The Steel Guitar Forum

Rose, a nice lady who loved the traditional country values of music, who has a great collection and who would share the great music she had collected, for no gain. She is a very caring and unselfish person to do this. I don't think she was taking money from the pocket of anyone.
This was just another action of some little germ, infectiog the sole of traditional country music.
I think every one has a right to choose their style of music,,,and I don't care if you like traditional country music, but I do !!!!! I will miss "The Record Lady"
Wayne<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Wayne Morgan on 03 August 2005 at 10:01 PM.]</p></FONT><font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Wayne Morgan on 03 August 2005 at 10:05 PM.]</p></FONT>

Sounds to me like this guy who claims he owns, controls, or has a vested interest in darn near everything ever recorded is a lying jerk, but the Record Lady's no dummy and has it figured pretty well. Whether or not her site was wrong is a question the lawyers could fight over for months. I'm still sorry to see this happen and still don't like overgrown hall-monitors.

Hate to be a wet blanket (and I know she is a nice old lady) but I have to side with the guy from Florida. As a business owner, if I had a financial interest in those recordings I'b be mad as heck to to see them available for free download.

The quality issue is a red herring: did you ever see the quality of the bootleg dvd's and cd's sold on the streets of New York?

and the pre-1980 arguement is a red herring as well: there is tons of money to be made in pre 1980 recordings - ask Michael Jackson about the Beatles catalog or Slim Whitman's estate, or Box Car willie.

It is a business folks and there is no difference here from the kid copying his favorite artist for download because he loves the music and wants to share.

What if I did a Buddy Emmons tribute page and provided all of his tracks for download for free. How long do you think it would be before I'd hear from Buddy's lawyers?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><HR><SMALL>Oh well, the powers that be don't want us to waste our time listening to
the old music...they want us to hear only what they want us to hear...the new
crap they are tiring to sell.</SMALL><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
She just may have a point.

On the other hand, they'll take every dollar they can for our listening to the old tunes as well. Talk about the 'Taxman.'

Here's my two cents worth right or wrong; I have a computer and accessories that I have invested $2,500.00 in and pay $50.00 a month for a Broadband connection and I feel that I should be able to download "anything and everything" that is available online! Most of the music that was on the Record Lady's site had long ago received it's last check for royalties from airplay and sales. They should appreciate the interest in their creations and be thankful that there are people out there who still wants to hear them! This is my personal feelings about this right or wrong.

Other than going after the truth from the Record Lady herself, I don't have a dog in the hunt. I don't record to cd's other than commercial jingles, don't write songs, and certainly would never get into the song publishing business.

I agree with Bobby Hofnar in that the artists, song writers, singers, etc should be paid for their efforts.

The music folks in RIIA are battling for their natural lives, and I think that Steve W. has hit on their undoing. The internet is so vast, and accessible that eventually lawsuits from RIIA are going to be a moot point in the discussion.

In short, it's gonna' be impossible to monitor every P2P, peer to peer, communication that occurs. Nuff' said in that area because it has come to that climax already.

I don't know what the answer is to their problem, but as long as 2 computers can talk to each other, without going through something other than the corresponding ISP's, the RIIA, and other organizations are really shovelling crap against the tide. My take.
Phriend Phred

------------------
"From Truth, Justice is Born"--Quanah Parker-1904

"Most of the music that was on the Record Lady's site had long ago received it's last check for royalties from airplay and sales."

It may have received the last payments from airplay, but compilations, box sets, etc are big business. Again, I use the Slim Whitman example. Who in the mainstream had heard of him before the ran that infomercial. Just because an asset is not currently being marketed does not mean that potential sales are not there at some future date.

Saying since no one is currently marketing those items, its okay to let them stream for free is like saying its okay to let mice eat the grain in the silo because no one is eating it right now.

And as far as your right to download anything that is on the net, you may think you have that right, but that won't prevent you from getting arrested - there is lots of stuff you are not allowed to download i.e. certain types of pornography.

I'm sure that Bill and Tom are correct in that technically the Record Lady was violating copyright laws. A copyright lawyer was asked on the witness stand in a trial in California, "so, technically, a person walking down the street, whistling a copyrighted song is breaking the law?" and his answer was "yes". That pretty much sums up the whole thing for me. Technically illegal, yes. Right in pursuing legal action? That's another question.

