Re: [ARSCLIST] Disposition of those bluegrass tapes

[David Lennick <dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm not up on who owns recording rights, but I wonder if it's a similar situation
(in Canada) to that of photographs, where the creator of the negative is the owner?
The Glenn Gould estate sued over Jock Carroll's book of Gould photographs but the
courts ruled in Carroll's favour. Too bad Jock had died by the time it was settled.

dl

John Ross wrote:

> At  6/27/2006 07:33 PM, Steven C. Barr wrote:
> >First, the rights to the recordings would probably...at least in most cases...
> >belong to the party who did the recording (this assumes they were on-scene
> >live recordings of musicians who weren't signed to a record label).
>
> That's not consistent with the information my copyright lawyer has
> given me, but the law could be different in Canada. In the US, every
> recording is protected by three different forms of copyright -- on
> the performance, on the recording and on the composition.
>
> Just because I own the tapes, and I have a chain of possession from
> the person who recorded them, I still don't own any rights to the
> performance unless each performer has assigned them to me, or there
> is some kind of blanket contract that covers all members of a band or
> orchestra. So, for example, I need to obtain a release from every
> sideman in a jazz combo. And if I have a tape made at a pick-up
> session, I have to identify everybody who is playing.
>
> Royalties are even more complicated, because different rules apply to
> different types of distribution. U.S. copyright law requires radio
> and TV broadcasters to pay composers' royalties, but they don't have
> to pay a performer each time they play a recording.
>
> Fortunately, there is an exemption in the U.S. copyright act that
> allows access and very limited distribution for "research," so I can
> allow visitor to my museum to listen to recordings on-site.
>
> As I said, it's complicated, and I'm sure it's different in other
> countries. But it does become a problem if I ever want to release a
> recording on a commercial CD, or make it available for download
> through the 'net.
>
> John Ross