Re: [ARSCLIST] Folkways Reissues

[Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I just wish more archives like Folkways and Emery Cook were under arrangements like the Smithsonian 
and I'm happy to pay their prices to get this material. There are so many jazz and classical 
recordings out of print and not viable for reissue by mega-glomerate economics. The overly-long 
copyright restrictions guarantee that generations will have difficulty hearing this music. Now, we 
see a few signs that the megaglomerates are getting some sense and making some of their out of print 
stuff available through things like iTunes and ArkivCD and similar, but it's too little material 
trickling out and as a customer I resent the sub-par sound quality of standard 99 cents iTunes 
downloads and thus will not pay for them.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Ross" <johnross@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, December 14, 2007 12:31 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Folkways Reissues


> There's a huge difference between your making a one-off CD copy of a recording and operating a 
> business that provides a similar service from a catalogue of several thousand titles.
>
> First, there's staff: not only a technician to burn the copies and maintain the equipment, but 
> also one or more archivists to catalogue and maintain the collection; somebody to accept orders 
> and handle billing and payments; a webmaster to create and maintain the online catalogue; and 
> somebody to handle marketing and publicity. I'm probably leaving something out.
>
> Second, in order to provide that special-order service, it's necessary to create and maintain an 
> extensive archive of audio files, cover art and images of the booklets that accompanied every 
> Folkways LP. That's another cost.
>
> Third, unlike Moe Asch, who was notorious for being slow (or stagnant) about paying royalties, the 
> Smithsonian actually keeps track of sales of those special orders and sends royalty payments to 
> the performers on those special-order items. As Tony Seeger, the former director of 
> Smithsonian/Folkways once told me, "As an agency of the U.S. Government, we have an obligation to 
> respect copyrights and performing rights."
>
> Or consider the same question from another direction: If you're really efficient, it might take 
> you an hour to make a clean copy of a 45-minute LP; more if it requires noise reduction, 
> de-clicking or other processing. Isn't your time worth more than $15 per hour?
>
> John Ross
>
> At  12/14/2007 07:35 AM, Garr Norick  wrote:
> > Don't get me wrong... please understand that I admire what Folkways is doing, and it is something 
> > that needs to be done... Maybe this illustration will show me what I mean... I have a private 
> > collection of music... I have been collecting for 20 years, and I am 23 years old... Say someone 
> > wanted a CD dub of a recording in my collection... I could transfer it onto CD and xerox the liner 
> > notes for them, and this would cost me at most one dollar. I could charge them five dollars for 
> > the whole thing, plus shipping, and make a 500% profit... Smithsonian, a government entity, owns 
> > the rights to all these masters outright... they probably buy blank CDs, labels, and paper for 
> > insert materials in massive quantities... thereby saving money... in other words, they probably 
> > don't have considerable overhead aside from paying someone to do these transfers (which, 
> > understanding the importance of keeping this music alive, would gladly do for them free of 
> > charge)... what I am trying to say
> >  is, all things considered, considering that they own the masters and probably get the raw 
> > materials at or below wholesale pricing, they could easily charge $10 a CD and make a nice profit 
> > on it (and it probably costs them less to make a custom CD than it does me, because I buy my 
> > supplies in retail quantities at retail prices). I guess part of my point of view is that I am a 
> > collector who has always been on a shoestring budget. I sincerely hope I did not offend anyone.
> >
> >   Most Sincerely Yours,
> >   G.E.
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------
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