. And yes, a video made entirely of soundclips. What now, huh?

I'm interested however in the equivalent laws over here in the UK. Are we bound to the USA's system as part of some global copyright law thingy? I don't pretend to understand Public Domain, but I'd like to.

Re:That's a shame.

[ciderbrew]

UK I found this.

How long does copyright last for?
Copyright generally lasts for the lifetime of the creator and then to the end of the 70th year afterwards. So for Elgar, say, who died in 1934, his original music came out of copyright in 2005. However copyright also exists in the editing, arrangement and reconstruction of previous music compositions and only expires 70 years after the death of the editor, etc. Copyright in recordings lasts for 50 years.

http://www.thefrms.co.uk/copyright.htm

Re:That's a shame.

[Threni]

No, we're not bound by foreign laws when on UK ground. Look at Naxos, the record label which sells historical recordings, although some are considered piracy in the US. So Americans can't buy them, and are instead forced to resort to..uh..piracy if they want them. It's a funny old world, isn't it.

Re:That's a shame.

[PopeRatzo]

Hey, at least two of my youtube videos consist entirely of soundclips.

Don't worry, I'll start a fund to pay your bail.

Re:That's a shame.

[TrisexualPuppy]

So I have several acetate discs from a radio studio in New York. They were recordings of the very first days of America's involvement in World War II. The radio network was purchased years ago and is owned by one of the "big boys" now. (Sucks how Clear Channel owns everything...) As far as we have been able to find, I am the only person even with any record (read knowledge) of this particular recording. So I have a piece of history that hasn't been released and would be really good to have in the public domain.

So seeing that I am probably the only person that has this copyrighted material, whose rightly is it? Mine, the one guy in ten who was careful to not throw this old acetate disc of the estate? Or does it belong to that fat Clear Channel CEO who is at this very moment doing a line of coke off his secretary's &#*@?

Re:That's a shame.

[Ixitar]

IANAL: Possession does not play into this. The copyright most likely belongs to the radio station in New York. If not them, then the artist(s) that recorded the discs. Unless you have a document showing the transfer of the copyright to you, then you do not own the material. If the copyright owner decides that they want the recordings back, then you will probably have to turn it over to them.

I would suggest that you ask the Smithsonian. If you would like the recordings to go into the public domain, then I suggest that they might be the proper avenue.

Re:Clay media too?

[jimicus]

So does that mean that if we manage to record the words of Christ from a 2000 year old clay pot, the RIAA will come after us?

No, the Pope will.

Guiltless pirate.

[Anonymous Coward]

Every time I start to feel a shred of guilt about my rampant piracy, I read something like this. Then the guilt goes away. Copyright is a corrupt system, which no longer serves it's original purpose of promoting production of useful art. Instead it is nothing but a mechanism to ensure maximum profits for those least deserving, and to make sure that the public domain remains small and legally dangerous enough to pose no serious competition. I pay copyright law no respect, and will not do so unless it it reformed to bring it back in line with sensible terms, make it less biased towards those who can afford millions of dollars in legal fees and eliminate the possibility of copyright being abused as a tool to censor criticism or prevent interoperability.

Re:Guiltless pirate.

[radish]

You know what? If you said you disagreed with traditional copyright and so would only listen to copyleft/public domain music, and use open source software, etc, then I'd have a lot of respect for you. But saying you disagree with the mechanism by which a creator has chosen to be compensated and yet still choosing to benefit from their work, well that just makes you a freeloading cheapass.

Re:Guiltless pirate.

[Tacvek]

Now, combine this understanding with the fact that most copyrighted products generate most of their income in the first few years after publication, or even less, and you realise that a copyright term of more than a few years has no benefits to society. It almost exclusively does harm, by preventing values to be produced for free.

I would have little problem with a 14 year copyright term. The worry with short copyright terms is that too many people may just wait until the term expired, so that they could get the work for free. Consider a shorter term of 7 years. It is feasible in some media, books especially, to wait 7 years to buy and read the book. Commercial exploitation of a franchise in a different media can often wait that long, such as a filmmaker waiting to adapt a book into a movie if it let them completely cut the book's authors out of the equation.

