Post #186712 by Traitor Vic on Wed, Sep 14, 2005 10:41 PM

Great question, Hanford! Of course, I would expect nothing less from you. As a matter of fact, I've never traded any entire unreleased album. I have, however, downloaded a few for myself and made copies of several that I have copied from albums I own for interested friends (absolutely no Trading of any type involved here).

As far as contacting Capital Records is concerned I must admit that I have not done that. I have, however, contacted representatives from Warner Brothers, A&M and Philips Records (both A&M and Philips are now owned by the Universal Music Group which is owned by the French water company Vivendi). In each case I was interested in procuring (paying for!) copies of music that I had previously owned (already paid for once!) but lost (had stolen from me, lost in a fire, dropped a speaker on, etc...) that had never been re-released on CD and, in most cases, were pretty ancient and hard-to-find to begin with. In each case I was told that the music to which I was referring did not hold enough mass-market appeal to warrant it's availability. In other words... This Is WORTHLESS MUSIC!!! It's not worth their time to make it available. It's not worth their time to hire flunkies to convert it to a digital format at minimum wage. It's not worth their time to post it, thereby taking up valuable server space that could be being used by Ashley Simpson. Hell! In the case of Philips Records, it's not even worth their time to look it up in a catalog (or database) to see if it has ever been released at all! Or if the Swingle Singers ("the Swinger Singles?") actually existed, for that matter. At least the Warner Bros. representative assured me that some small amount of what I was asking about would, eventually, become available online. It did, however, only as a result of it's eventually being released on CD, at which point I simply went to the store and bought the CDs.

The message that they gave me was clear. They own it. I don't. If they want me to have it, they'll sell it to me and I'll buy it. If they don't want me to have it, I'm not supposed to be able to get it. Nuff sed. Shut up. Go away.

So here's the deal... If you're sitting around waiting for the CD reissue of the entire Reparata and the Delron's album "Whenever a Teenager Cries" to come out, you better get awfully comfortable. If you get a hankerin', anytime soon, to listen to The Premiers' "Farmer John" album and shake that thang like you used to, you might as well just go ahead and sit that thang down. If you find yourself wanting to hear the first Rank and File album (you know... the one with Alejandro Escovedo on guitar) again for the first time since you got your CD player in 1985 and immediately tossed your turntable into the trash, you might want to, instead, go find a supply of Chill Pills and wash the lot of them down with a big ol' bottle of Chateau de Disappointemente.

Don't get me wrong. I love Capitalism! I'm a Huge Fan! I dream of a day when every single piece of recorded music ever assembled is available (at a reasonable fee directed toward the writers, artists and producers responsible) for download at a single site (probably originally developed by Apple Computer, sold to Microsoft and finally owned - along with Apple and Microsoft - by the French water company Vivendi).

That hasn't happened yet. That's probably not going to happen in my lifetime.

I think Humuhumu had an idea that hit the nail on the head. At the same time, when I asked once before...

On 2005-09-11 20:07, Traitor Vic wrote:
Although I can't be completely sure of the copyright status on all of it, I do know that it was all recorded from out-of-print records that are not readily available and are impossible to play in any CD player. Most of it will be stuff I've burned myself, but I'm sure some will be stuff that I've downloaded from Sharity sites that adhere to the same "out of print only" principle. That being the case, there may be copies of songs by Denny or Baxter, but they will be burned from the original vinyl and not the remastered Ultra-Lounge CDs.

If that is a standard that is not acceptable I'd appreciate being told what, specifically, is. I think we can put together a pretty huge pile of great music without breaking any laws.

I was told...

On 2005-09-12 18:05, tikibars wrote:
To address Traitor Vic's confusion (quoted above), just because you make a CD from an original vinyl copy of a record doesn't mean it's legit. It is the music that is under copyright, not the medium.

If that was meant to clear my confusion (and I don't mean any disrespect to Tikibars by this) it did so by telling me that, because I am unaware of the specifics of arcane copyright laws, I am not allowed to trade music at Hukilau. I'm not trying to make this any more complicated than it needs to be, but we probably need a specific standard set, at this point, for what is and what is not acceptable. I can guarantee that I was only ever planning on bringing copies of songs that I, myself, have spent hours and hours copying from albums that I have bought at local thrift stores and the one decent Vinyl Shop about and hour from our home. I have even spent hours replacing songs by Don Tiki, Combustible Edison, Seks Bomba, Twisty and the like, with songs from old records on CDs that I had made to be played at parties and gatherings around the ol' house here, just so I could feel good about taking them to Hukilau to trade.

One simple, straight-to-the-point, overall statement from the Hukilau organizers that gives us a frame in which to work, and which would help to absolve them from any responsibility (in case the President of Capital shows up and raises hell about my CD with Alfred Newman and Ken Darby's version of "Now Is the Hour") would be, not only sufficient, but wonderful at this point.

[ Edited by: Traitor Vic 2005-09-14 22:53 ]