Well, Jim I have to disagree. We are not talking about a person walking down the street. We are not even talking about a guy who makes a mix tape for his friends. We are talking about the Internet that is accessable to the majority of the people on the planet. The scale of the internet and the reach of the internet put the issue on a whole different plane. There is nothing technical about it. If I own the rights to Eddie Arnolds catalog and am planning and paying for a boxed set production with all the marketing that goes with it, and someone is offering the same material for free to everyone in the WORLD, well, as they say in the Wizard of Oz, that's a horse of a different color. <font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Bill McCloskey on 04 August 2005 at 12:56 PM.]</p></FONT>

True, Bill, but as mentioned, her files were Real Audio files, which are poor quality and not suitable for commercial use, which might have some impact on whether she was really much of a threat to commercial releases... and on the other hand, a lot of people would probably consider her low-quality files as OK, since the originals in those days weren't what we'd call CD quality now, either.

Either way, yes it's definitely against copyright law.

She should move to Russia.

There is a site called Freddies Chet Atkins Page. Has every Chet recording and you can listen to anything you want. Been up for several years now. Comes out of Russia somewhere.

Even in real property, there is a concept of 'squatter's rights'. If someone doesn't exercise their property rights for a sufficiently long time, and doesn't object when someone moves in, at a certain point, the squatter can claim title to the property.

But this is strictly legalistic. I already concede the legality, since the DMCA really is a boondoggle to copyright and mechanical rights holders. I only argue about the merits of the legalities.

So, if you have a problem with TRL, you're perfectly right that there is a legitimate issue of property rights here. In the past, after a reasonable period of time, works went into the public domain. This was set up so that the creator of the work could get the benefits of creation, but this reverted back to the public after they could no longer get these benefits. Now, the primary owners of these older copyrights seem to be large corporate interests who have bought them up. Like treating designs as trademarks (e.g., Fender and Gibson's claim that their patented features like headstock and body shapes are actually trademarks), this all seems simply to be an attempt to greatly lengthen the period of time these corporate interests can 'milk' their product. Should some corporation hold a copyright to Bach and Beethoven? How about Steven Foster's songs? How about George M. Cohan or Hoagy Carmichael or Jimmy Rodgers or Hank Sr? Where do we draw the line? I argue that when the principal creators are no longer alive, the copyright and mechanical rights should expire after a reasonable period of time. Right now, they seem to go practically into perpetuity.

My earlier point was that I don't think any songwriters or artists are being deprived by the posting of poor audio copies of songs greater than 25-years old which haven't been in print in that period of time. As long as TRL would pull down any song which claims infringement quickly, I don't see the damages here. It seems to me that somebody should need to show how TRL is inflicting damages before she's just shut down.

As far as 'educational or scholarly' purposes, that's what 'fair use' is supposed to be about, but my sense is that the DMCA pretty much neuters the concept. For TRL to claim this, I imagine she would probably have to set up an educational or scholarly research foundation of some sort, and restrict access to authorized members. I'm not a lawyer, but have to deal with this issue in my teaching and research sometimes. Actually, setting up such an educational foundation would be a good thing for someone to do. This music needs archivists, and I don't see anybody stepping up to the plate in a formal way like that. I see it for Appalachian folk and bluegrass, blues, jazz, and even rock and roll, but not for this type of country music. Perhaps it's out there, but it's not visible from my vantage point.

wright or wrong, let me tell you how it affected me. I recently downloaded Johnny Bush, undo the wright song, and thought what some great music, I went two days later and bought Johnny Bush, Lost Highway CD, and man has it got some super steel on it, then I thought this flores guy can really pick a fiddle, and ran a check on him and discovered that Bobby Flores has a new CD with vocal, fiddling and some great steelin', so now I am ordering that CD and I plan on hunting some of the old Jimmie Dickens ballads on CD if I can find them. So I think Rose has cost me money, that I might have not spent if it had not been for her site. Maybe I am the only one that the site affected like that....."NOT"
so don't tell me how Rose was scr**ing the music industry
I've bought countless CD's that wasn't worth a crap, maybe one or two at best good recordings and the rest fill songs, so when Rose let you test drive some of this material, just makes you wanna go out and buy some of your own.

"Hush" Wayne !!!

Well, I hate to be the wet blanket here, but I feel I have to call all you people who agree with the RIAA. In short, you're all hippocrites. EVERYONE copies stuff, but...they choose to "overlook" their own indiscretions while calling others on theirs. For GOD's sake! Is there <u>anyone</u> here who doesn't have illegal material on their computer, or somewhere in their collection???