But 14 years is long enough that in the vast majority of media few people would find it worth waiting, if they could afford to buy it. Futhermore, by 14 years works in almost every medium have all but exhausted their profit making potential.

Music is actually the odd one out here, considering the money songs from the 80's or earlier can still bring in, be it by royalties by the "oldies" stations, and continual sales of albums. Granted though that even here, the overwhelming majority of the profit should have been made in the first year or so, when the song was popular, so cutting off the revenue at 14 years is still within reason.

It is interesting to think about what would be now be in the public domain for computers/tech with a 14 year copyright limit. The clasic NES-era video games would be in the public domain, as well as many of the 16-bit era classics. Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 (but just barely, so Microsoft could withhold the patches later released for both OS's, if they wanted), and thus also MS-DOS and the older Windows. Pretty much all the software for older historic machines, be it the VAX, or the C64. All the classic UNIXs, .... The list is just astounding.

Re:Guiltless pirate.

[operagost]

Now, combine this understanding with the fact that most copyrighted products generate most of their income in the first few years after publication, or even less, and you realise that a copyright term of more than a few years has no benefits to society. It almost exclusively does harm, by preventing values to be produced for free.

Can I summarize your entire post to, "We should return copyright protection in the USA to 14 years with a 14 year extension as in the 1790 Copyright Act"?

Re:Guiltless pirate.

[rbochan]

Personally, I'm all for people not breaking just laws. Unjust laws, well, knock yourself out.

Re:Guiltless pirate.

[BlueStrat]

Who gets to decide what the unjust laws are?

Ultimately, the people themselves do. Governments can pass any laws they like, but if the overwhelming majority of the population chooses to ignore it/them, there is no possible way for a government to enforce said law in any effective way.

"An unjust law, is no law at all." -Martin Luther King Jr.

The part about "..is no law at all" is both a moral and practical description when the general population decides to ignore such unjust laws.

Strat

Wilhelm Scream

[Anonymous Coward]

So any movie using the Wilhelm Scream are also breaking copyrights? There go a *lot* of big Hollywood movies!

Business as usual

[sqrt(2)]

I'm going to continue doing what I normally do, and ignore copyright law. Absurdities like this just show how backwards and useless the system is. Scrap it, make everything public domain.

Re:Business as usual

[blindbat]

Uh huh. And then everything you make, whether software or a book you write, will be taken by some big corporation and sold by them.

Copyright needs to be in place in order to protect the newcomers and the original creator of a work so that they can make a living.

State laws and extradition

[Bog Standard]

Coming from the UK, I can understand how people can be extradited on US federal law charges. I'd be surprised if state laws apply too. For that matter how does this affect US citizens in say NY if the law is broken in CA?

Re:Guiltless thief.

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright existed, and should exist, to allow an individual to profit from their creation. It has not a damned thing to do with producing useful art.

Whoops, somebody forgot to read the Constitution.

What does this mean?

[stephanruby]

Did all States create those copyright laws? Or did just some of them do? And what about materials recorded abroad, or broadcast abroad? Enforcing copyright law on a State by State level would seem to me like a very difficult thing to do.

Re:Guiltless thief.

[houghi]

Well, I indeed use it as an excuse for theft. I go into the store and steal the DVDc, CDs and books I want. I even steal the DVD players and TV sets to use them. That way when somebody raids my house and sees I have about 10.000 CDs and DVDs that where stolen, I will be paying much less then somebody who did some copyright infringement of 3 numbers on their mp3 player from an album they bought.

A better Congress?

[icebraining]

According to one commentator, Congress had two principal concerns about sound recordings, leading it to decline to protect them. First, Congress wondered about the constitutional validity of such protection. The Constitution allows Congress to protect "writings," and Congress was uncertain as to whether a sound recording could constitute a writing. Second, Congress worried that allowing producers to exclusively control both the musical notation and the sound recording could lead to the creation of a music monopoly.

Re:A better Congress?

[unwastaken]

According to one commentator, Congress had two principal concerns about sound recordings, leading it to decline to protect them. First, Congress wondered about the constitutional validity of such protection. The Constitution allows Congress to protect "writings," and Congress was uncertain as to whether a sound recording could constitute a writing. Second, Congress worried that allowing producers to exclusively control both the musical notation and the sound recording could lead to the creation of a music monopoly.

