On the Media, The NPR show, seemed for a long time to be a bunch of newspaper reporters sitting around talking about the newspaper business, so I’d flip past it. But a while ago I found myself stopping to listen to the show, sometimes intently.
One item today that caught my interest is about American music labels pushing to get European copyright laws changed. As my buddy Dennis Rogers recently pointed out, the 50-year limit on copyrighted material in Europe means there’s a flood of CD’s headed our way from overseas from the era of Elvis and beyond. He predicts the laws will change when the Beatles’ material nears the 50-year mark.
America’s copyright laws extend 95 years, and that’s what the U.S. music labels want Europe to also set as their standard. Open the audio player and listen to what was hot 95 years ago. Gene Greene performing “King of the Bungaloos.” Greene does a bit of jazzy scat and for a moment he sounds like the voice of Popeye, as done by Jack Mercer 25 years later.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Sounds/Wordpress/DEC06/GeneGreene.mp3]Puts things into perspective, doesn’t it? Let’s compromise. How about 60 years?
Here’s a link to On the Media’s piece, which I would rate as a must-listen. If you have any problems with it, and you shouldn’t because it’s done the same way I do my embedded audio, let me know and I’ll put it here.
There’s the one huge problem with things falling into the public domain. Who will maintain the archives? What incentive is there to preserve the past, whether it be print, film, audio or video?
Look at the shape “It’s a Wonderful Life” was in while in the public domain. Prints were in terrible condition and badly chopped up. After RKO established a copyright, it released a print from the original negative and what a difference!