Getting rid of CD's?

[astrotoy]

My understanding is that in the EU music copyrighted before November 1963 is in the public domain (unless recopyrighted). So one is free to rip a record from say 1959 which has not be recopyrighted and give or sell the rip.  Quite a few companies sell recordings which have been ripped from originals from that era.  The EU instituted that rule a few years back when the previous rule was 50 years for copyrights going into the public domain. Now in the EU, anything after November, 1963  has a 70 year copyright. I believe that was to essentially protect the copyright owner for their lifetime (projected as 70 years beyond the time of the copyright), but not forever.  The US rules are more complex, with different interpretations and different years.  I have read some arguments that say 1972 is the year, while other arguments (and lawsuits) claim different rules for different states.  So there are CD's which you can buy in Canada and Europe of historic performances in the public domain there which are not sold in the US because of copyright issues.

 

A not exact parallel is the copyright on books and publication, where books pass out of copyright and can be republished in the public domain.  For example there are many editions of great classic books from the time of Shakespeare and earlier, to more recent times which are low cost, out of copyright editions.  However, if they get modified, say a Shakespeare edition comes our with extensive notes and explanatory essays, then that edition can have its own copyright. 

 

I believe when Stravinsky was a young man, the copyright laws were looser, with different rules in different countries, and the time period was much shorter. So Stravinsky would take a piece that was going out of copyright and reorchestrate it, creating a piece which could have a new copyright.  Of course, if an orchestra wanted to perform the older version of the piece, they could, without owing anything for the performance. 

 

If one were to play a CD in public, say at a performance (or on the radio) then they were legally owe the copyright owner for that performance.  Of course, when you buy a CD to play at home, you have paid for the right to play it for your personal use, including having friends listen to the CD. Same with a DVD.  However, a movie theater cannot just play a DVD copy of a movie (even though they bought it) and charge people to see the movie, without paying the copyright owner.

 

BTW, I understand November, 1963 was not an arbitrary date, something to do with one of more popular groups and their second album. 

 

Larry 

 

 

[astrotoy]

I think a more common example is that you lend your friend your CD and they (with or without your knowledge) make a rip of the CD or burn a copy of the CD.  True of a library copy, although the library, to protect themselves, may state that unauthorized reproduction is prohibited. They have no means of enforcing that.

 

Clearly, the law has not kept up with technology, particularly since you can make a digital copy that is identical to the original copy. I remember when my daughter was growing up, she had a cassette player which could copy cassettes (one playback mechanism and one record/playback mechanism) in one chassis. She almost never made copies of entire albums, but made mixed tapes of her favorite songs,, for herself or friends.  I believe that the problem of illegal copies was solved by putting some license fee on blank cassettes - and the money was collected and distributed to the music copyright owners by some formula - not by the actual copies made.  Obviously if you were recording live music, you were paying the license fee even though you were not copying.  In the old days, book publishers didn't worry much about copying, since a "Xerox" copy of a book almost always cost more to make than buying a copy of the book.  Today, one can scan in the book at very little cost, other than your labor.  You can carry the book with you on your ipad to read.  Obviously, you can sell the book on ebay and no one knows that you have a copy of the book.  However, if you sell the scanned copy of the book on ebay (say for $5 for a $100 textbook) and sell 10,000 copies, that is clearly piracy.

 

A major problem is that the vast majority of people do not make a living selling their intellectual property.  If you were a musician, or author,  or software developer or architect, or designer,  or producer of pornographic videos, whose livelihood is impacted by piracy, you might have a different view. 

 

I worked with the late Winston Ma (First Impression Music. Golden Strings) for several years (particularly on my book about Decca Classical Records which he published, including 4 CD's of remastered Decca recordings).  Since his albums were quite expensive, including very high quality packaging - little hard bound books with extensive liner notes and illustrations, they were subject to piracy.  Often he found pirated copies in reputable music shops, selling for the same price as his genuine albums. So clearly customers and probably the retailers were fooled into thinking these were the real thing.  He finally developed a holographic CD blank where the hologram - in the inner blank area of the CD could not be copied. At least the retailer and customer would know that they were buting a genuine FIM album.  However, it still didn't prevent a person from ripping or a burning a copy of the CD, since the digital part of the CD was not affected.   The copy protection of Bluray DVD's is one of the reasons that Universal Music has been interested in releasing music albums on that format (I had a discussion with some of their executives a few years ago in London about releasing bluray hirez music albums for their Decca classical label). 

 

BTW, the author of a book or the artist/composer on a CD may not be the owner of the copyright.  They may have sold the rights to someone else, and they don't have the right to sell or give away copies of the book or CD without the permission of the copyright owner.

 

Larry