![\"copyrighted\"](\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4139\/4849753706_3e5c4cf92a.jpg\")
<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n(Crossposted on “Alas” and on “TADA”)<\/em><\/p>\n David Post<\/a> writes:<\/p>\n The National Jazz Museum (who knew there was such a thing?) has apparently acquired a true treasure trove of early jazz recordings. The collection \u2014 nearly 1,000 discs! \u2014 was recorded in the 30s and 40s by William Savory from on-the-air radio broadcasts, and includes performances by Lester Young, Benny Goodman, Coleman Hawkins, Lionel Hampton, Billie Holiday, Teddy Wilson, and many others of the great names of jazz (from the greatest era of jazz). Savory, apparently, is something of a legend in recording engineer circles, and many of the recordings are of stunningly high quality (and many of the performances masterpieces).<\/p>\n If you\u2019re like me, and consider American jazz of the 30s and 40s to be one of the great artistic outpourings of all time, the story induces something like a swoon of ecstatic delight. […]<\/p>\n So needless to say I can\u2019t wait to hear the reissues. But alas, that may never happen. As the original article noted (with additional commentary here), the potential copyright liability that could attach to redistribution of these recordings is so large \u2014 and, more importantly, so uncertain \u2014 that there may never be a public distribution of the recordings. Tracking down all the parties who may have a copyright interest in these performances, and therefore an entitlement to royalty payments (or to enjoining their distribution), is a monumental, and quite possibly an impossible, task, and it may well be that nobody steps forward with the resources to (a) undertake the efforts required and (b) take on the risk of liability. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n In a passage that’s worth reading twice, Post goes on to write:<\/p>\n …copyright, inherently, operates to the detriment of the public when applied in retrospect, to works that have already been created. Lester Young, alas, can no longer be incentivized to produce these performances \u2014 they\u2019ve already been created. We won\u2019t get any more brilliant performances by Teddy Wilson if we protect these works. All we \u2014 the public \u2014 get from applying copyright here is a restriction on our ability to encounter magnificent works of art. Now of course, copyright is only ever applied in retrospect, and if we always ignored it when applied to already-existing works it would cease to exist, and would therefore no longer serve its incentivizing function prospectively.<\/p>\n And there\u2019s your copyright balance; what we seek is a way to give creators enough of an incentive to create, but not too much, because too much gives us, the public, too much of an impediment to actually enjoying the works that have already been created. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n Here’s the thing: Most creators need very little<\/em> incentive to create. Yet our laws pretend that if we don’t have a monopoly extending to decades after our deaths, most creative sorts will hang up our pens and brushes and saxophones and go “oh, heck with this! I’d rather pump gas.”<\/p>\n Music only has value when it is heard. If it can’t find an audience, it’s dead. A copyright regime that kills music is one that needs reform.<\/p>\n There’s a brilliant comic strip, Barnaby<\/a><\/em>, which is – rumor has it — not being reprinted because the creators’ family is unrealistically waiting for someone to offer Peanuts-size royalties. Or maybe they just loathe their father and want to see his legacy of art forgotten. Maybe they’re just used to seeing enormous sums of money from Harold and the Purple Crayon, and so don’t think it’s worthwhile to let their father’s comic strip see daylight, because they have no souls and think art is crap. Or maybe they have other reasons.<\/p>\n But I don’t really care, because they didn’t create Barnaby<\/em>. They didn’t write it, they didn’t draw it, they have basically no moral right<\/em> to that work. In particular, they have no right to lock up another person’s creative legacy in a vault, and deprive the reading public of that work.<\/p>\n Keeping a comic strip out of print, when there are plenty of publishers who’d love to print it, is no different from grabbing the Mona Lisa<\/em> and chucking it into a fire. It’s censorship, and it’s a kind of censorship they’re only able to accomplish because copyright laws irrationally give them that right. I do think there are many situations where the creator of a work has a right to keep it from the public. But why should people who didn’t create the work have that right?<\/p>\n Yes, legally, they’re the heirs. But why should copyright be passed down to heirs at all? Is the thought that if Crockett Johnson hadn’t been able to imagine his heirs keeping his work out of print forever, he never could have motivated himself to draw a daily comic strip at a time when drawing comic strips was admired and extremely rewarding?<\/p>\n How does this situation benefit anyone? How am I, as a cartoonist, encouraged to create new works because I can see that Barnaby <\/em>is being kept out of print, and because I can imagine my hypothetical future heirs deciding to keep my own work out of print? I don’t think I am.<\/p>\n I think I’m just being robbed as a member of the reading public. And I think Crockett Johnson is being robbed of one of the things that matters most to almost any popular artist — an audience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (Crossposted on “Alas” and on “TADA”) David Post writes: The National Jazz Museum (who knew there was such a thing?) has apparently acquired a true treasure trove of early jazz recordings. The collection \u2014 nearly 1,000 discs! \u2014 was recorded … Continue reading