European Copyrights Expiring on Recordings From 1950's nytimes.com
[and the usual suspects are in a snit . clip: ]
"The import of those products would be an act of piracy," said Neil Turkewitz, the executive vice president international for the Recording Industry Association of America, which has strongly advocated for copyright protections. "The industry is regretful that these absolutely piratical products are being released."
The association is trying to persuade European Union countries to extend terms of copyright. In the meantime, Mr. Turkewitz said, "We will try to get these products blocked," arguing that customs agents "have the authority to seize these European recordings even in the absence of an injunction brought by the copyright owners."
The expiration of copyright protections for recordings from earlier decades has already led to voluminous European reissues of such historically important artists as the great violinist Jascha Heifetz and the legendary jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke. But the recordings of the 50's are viewed as being of another order.
This was the era when recording techniques took a quantum leap and when the long-playing record came into its own and was embraced by the public. Even monaural records from the period, prior to the emergence of stereophonic sound, are prized today by classical and jazz audiophiles. And artistically, the decade marked the golden years of opera icons like Renata Tebaldi; the birth of rock heralded by recordings by Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Elvis; and enormous outbursts of creativity from seminal jazz figures such as Theolonius Monk and Miles Davis. "That decade of recording transformed music and how the public consumes music," Mr. Turkewitz said. . . .
Of course, consumer advocates and champions of access to creative products see many copyright protections as overlong, unfair to the public and ultimately stifling to creativity.
"When works enter the public domain, the consequence is extraordinary variety and lower costs," said Professor Lawrence Lessig of Stanford University Law School, who argued a challenge to a 1998 extension of the United States copyright law before the Supreme Court.
The Callas recordings, for example, "will be taken and put into a million different content spheres," he said, adding, "they will be encouraged and sold in ways not done now."
This is all the more true because of the Internet, he said. Once copyrighted works pass into the public domain, Professor Lessig said, "a wide range of copies — high quality and low — will quickly be available, always and for free." He sees even this scenario as beneficial. "People ask, how could you ever compete with free?" he said. "Think: Perrier, or Poland Spring." |
