European Copyrights Expiring on Recordings From 1950's

European copyright protection is expiring on a collector's trove of 1950's jazz, opera and early rock 'n' roll albums, forcing major American record companies to consider deals with bootleg labels and demand new customs barriers.

Already reeling from a stagnant economy and the illegal but widespread downloading of copyrighted music from the Internet, the recording companies will now face a perfectly legal influx of European recordings of popular works.

Copyright protection lasts only 50 years in Europe compared to 95 years in the United States, even if the recordings were originally made and released in America.

So recordings made in the early to mid-1950's — by figures from Maria Callas to Elvis Presley and Ella Fitzgerald — have begun to go out of copyright in Europe, opening the way for any European recording company to release albums that had been owned exclusively by particular labels.

Although the distribution of the albums will theoretically be limited to Europe, record chains and specialty stores in the United States, routinely stock imports from Europe and elsewhere.

The expected crush of material has already sent one giant company, EMI Classics, into a shotgun marriage with a bootleg label it had long tried to shut down in an effort to protect its lucrative Callas discography. It also has the American record industry talking about erecting a customs barrier.

"The import of those products would be an act of piracy," said Neil Turkewitz, the executive vice president international for the Recording Industry Association of America, which has strongly advocated for copyright protections. "The industry is regretful that these absolutely piratical products are being released."

The association is trying to persuade European Union countries to extend terms of copyright. In the meantime, Mr. Turkewitz said, "We will try to get these products blocked," arguing that customs agents "have the authority to seize these European recordings even in the absence of an injunction brought by the copyright owners."

The expiration of copyright protections for recordings from earlier decades has already led to voluminous European reissues of such historically important artists as the great violinist Jascha Heifetz and the legendary jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke. But the recordings of the 50's are viewed as being of another order.

This was the era when recording techniques took a quantum leap and when the long-playing record came into its own and was embraced by the public. Even monaural records from the period, prior to the emergence of stereophonic sound, are prized today by classical and jazz audiophiles. And artistically, the decade marked the golden years of opera icons like Renata Tebaldi; the birth of rock heralded by recordings by Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Elvis; and enormous outbursts of creativity from seminal jazz figures such as Theolonius Monk and Miles Davis. "That decade of recording transformed music and how the public consumes music," Mr. Turkewitz said.

It was also the great decade of Callas, who was under exclusive contract to EMI. The looming expiration of copyright on EMI's extensive Callas discography is what finally compelled the London-based company to take its unprecedented action.

EMI Classics (formerly Angel Records) has been the official keeper of the Callas discography since 1953 when the Greek soprano, then 29, made her first recordings for the company. Over the years, EMI has had to contend with independent labels that released unauthorized Callas recordings, mostly taken from pirated live performances. In the late 1990's, the bane of EMI's existence was a Milan-based independent called Diva, the largest producer of the unofficial recordings.

But last year, with the support of the Callas Estate in Athens, EMI cut a deal with Diva, which two years ago reconstituted itself as Marcal Records (for Maria Callas) and moved its offices to the Virgin Islands. EMI recently released a new batch of Callas recordings, including four complete live operas and five CD's of live concerts and rehearsals. The source for these was Marcal.

The strategy would seem to be, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Richard Lyttelton, president of classics and jazz for EMI Recorded Music, concedes as much.

"For many years EMI was in opposition to Diva," Mr. Lyttelton said in a recent interview from London. "But there has been an irresistible pull for us to work together." With this deal, as Mr. Lyttelton explained, EMI "wanted to try to legitimize the market" for these live Callas recordings "rather than try to suppress it."

The company hopes that its unprecedented deal with a former adversary may prove an indirect way to maintain dominance in the Callas market, which has been crucial both to EMI's artistic legacy and its bottom line. In most years, according to Mark Forlow, vice president of EMI Classics, Callas recordings, the majority of which were made between 1953 and 1960, account for some 5 percent of the company's sales, more than any artist on its current roster. "It's amazing," Mr. Forlow said recently; "those records just keep selling."

In 1997 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the soprano's death at 53, EMI issued the first of three installments of its complete Callas Collection, which included 42 releases, including 31 complete operas, all impressively re-mastered, intelligently packaged and rich with program notes.

With its new releases, EMI has issued live Callas performances that not so long ago it tried to suppress, banking that that same quality will draw Callas fans and keep them away from lesser choices. As a further inducement, the new EMI releases are being retailed at mid-price.

This strategy has been tried for years by specialty labels like Mosaic Records, a re-issue company that does critically praised boxed sets of classic jazz recordings.

Mosaic recently released a 7-CD set of recordings by Bix Beiderbecke, who died in 1931. But cheap competition from European labels has been making projects like this one cost-ineffective, said Michael Cuscuna the label's president.

"With the Beiderbecke set, we went to the original metal discs and did the best possible sound transfers," he said. "But a handful of European companies have put out this stuff just dumped off the original 78's. That the recording exists in such an inferior state hurts the music." Mr. Cuscuna asserts that some European labels simply wait for a re-issue to come out in the United States then copy the transfers and steal the photographs. "Yet, consumers still go for the cheaper product," he said. "It's discouraging. We've got to get the major labels to take a stand."

