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Smithsonian Releases 128-Year-Old Recording of Alexander Graham Bell

Posted by samzenpus on from the oldest-school-record dept.

redletterdave writes "Thanks to a newly developed audio extraction technology called optical scanning, the Smithsonian was able to recover the voice of Alexander Graham Bell from one of his hundreds of discs he donated to the museum, which were once considered 'mute artifacts.' Since many of the collected recordings are very fragile due to their age and experimental nature, optical scanning is a non-invasive procedure that creates a high-resolution digital map of the disc or cylinder, which is then reconstructed and used to simulate the motion of a stylus moving through its grooves to reproduce the original audio content. Bell, who created this recording on a wax and cardboard disc on April 15, 1885, can be heard clearly saying, 'In witness whereof — hear my voice, Alexander Graham Bell.'"

24 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. But... by WillyWanker · · Score: 5, Funny

    Did they secure the rights and pay the royalties on this recording? Someone call the RIAA. I smell a copyright lawsuit!

    1. Re:But... by girlintraining · · Score: 2

      Did they secure the rights and pay the royalties on this recording? Someone call the RIAA. I smell a copyright lawsuit!

      The original recording has no copyright. The recording of the recording, does, since the original had no copyright. Copyright is like a parasite... it attaches itself to everything.

      --
      #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    2. Re:But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Not in the US.

      Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. (1999) sets precedent for this remaining public domain.

      "A photograph which is no more than a copy of a work of another as exact as science and technology permits lacks originality. That is not to say that such a feat is trivial, simply not original."

    3. Re:But... by jamstar7 · · Score: 2

      Give it time. Congress is getting ready to 'overhaul' copyright law. And if you believe it'll be for the public good, I've got some lovely land to sell you in Florida. It's halfways between Key West and Havana, liberal zoning laws, you can do anything you want there, as long as you can do it in 200+ feet of water...

      --
      Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
    4. Re:But... by monkeyhybrid · · Score: 3, Funny

      Anonymous Yellow-belly Coward, is that you?

    5. Re:But... by Zontar_Thing_From_Ve · · Score: 2

      Did they secure the rights and pay the royalties on this recording? Someone call the RIAA. I smell a copyright lawsuit!

      I know you are joking, but unfortunately according to the horrible decision in Capitol Records vs. Naxos of America, Inc. those Alexander Graham Bell records are technically still under copyright.
      http://http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20050412225604578

      To summarize the court case, Naxos, a classical music label, was taking old 78 RPM vinyl records and using modern technology to clean up the surface noise and putting them out on a budget label they run. This was perfectly legal in the EU and Asia as the recordings in question were over 50 years old and not under copyright in those places. Unfortunately they got greedy in the USA and released a CD of Pablo Casals' famous recordings of the Bach Cello Suites from the 1930s. There was never any doubt that these recordings were still covered by US copyright law and I remain amazed to this day that Naxos somehow believed that they could get away with this reissue in the USA, but Capitol (the US copyright owner of the recordings) found out about the release in the US market and sued them and won. In my opinion the court decision was far overreaching, ruling that every sound recording ever made in the USA before 1972 was still under copyright protection through state law and would remain so until the superseding Federal law covering copyrights allows those copyrights to begin to expire, which will be 2067 at the earliest. The case is somewhat involved but basically after realizing they got caught with their hands in the cookie jar, Naxos resorted to some legal trickery in arguing that the Casals recordings (they were all made in London, England) were not covered by US state copyright law since they weren't made in the USA. The court didn't buy it and ruled that everything ever released or recorded in the USA is still under copyright and since Naxos had no real way to argue the case any further (they did indeed violate US copyright law), this crazy decision remains the US law on the matter.

  2. Sadly it is not available any more. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 3, Funny

    RIAA issued a DMCA take down notice and they had to take it down.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  3. Get Orrin Hatch on the Phone! by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 4, Funny

    We need legislation to restrict the sale of this laser scanner machine ASAP: It's obviously being used as a circumvention device.

    1. Re:Get Orrin Hatch on the Phone! by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Funny

      If you outlaw lasers, only sharks will have lasers!

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  4. My old foggy slashdot memory... by t0qer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I remember years ago on /., there was an article where a guy claimed he had done this, but the slashdot pitchforks were raised while chanting fraud.

    http://news.slashdot.org/story/02/09/05/1814203/ripping-vinyl-via-your-scanner

    There it is.

    Nice to know the guy's technology actually worked.

    1. Re:My old foggy slashdot memory... by Trepidity · · Score: 5, Informative

      Something similar has also been used more recently to play a record that doesn't exist anymore in physical format, but had a photograph printed in a book that survives. They were able to optically play a scan of the printed photograph of the record.

      --
      10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
  5. Re:proofread your posts much? by 50000BTU_barbecue · · Score: 2

    It's Welsh you insensitive clod!

    --
    Mostly random stuff.
  6. Direct Links by guttentag · · Score: 5, Informative

    The link in the summary goes to the International Business Times, which links to a copy of the 11-second audio clip on Soundcloud that requires flash to run. The IBT article links to the original articles at the Smithsonian. Here's a direct link to the MP3 file on the Smithsonian site.

    1. Re:Direct Links by anagama · · Score: 2

      and a movie, w/ cool tools starting about halfway through:
      http://www.smithsonianmag.com/multimedia/videos/Playing-the-Unplayable-Records.html

      And maybe some swearing recorded too in a failed attempt, but I'll need to listen another 10 dozen times to figure it out.

      --
      What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
  7. The smile on my face... by MugenEJ8 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Seriously, how f*cking cool is that! Goosebumps and the whole nine yards.

    Being able to extract the information from the disc without using its native interpreter in order to preserve it, is just brilliant. Then we just use our smart computrons to simulate it being played and voila.

    We're seriously badass... I wonder if Mr. Bell was thinking the same thing!

  8. Re:Yeah right by Nidi62 · · Score: 2

    (as all great inventors, none of them actually are american ^__^)

    Samuel Colt, John Browning, Eugene Stoner, Daniel Wesson, Benjamin Tyler Henry. All American inventors, all invented guns. You can't get much more American than that :)

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
  9. Mr. Watson by PPH · · Score: 2

    Come here. I need you to issue a take-down notice.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  10. Re:"Clearly"?? by zbobet2012 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A genius from a century and a quarter ago just spoke to you and you are complaining that it is hard to understand?

  11. Can you hear me now? by FuzzNugget · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yes, but the latency is a bitch!

  12. Re:Ok this is cool and all but... by globalist · · Score: 2

    Are you seriously saying the reason the clip is crappy-sounding is because of MP3 compression AND (god forbid!) iTunes? If you're not, then I give you 10/10 for trolling!

  13. Link to the audio by idunham · · Score: 2

    Here:
    http://media.smithsonianmag.com/audio/alexander-graham-bell.mp3

  14. What a waste of time! by mutube · · Score: 2

    They should have just taken some grainy photos of the disc and let Reddit sort it out.

    [Seriously though, this is awesome.]

    --
    Python coder | PyQt Applications | Writer
  15. Re:"Clearly"?? by leonardluen · · Score: 2

    still sounds better than most cellphones.

  16. Re:proofread your posts much? by JeanCroix · · Score: 2

    And it's pronounced "Throatwobbler Mangrove."