Exploring material opened into the public domain by the 50 year EU Copyright Laws - Especifically neglected archive material.
Welcome
Fortunately within the EU, the 50 year period of copyright on material issued in and upto the 1st half of the 20th century is expiring, moving this material into the public domain. In combination with electronic distribution, it is possible to share this culturally valuable material where it would not be commercially viable. - it is therefore primarily intended to promote the appreciation, the preservation and aid research.
The modest intention of this blog is to allow me to highlight some of this material, to perhaps encourage others to discover and enjoy. If it creates a valid awareness of our rights to access this material, which has often long out of print or available only in very limited numbers, then all the better.
Background
There is a strong difference in the interpretation and enforcement in different countries, particularly with recent legal cases on each side of the Atlantic highlighting these differences. Given the aggressive push by organisations and corporations within the United States, to enforce copyright laws (globally, often to their advantage and effectively erode our rights), it is particularly interesting given the attitude of the United States to others copyright during the 18th and early 19th Centuries.
I recommend the article over at wikipedia, to get an overview of the situation, perhaps quite different than you might have thought from impressions given by the Music Industry and their lobbying organs - History of Copyright Law
"In Great Britain's North American colonies, reprinting British copyright works without permission had long happened episodically, but only became a major feature of colonial life after 1760. It became more commonplace to reprint British works in the colonies (mostly in the 13 American colonies). The impetus for this shift came from Irish and Scottish master printers and booksellers who had moved to the North American colonies in the mid 18th century. They were already familiar with the practice of reprinting and selling British copyright works, and continued the practice in North America, and it became a major part of the North American printing and publishing trade.
Robert Bell was an example. He was originally Scottish, and had spent almost a decade in Dublin before he moved to British North America in 1768. His operations, and those of many other colonial printers and booksellers, ensured that the practice of reprinting was well-established by the time of the American Declaration of Independence in 1776. Weakened American ties to Britain coincided with the increase of reprinting outside British copyright controls. The Irish also made a flourishing business of shipping reprints to North America in the 18th century. Ireland's ability to reprint freely ended in 1801 when Ireland's Parliament merged with Great Britain, and the Irish became subject to British copyright laws. The printing of uncopyrighted English works for the English-language market also occurred in other European countries. The British government responded to this problem in two ways: 1) it amended its own copyright statutes in 1842, explicitly forbidding import of any foreign reprint of British copyrighted work into the UK or its colonies, and 2) it began the process of reciprocal agreements with other countries. The first reciprocal agreement was with Prussia in 1846. The US remained outside this arrangement for some decades. This was objected to by such authors as Dickens and Mark Twain."
I don't want to get into a fiery discussion regarding opinion on copyright, I'd like to discuss the actual legalities of copyright law and how they effect material now entering the public domain in some geographical areas and how this effects us, given our present communications inter-connected-ness.
Terms of Use
This space for intended to create a place for encouraging the enjoyment and awareness of older music, often long out of print or available in very limited numbers - it is therefore primarily intended to promote preservation and aid research. Obviously depending upon your present country of residence, downloading and keeping material, in areas other than the EU may breach your country's laws regarding copyright infringement. As a specific illustration, the United States enforces copyright, some 90 years from the date of publishing, whereas copyright in the EU expires after 50 years of either performance or first publication.
I therefore ask you to exercise discretion, I must presume you are adults and part of that is exercising a little self-rule, where applicable - do not download material if you know it is illegal to do so in your country.
This blog is based within the EU and is therefore entitled to discuss and publish material in order to further that discussion.
If an organization wishes to use a copyrighted work, but no copyright owner can be found, the organization has a choice. It can forgo using the work, or it can use the work without permission, gambling that no copyright owner will appear.
But if the organization loses that gamble, the costs can be high: treble damages for willful infringement and an injunction against any further use of the work.
Many museums, libraries, filmmakers and others will not gamble on using orphan works. “Many users of copyrighted works have indicat-ed that the risk of liability for copyright infringement, however remote, is enough to prompt them not to make use of the work,” states the 2006 Copyright Office report.
Now comes a paper from the London School of Economics that tries to do more than just challenge the DEA. It argues that everything Big Content says about file sharing is wrong. In fact, it suggests that file sharing is the future, and that revenue downturns can largely be explained by other forces.
For the last decade, the movie and music industries have engaged in a relentless struggle against Internet file sharing. One prominent theater of this global conflict has been the UK, which last year saw the passage of the Digital Economy Act. The law, if fully implemented, could allow Internet Service Providers to disconnect "persistent infringers" of the UK's copyright rules from the 'Net.
That's the completion of the Blue Note 5000 Series. Next week we will start the Blue Note 1500 Series.
As promised, there were additional tracks from BN LP 5052 (New Sounds From Olde England) - These are from the same session but not licensed by Blue Note, they eventually turned up on an MGM release.