I found this to be the more interesting and exciting part of that quote:

Congress wondered about the constitutional validity of such protection.

That was probably the last time the constitutionality of a law actually came up in Congress...

Effort does not guarantee originality

[tepples]

So, hopefully, in these creativity-starved times, some hip-hop artist forgoes mashing-up some other creator's work and goes the extra mile to invent something brand new.

Even people who try to create something that they think is original sometimes fail. It isn't directly applicable to the case of the article (reproduction of sound recordings), but George Harrison got sued and lost when it was discovered he had accidentally copied the ten-note hook (5~ 3~ 2~, 5 6 8 6 8 8) from "He's So Fine" into his song "My Sweet Lord".

Copyright is STEALING!

[linebackn]

That's right, copyright is STEALING! It is stealing history and culture from future generations. It is stealing from the global knowledge of humanity. Not just infringed upon; information is locked up until it rots in to nothingness.

I have no specific desire to take control of mickey-frikkin-mouse away from the Walt Disney Corporation, or similar works from their holders. But I believe the original idea of copyright was to benefit humanity by encouraging people to create more works by granting an author the PRIVILEGE to control how their work was distributed for a limited time.

However, if a holder does not ultimately contribute something back to humanity in exchange for this privilege, then they are literally stealing from humanity.

The current system effectively prevents these works from continuing to benefit and enrich humanity after they are out of print by failing to permit works from entering the public domain in a timely manner if ever. This needs to be fixed.

For a person or entity to retain control over a work indefinitely, such as current laws essentially permit, is STEALING from humanity.

Re:Copyright is STEALING!

[Anonymous Coward]

So artists shouldn't have property rights? I've already been told by a lawyer that existing contracts I have over a recent work shouldn't have existed because generally artists in my business aren't allowed to retain rights to their work. Translation it's okay for companies to own and profit from those rights but not artists. Now I'm being told those rights shouldn't have existed in the first place? Now how exactly am I supposed to make a living if I don't have any rights to sell? We don't generally have patrons like in the old days and the other option of being born rich I seem to have missed out on. Back in the day mostly the rich wrote novels and most paintings were commissioned by the rich so they chose the content of the work. Is society better off if only the rich write books and commission great works of art? Aren't we better off with a system that rewards the creation of works that benefit all than a system that denies artists basic rights of property? The argument isn't as simple as getting free books, music and movies it's about whether the vast majority of the work is created or made public in the first place. I'm already so sickened by my recent legal battle I'm planning to retire soon and not release any future work to the public. Is society better off if most artists do the same?

What's the difference 'tween the Pope and the RIAA

[Chrisq]

So does that mean that if we manage to record the words of Christ from a 2000 year old clay pot, the RIAA will come after us?

No, the Pope will.

What's the difference between the Pope and the RIAA?

The Pope hasn't had a crusade since 1272

US honors copyrights that original country doesn't

[Anonymous Coward]

While I was writing my philosophy thesis, I discovered that many of G.K. Chesterton's works that he wrote in Britain between 1923 and 1936 when he died are public domain in Britain, where they were published.

But they are not public domain in the U.S.

One of my unfinished projects is to combine all his works that are public domain, and throw a full text index on it to make a little G.K. exclusive search engine -- but we're going to have to go with a non-U.S. ISP if I ever do get around to getting it off the ground.

Re:Guiltless thief.

[TheLink]

Pay? In the UK you might even get a flat rent free:

Bradley Wernham, 19, responsible for a £1million crime spree, was spared a prison sentence last October after police told a judge he had turned his life around.
Wernham was given a community service order instead and relocated to another town where he was given a flat rent-free.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/08/05/one-man-crimewave-bradley-wernham-jailed-by-the-judge-who-let-him-off-115875-22465784/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/7926040/Prolific-burglar-given-second-chance-offends-again-after-three-months.html

Re:Guiltless thief.

[horza]

The individual artist should be able to profit from their work for the rest of their life.