I think not. Read on...

Have you ever made a tape or recording of a famous groups live performance?

ILLEGAL!

Have you ever sang "Happy Birthday" in a public place?

ILLEGAL!

Do you have images on your computer that you can't <u>verify</u> aren't copyrighted by someone else?

ILLEGAL!

Have you ever made a copy of a copyrighted song, or it's lyrics, and gave them to someone else?

ILLEGAL!

Have you ever performed Praise songs in your church that aren't your own, or "PD"?

ILLEGAL!

Have you ever made a backup copy of a computer program?

ILLEGAL! <font size=1>(Regardless of what the "manufacturer" says, the law, Copyright Law of the United States, Title 17, U.S.C., now says that backup copies may be made <u>only</u> if a computer is to be repaired. Once it's repaired, the backup copy must be destroyed!)</font>

Have you ever sung "White Christmas", or "Jingle Bells" in a public place (like your office party) that hasn't paid a license fee to ASCAP or BMI?

ILLEGAL!

Have you ever asked someone to give you the lyrics (words) to a copyrighted song?

ILLEGAL!

Have you ever posted copyrighted lyrics on a web site?

ILLEGAL!

There's far more in the law than most people think, and ignorance of the law is NO EXCUSE!

I seriously doubt anyone here hasn't done something illegal in this area. I've printed out the whole law text (290 pages) and it makes interesting reading. What's more interesting is that all "intellectual property" isn't treated the same. Song copyrights are good now for a minimum of 70 years! However, inventions (covered by patents) are only protected for 20 years! Why? I suppose it's because inventors don't have the same big lobbying groups (like the R.I.A.A. and the M.P.A.) that spend millions to get these laws to passed like the media moguls do.

Yep. I suspect you're <u>all</u> guilty. I also suspect that Bob will now have to add a new rule or two to his Forum to protect himself. No more lyrics posted...no more pictures posted (unless by the photographer, himself), no more full songs (MP3's or .wav's) posted (except "PD", or your own works).

My GOD...we're stealing someone's living!

Y'all can read these laws (all 290 pages) if you care to. I have, and it ain't pretty (unless you're a writer or a publisher).

Yeah. I think there's going to be some changes here.

I could name some people now, but I won't. You all know who you are. I trust we'll see no more "violations" here.

Right?

Thank y'all kindly.

Vote for Donny Hinson for President !

Wayne

Everything Donny said is true and we all know it.

The Record Lady's site was illegal, but as Dave Mudgett put it so well, "I only argue about the merits of the legalities".

That's the grey issue.

If everything Donny listed were actively pursued as Copyright Infringement, it would be Orwelle's 1984 for sure. Hope it never comes to that, but it seems to me we're getting closer all the time.<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Jim Phelps on 04 August 2005 at 02:58 PM.]</p></FONT>

Okay, last post on the subject. I think my new rule is going to be only 3 rebuttals for me and then I give up.

I love Jazz. Would it be okay if I posted all my Blue Note CD's for free download. After all all those jazz guys are dead most likely. How about if I posted all my Miles Davis CD's (I have everything) on line for free download. He's dead and I hear he didn't leave anything to his son, so why should Columbia make any money on his records. They should all be free.

And what about the musician who was so poor that all he had to bequeth his family was the catalog of his recordings. Can I put all his work up for sale for free?

Or maybe the record producer who paid for all the recording sessions, musicians, marketing and distribution costs for hundreds of artists in hope that a handful would make enough money to make it all worthwhile. Let's put his legacy up for free as well.

How about all the Dave Van Ronk recordings. I took lessons from him and I know his wife still makes money from the sale of his recordings. But that's okay, - It's from the 60's after all and I'm sure putting all of Dave's CD's up for free download won't affect his widow.

Or maybe it's okay as long as heirs aren't dependant on the earnings. I've got it. You put up everything for free and if an heir complains they can come to you with their tax returns so they can prove they derive income from those CD's. Once they prove it to you, with proper documentation of course, you can pull those CD's from your tribute site.

But let's not stop there. How about putting the Jeff Newman teaching materials up for free download as well. I'm sure they have educational value.

Tell me where do you stop. Who decides? You. Is it okay as long as the person doing it is good hearted and you like being reminded of the good old days?

