Giddins' March JT Column

[clandy44]

While Mr Pharo is focussed on the dead-end S Crouch coliumn, I think the Giddins column is much more troubling. I'm no intellectual property lawyer, but if I understand what Giddins is saying, extended copyright protection in the US and the confusion it engenders means fewer reissues of older material. Now that is disturbs me.

[montg]

I agree--I thought Giddins raised some substantial issues. IF I read him correctly (and admitedly it was rather rushed in Barnes and Noble at the magazine stand), then every time someone in the US buys a European import of material that is still under copyright in the US (e.g., a JRT Davies remaster of Louis Armstrong) then the US purchaser has broken the law. Is that true? And if it is, how can these imports be so readily available in the US?

[cliff peterson]

the imports can be readily available, even though they break the local copyright law, simply because it is up to the local copyright owner to exercise their right to have the transgresser stop. Since there are no copyright police, this means going to court. Going to court necessitates knowing about the violation of the copyright and also having the desire and bread to to enforce your copyright. as far as I know, unlike trademark law which punishes a trademark owner if they do not enforce their legal right to use the mark, i.e., prevent it from becoming generic, the local copyright owner does not lose their copyright by deciding not to enforce it. so if I am correct, the local copyright owner might make a business decision, how much will it cost be to enforce my rights versus how much am I losing by not enforcing it? plus, in the case of a foreign company that is a copyright transgressor, say one of the affiliates of planet music like definitive records, if they do not have any property in the us, how are you going to sue them? in other words, how are you going to drag them into court in the us? perhaps one could chase the distributor of the product, i.e, towers or borders.

as for another giddins argument as to how the copyright extension hurts jazz lovers, one of his points is that this simply extends the time in which the rightful us copyright holder of king oliver's creole jazz band music can decide not to spend the money to properly remaster and reissue the music. giddins cites the work of j.r.t davies abroad on older jazz music as a valid reason for not having repetitive copyright extensions. and I think he has a point. if you were a sony exec. and was presented with sales figures of say 10,000 projected sales of a king oliver reissue and the cost numbers for doing a jrt davies level remaster, it is not farfetched to imagine the executive, not having a clue as to who king oliver was, saying "what are you crazy?"

[PDEE]

Just as a curiosity.. if we in the USA buy one of these copyright CDs from Europe.. Are we breaking the Law.

Are we then importing illegal items?

Or is it OK as long as it's for personal use?

[jazzypaul]

I'm gonna steer this one back on topic a little bit. I read the Giddins thing, mostly because I couldn't find the Crouch article (if someone has a pg. number, clue me in, please!!!) but also because I've been keeping tabs on this case since day one. In my never humble opine, here are my issues with the whole thing...

1) The Beasties should be clearing samples through artists and record companies. This never would have happened had they come to Newton first. He would have said no (more on this in a second) and they would have found another sample, or best case scenario, gotten a flute player in the studio to recreate the 6 notes they were looking to sample in the first place.

2) Newton is being a total cocksucker about all of this. His whole thing of saying that he never would have let a rap artist sample his music because rap music as a whole offends his christian sensibilities is, at best, ludicrous. Yes, a vast majority of rappers are making the whole of rap look pretty bad, but there are also many rappers and rap groups (The Beasties among them) that are making intelligent rap music that samples jazz, name checks jazz players and talks about something other than bitches, hos and glocks. Secondly, the Beasties were far more willing to cooperate than Giddins has let on. From what I understand, they offered a larger monetary settlement, they offered to get his albums on Blue Note back into print, among other things. Newton turned it all down, and why? Was he looking for the big payday? Not a very Christian ideal there. The only justifiable answer might be that he was looking for a ruling that might have led the way toward stricter sampling laws. But, even with that, he's still barking up the wrong tree. Better to have the Beasties sampling your music and talking about living a good life, having a good time and namechecking jazz musicians than to have Snoop Dogg sampling your music and rapping about drug deals.

3) I think both parties should get what they deserve. At this point, for the Beasties, a settlement for Newton and getting his CD's back in print should be a good start to get Newton his financial compensation, and so the Beasties learn, ALWAYS GET PERMISSION FROM THE ARTISTS BEFORE YOU SAMPLE. I think Newton needs to learn from this, too. Don't be a greedy asshole when someone does owe you compensation. Whether it was a five or six figure offer, it's probably more than he's made off of any other album that he's ever appeared on.

I am sure I am going to get flamed left and right for this one. Actually, I'd love to see what everyone else has to say.