Deep Purple I'll Remember April Rhumblues Two Sleepy People Amalgam
Did Germany experience rapid industrial expansion in the 19th century due to an absence of copyright law? A German historian argues that the massive proliferation of books, and thus knowledge, laid the foundation for the country's industrial might.
"There is a legend (or if not, there ought to be, and it shall be promulgated forthwith) that once upon a time there was a musician so great that nobody was quite capable of appreciating him. His technique made Horowitz and Tatum seem like bumbling amateurs. He played chords nobody else had ever played, because his stretch was as wide as his imagination, and he composed music that was extra-terrestrial. But observing that his work could never fully be absorbed or understood, he locked himself in a room with a Steinway and spent the rest of his life there, and when he died there was not a single soul on earth who had ever heard him play."
and...
"The story of the man in the legend has certain elements in common with that of Herbie Nichols, except that in the latter's case there is a happy ending."
Although with the benefit of time, perhaps the former is truer.
It was to be expected, after the noteworthy showing made by Lou Mecca in his two LP appearances with Gil Melle on 5054 and 5063, that this brilliant new guitarist would soon be presented in a session of his own.
"Hank Mobley may never 'make' the cover of Time Magazine. His name may ever be on the lips of the 'chi-chi' set, and it is doubtful to assume that he will switch to Cronkite Whiskey and become a Man of Distinction. But from his work on this record, Hank Mobley certainly should be recognized by the general public, (as he is now by those 'on the jazz scene') as one of the most important of today's young tenor saxophonists."
I'm pretty Cook states that this session was never released again in the 12 inch format - I'll have to look that up.
"Kenny Dorham's Blue Note debut as a leader marks an important phase in his career. After hearing these sides, the fans who for so long had only vaguely aware of his real capabilities will learn that here is a soloist and a composer whose sound and pen are destined from now on to play a lively and stimulating role on the jazz stage."
"Watkins was born in Detroit, Michigan. He started playing French horn when he was nine years old, having played the trumpet, the recognized jazz instrument, for the Ernie Fields Orchestra in the mid-1940s. By the late 1940s, however, he had played some French horn solos on Kenny Clarke and Babs Gonzales' records. After moving to New York City, Watkins studied for three years at the Manhattan School of Music. He started appearing in small-group jazz sessions, including two led by Thelonious Monk, featuring on "Friday the 13th" on the album Thelonious Monk & Sonny Rollins (1954)."
That session mentioned above was Thelonious Monk And Sonny Rollins (Prestige PRLP 7075) Julius Watkins (frh) Sonny Rollins (ts) Thelonious Monk (p) Percy Heath (b) Willie Jones (d) NYC, November 13, 1953. This session is from Rudy Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, March 20, 1955.
"Watkins recorded with numerous jazz greats, including John Coltrane, Freddie Hubbard, Charles Mingus, Miles Davis and Gil Evans, Phil Woods, Clark Terry, Johnny Griffin, Randy Weston, and the Jazz Composer's Orchestra. He co-led, with Charlie Rouse, the group Les Jazz Modes from 1956 to 1959, and he toured with Quincy Jones and his band from 1959 to 1961"
BT and TalkTalk want a judicial review of the Digital Economy Act, saying the controversial new law could infringe "basic rights and freedoms," reports the BBC. The act – which proposes to disconnect persistent illegal filesharers from the internet – was passed into law in the April wash-up period before parliament was dissolved. Both BT and TalkTalk are understood to want the high court to clarify whether the act conflicts with existing EU regulation. Ofcom has said plans to disconnect people from the internet would not come into force until next year. Concerns over "basic rights and freedoms" to access the web are made worse by the manner in which the act was passed into law, BT and TalkTalk say. The act was "rushed through" parliament with "insufficient scrutiny", claim the internet service providers. After two hours of debate in the House of Commons, the bill was given royal assent – the vote in the government's favour by 189 votes to 47. Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats, said at the time: "We did our best to prevent the digital economy bill being rushed through at the last moment. It badly needed more debate and amendment."
Kenny Dorham (tp) Hank Mobley (ts) Horace Silver (p) Doug Watkins (b) Art Blakey (d) Rudy Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, February 6, 1955
I think you could probably call this an EP, it is short even by 10" standards - 4 tracks, totalling about 20-22 minutes. It is a nice set and you will have heard the tracks in various compilations and re-editions. You can see that Horace Silver was making money for Blue Note.
This is another of those Vogue sessions licensed for US release, it was originally Vogue (F) LD 21. Session List;
Roger Guerin (tp, tu) Nat Peck (tb) Jean Aldegon (bcl) Bobby Jaspar (ts) Fats Sadi (vib) Maurice Vander (p) Jean-Marie Ingrand or Pierre Michelot (b) Jean-Louis Viale (d) Paris, France, May 8, 1954
You'll perhaps notice Pierre Michelot and Jean-Louis Viale, a bass and drum section often cropping up on these Vogue sessions - look back at BN LP 5005 for comparison.