I think that is why we have laws instead of anarchy.

Just so you know, my posts were in reference to this kind of thing in general, not specific to the record lady.

When I posted:

"A copyright lawyer was asked on the witness stand in a trial in California, "so, technically, a person walking down the street, whistling a copyrighted song is breaking the law?" and his answer was "yes". That pretty much sums up the whole thing for me. Technically illegal, yes. Right in pursuing legal action? That's another question."

...that was also in reference to the subject in general, not just the record lady. I thought that was obvious but maybe it wasn't. I certainly was never suggesting that anyone should be able to give away anything they like on the internet.

I think Bill's last post makes my full allowance of sarcasm , so the rest of you can take it from here.<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Jim Phelps on 05 August 2005 at 12:04 AM.]</p></FONT>

I am for intellectual property rights and laws which protect them, but simply believe that there should be a reasonable time limit, after which published ideas and inventions revert to the public domain. Donny's comparison to invention patents is well taken. Do you really believe that music is so much more valuable and harder to produce than inventions that they deserve 4-5 or more times as long protection? I believe patents run for 17 years, with the possibility of one renewal.

I also don't think anyone should be able to just stop distribution of 'classic' works, as has happened with most of the old country records TRL posted.

For example, what would you think if Congress enacted legislation to give the inventors of drugs like penicillin and its derivatives 70-100 years of patent protection (so nobody could produce and market generic versions), and then that company decided to stop production/licensing for 25 years to 'stimulate the market' for their product?

Just throwing this out there....

...we all love pedal steel, and I'm certain many of us have a few favorite instrumentalists. In my case, Red Rhodes. Now, I am lucky to have all of his solo LPs. If I didn't, I would love to still hear all the music. Fact is, though, that whoever owns the rights to his old Crown LPs (if master tapes are even still in existence) will undoubtedly never reissue those tracks. What good does it do to prohibit posting mp3s of HIS music in particular, especially as it is ALL out of print and will almost certainly never see re-release?

I also have one further argument....there are songs I see out there that I like to hear once...maybe twice. I would NOT (and yes, I repeat "N-O-T") care enough to ever buy the particular song. So, in other words, I download it out of curiousity and/or mild interest, and then forget about it for the next few years. In my opinion, there is no "lost revenue" as I know that I would not have bought the song anyway.

On the other hand, I am a huge Michael Nesmith fan and he has begun selling live material of his from the '70s via his website. In this instance, while I COULD retrieve this music for free, I DO NOT. I always pay for it, because I know this is music that I DO want, and WILL listen to over and over again.

Again, everyone will have their different opinion about what is "right" and "wrong." And while I agree that it is wrong to, say, download a full album of music you *know* you would have purchased otherwise, I don't feel that it is wrong to download, say, Jim Nesbitt songs if they are not in print (and never will be back in print) or if you are wanting to hear them just once just for the heck of it.

Joe
<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Joe Alterio on 05 August 2005 at 06:39 AM.]</p></FONT>

<SMALL> "so, technically, a person walking down the street, whistling a copyrighted song is breaking the law?" and his answer was "yes". </SMALL>

Thank goodness they can't nail me when I've got an earworm (that's a song in your head that you hear over & over 'cause it won't go away.) Talk about the potential for repeat violations.
I agree that the issues of ownership, remuneration, fair use, and infringements are downright murky.

IMHO the issue of the copyright office giving Disney 75 more years on their music (on top of the original copyright lifetime) is a sell out to big business.<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Ray Minich on 05 August 2005 at 08:04 AM.]</p></FONT>

In the area of "intellectual property" (patents and copyrights), I know a lot of people would prefer the idea that "It's mine, and I'm keepin' it forever". However, the original framers of the copyright laws in this country knew that this was not a good idea. (20 of them were also signers of our Declaration of Independence, so it's nothing new.) They decided that people's ideas needed protection, but <u>not</u> forever. They figured that the country wouldn't grow and remain free if a few people and their descendents sat around on their fat rumps for hundreds of years monopolizing everything. No, these framers weren't communists, but they'd had enough of "minority controls" back in Europe to understand the deficits. Therefore, copyright and patent laws were established so that inventions and artworks would pass on to the public in a reasonable timeframe, and everyone could get his proverbial "piece of the pie". (If all Henry Ford's patents were still in effect, we'd all be drivin' Fords. )