Why? I can invent something that saves people's lives and get protection for 20 years under patent law, but some crappy pop song should get protection for the rest of that person's life? Something is wrong there. Why not make it a fixed length of 20 years also?

When you say "should be able to profit" you mean of course be granted a legal monopoly. An artist can profit from their work without any legal protection.

Phillip.

Re:Guiltless thief.

[Totenglocke]

The individual artist should be able to profit from their work for the rest of their life.

Why? The rest of us actually have to work - we don't get to show up for a few weeks and then say "You have to pay me for the rest of my life for that work". Giving them a few years of copyright to make money off of it, sure, I'm fine with that. However, it's BS for them to get paid to sit back and do nothing for 60+ years because once upon a time, they wrote a few songs.

Re:Somehow Civilization Will Survive This Injustic

[countertrolling]

...something brand new.

No such thing. There are only unique combinations of what already exists. And more often than not, more than one person will independently come up with the same combination, which only further illustrates the absurdity of copyright, patent, and trademark law...

Re:Guiltless thief.

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Copyright existed, and should exist, to allow an individual to profit from their creation. It has not a damned thing to do with producing useful art

In reality of course the whole point of copyright was to promote works of art and scientific discoveries. In the US this purpose is even spelled outright in the Constitution where it reads: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.".

The Founding Fathers (Jefferson particularly ) were very uneasy about granting effective monopoly to authors at the expense of the general public and so they sought to allow it only if the general public benefited from such an arrangement more then it had to invest (in terms of enforcing such a law).

Re:Somehow Civilization Will Survive This Injustic

[MikeBabcock]

Your attempt at insight aside, the limited time span of Copyright is designed to increase the availability of the arts to everyone in the long run by creating a temporary monopoly on a work for profit to be gained so as to encourage the creation of works that will end up in the public domain eventually.

The goal is to have all of this creativity available to everyone for free, that's the destiny of the work. The temporary profiteering is allowed to encourage creativity from people who are monetarily driven.

Libraries bypass this system by actually purchasing works and then making them available free, entirely bypassing the intent of Copyright to our benefit.

Re:Copyright royalties as life insurance

[tverbeek]

You want to ensure that your great-grandchildren have a roof over their heads? Encourage your children to tell their children to study hard in school, learn a useful trade, and get a job, so they can provide for their children. You're not supposed to have to pay for that yourself.

When did the establishment of a hereditary leisure class become a social good?

Re:Guiltless thief.

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell does the Constitution have to do with this discussion?

Sigh...

"The Congress shall have Power [...] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"

You can destroy, but not preserve

[Mathinker]

> So seeing that I am probably the only person that has this copyrighted material

Your case underlines the bizarre "logic" of modern copyright law. Since you own the media, it is perfectly legal for you to destroy the recordings, which would, of course, destroy the "property" of the rightsholders (since they are the only copy). One wonders how that weird edge case fits into the "you wouldn't steal" rhetoric.

On the other hand, it's totally illegal for you to distribute these recordings to anyone except the rightsholders themselves. So it is effectively illegal for you to preserve this work for future generations.

This is why I do not feel bad in the least to advise you to digitize the recordings and upload them to some filesharing site like RapidShare or MegaUpload in an anonymous way, and then publicize the sharing link on a web forum where there will be a lot of interested people (I'm sure there must be some web forums where WWI history buffs hang out). Much as I like creators to be able to get paid, I hate even more for culture and information to be lost.

Re:Guiltless thief.

[BungaDunga]

"by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"

So, Authors can be given the exclusive right to sell, perform, use, whatever, things they've made or discovered. Cool. Except that right extends beyond the author's death- either to his/her estate, or whatever corporation had been given it.

What is the Constitutional rationale for rights extending after death? I can't imagine it promoting useful art.

Re:Copyright royalties as life insurance

[BungaDunga]

Say I've got money from copyright royalties.

I bankroll my kids' educations.

They work hard at school, do well, go on to earn money in the real world. Maybe one of them makes money by producing works under copyright.

By the time THEY have kids, they've got enough money to get them through college. Maybe they inherit some of my money when I'm dead.

Rinse, repeat.

No need for inherited copyright.