Originally, copyrights were good for 14 years, and could be renewed only once. Taking into consideration that people back then didn't live quite as long (a ripe old age was about 55), one might say that some extension was resonable. However, we've passed the point of "reasonability", and now new works are protected for 95 years, thanks to Sonny Bono. That's where we are now, and that means things can be kept secured for almost 5 generations, and in a country based on freedom and fairness, there's nothing fair about repression and hoarding of anything, which is what these laws now permit. They're equivilent to a statutory monopoly, and the driving force isn't the protection of an individual's rights (which so many of you seem to think), but rather the expansion and welfare of big business. They have an agenda, big business now virtually controls our government and our country, and you only have to watch the TV, or listen to the radio, or read the paper, to see what happens when just a select few "run the show".

No, it's not right, as someone said, for anyone to post the complete works of some famous writer or artist on the internet when their material is still easily commercially available. That's absurd, and that's not what we're talking about here. We'd simply like to have access to the works that aren't being produced, or aren't easily available. Either the works aren't popular, or no one's going to invest money where there's little or no return. This is what Rose, the Record Lady was doing. Art is for everyone, and shouldn't be restricted just because the one who owns it has a cashflow problem or an ego complex. Was Rose's site illegal? Technically, yes. But I seriously doubt her little site hurt anyone, and I'd be very interested if anyone could prove otherwise. (Maybe Kitty Well's record sales will skyrocket, now? Somehow, I doubt it.) Yes, it's illegal, but so are you when you take your radio to the ball game or race track. So are you, when you'd like them to play steel music at your funeral, but your relatives haven't paid an ASCAP licensing fee. So are you, when you copy and post a joke on the Forum, or on the bulletin board at work. Laws are laws, but ridiculous is still ridiculous. (Did you know it's illegal to even <u>walk</u> on a road when the signs say "ROAD CLOSED"?)

Anyhow, I'm old enough to remember the early days of television, and Hollywood thought that could be a problem. Then, when VCR's came out in the '70s, there was untold wailing and gnashing of teeth by the theatre owners, the movie companies, and even the stars themselves. You see, in 1978, <u>everyone</u> was certain that movie theatres would be gone in 20 years, and Hollywood shuddered. People would just make their own free copies of anything on cable TV, and just stay home! But instead...what happened? Fast forward to the present, and theatres are bigger and more popular than ever! (There's a new 24-screen "mediaplex" near my home.) Stars are making 10-20 million per picture, and the studios are making from 25 to several hundred million on their pictures. Who would'a figured? Video sales and rentals now produce <u>half</u> of their income. Yes, they removed restrictions on the media, forgot about goofy laws to ban VCR's, and just let capitalism run it's course, and we all lived happily ever after.

In any "pirating" operation, price and availability are the causal (driving) factors. Hardly anybody bothers to make copies of movies anymore. Why bother? You can buy them almost anywhere, and they're almost as cheap as music CD's, even though a movie can easily cost 100 times as much to produce as a music CD. (I wonder why that is? ) In the end, if you make entertainment available and cheap, no one bothers to copy or pirate it at all. They enjoy it, put it (or throw it) away, and just buy more! I've made an analogy before about newspapers and magazines. They're more popular than any other media (most people get a paper every day, and a few magazines a month), but NOBODY copies or pirates any part of them...not even the centerfolds or the comic strips!

Hmmm...do you wonder why? Probably because they're not $15-$20 each.

Make it <u>available</u> and cheap, and guess what?

No one pirates. No one steals.

Everyone benefits.

Sounds good to me!

I'm done. If I've talked too much, I'm sorry. <font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Donny Hinson on 05 August 2005 at 02:34 PM.]</p></FONT>

<SMALL>They figured that the country wouldn't grow and remain free if a few people and their descendents sat around on their fat rumps for hundreds of years monopolizing everything.</SMALL>

Yes, nor is it desirable for a small number of oligopolistic corporations to consolidate control of everything either, which is what is increasingly happening. Stopping this was the point of anti-trust legislation at the beginning of the last century, which has been largely gutted since the early-mid 80s.

I'd like to hear from someone who really thinks creative works or inventions should be protected for 80-100 years. What is the justification? I can't see it.<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Dave Mudgett on 05 August 2005 at 02:33 PM.]</p></FONT>

Errr.....what Donny said!

Post of the Week!!!!

Donny Hinson & Dave Mudgett: Brilliant posts.