Of course, consumer advocates and champions of access to creative products see many copyright protections as overlong, unfair to the public and ultimately stifling to creativity.

"When works enter the public domain, the consequence is extraordinary variety and lower costs," said Professor Lawrence Lessig of Stanford University Law School, who argued a challenge to a 1998 extension of the United States copyright law before the Supreme Court.

The Callas recordings, for example, "will be taken and put into a million different content spheres," he said, adding, "they will be encouraged and sold in ways not done now."

This is all the more true because of the Internet, he said. Once copyrighted works pass into the public domain, Professor Lessig said, "a wide range of copies — high quality and low — will quickly be available, always and for free." He sees even this scenario as beneficial. "People ask, how could you ever compete with free?" he said. "Think: Perrier, or Poland Spring."

Defenders of the copyright laws, like Mr. Turkewitz, argue that, if anything, American laws are still too lax and that the European laws are totally inadequate. "The public sees icons like Mickey Mouse and thinks that the companies must by now have made their money," he said.

But, he added, 9 out of 10 sound recordings lose money. "Very few materials wind up generating the revenues that sustain an entire system," he said. "The amount of money put back into production by the record companies is enormous. It's extremely risk-intensive."

To cite just one example of the reality that EMI is facing, at the end of this year, any European label will be able to release the incomparable 1953 Callas recording of Puccini's "Tosca" with Giuseppe di Stefano as Cavaradossi and Tito Gobbi as Scarpia, both at their peaks, and the great Italian maestro Victor de Sabata conducting.

No doubt, Callas fans will heatedly debate the artistic merits and the sound restoration on the four new releases of live performances from La Scala on EMI, the most familiar being a 1955 account of Bellini's "Sonnambula" with Callas in top form and Leonard Bernstein, then 36, conducting. This recording, available over the years on various independent labels, has long been an underground hit.

"Some in the company say we should be throwing roses on the Aegean Sea every year," Mr. Forlow said. "Callas keeps the lights on here."

I'm of three minds here:

The recording industry now views free trade as piracy. Wonderful.

Most of the European public-domain albums in question stink.

Michael, you're a great jazz producer, but could it be all that marvelous remastering of Bix from metal parts will go for nought when you insist on charging $30 a disc while others charge $3 for essentially the same music? Just wondering.

One other thing: Isn't Marcal a brand of, uh, bathroom tissue?

What a bunch of drooling, greedy maggots. 50 years isn't enough? 95 years won't be enough either. Perpetuity won't be long enough when there's something that somebody can control and sell. , you parasites.

Remasterers have to cover their costs. Finding rare 78s in good condition, getting expensive turntables, styluses, cartridges, and preamps to play them on, and all the digital-domain storage and software costs money. Then there is the high skill level of master remasterers like Ward Marston and Mark Obert-Thorn, which comes from years of study and experience.

All this to produce CDs that often sell less than 1000 copies.

Surely they should be allowed to copyright their remasterings.

Already reeling from a stagnant economy and the illegal but widespread downloading of copyrighted music from the Internet

No. Their problem is that their products are overpriced. I can afford to buy lots of music CDs, but the past three years I've bought only one (and that was to replace a thoroughly worn-out favorite LP).

Ironically, this works against them in another way. As my music collection is now pretty static, I listen less. And that reduces the desire to go out and buy more CDs -- much less even to stop by the music section of the local bookstore(s) to see what's new.

"Piratical?" Is that really a word?

pirate n. 3. to publish or reproduce without authorization, esp. in violation of a copyright.
piratical, piratic, adj

If you read the background on how the "Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act" was passed, you will realize very quickly that big media wants things to be protected by copyright forever. Michael Eisner even paid a visit to the Senate to make sure that this stupid law was a done deal. It was cheap for him, too - only $300,000 in campaign contibutions to the various politicians involved.

The copyright outrage that no one is really talking about yet is the GATT/TRIPS treaty provisions passed in the 1994 lame-duck session which actually took works out of the public domain and placed them under copyright protection - a totally unconstitutional ex-post-facto law.

They are, in fact, allowed to copyright the re-masterings. The real issue is that the original works are still under copyright through the various re-writings of the statute by congress at the behest of giant media outfits like EMI, Disney, etc.

I simply cannot understand why copyright protection should extend so much longer than patent protection. It is all "intellectual property" -- why make any distinction as to type? My gut level feeling is that patents are too short and copyrights are too long. Something along the lines of 20-25 years for both seems to me to strike a better balance.

Already reeling from a stagnant economy and the illegal but widespread downloading of copyrighted music from the Internet...

Funny how I was reading in the WSJ today that the Movie Industry had an 11% increase in ticket sales last year.

How is that possible with all the illegal and widespread DVD copying and downloading on the internet? Oh...the movie industry didn't produce a steady stream of horse droppings the whole year.

Maybe the music industry should contact the movie industry on how not to suck like whores.

pirate n. 3. to publish or reproduce without authorization, esp. in violation of a copyright. piratical, piratic, adj

Good2know, RW. I'll keep that in mind next time I do a piratic deed.

The inevitable truth of the situation regardless of the law is that if legitamate providers do not meet the demand of the market in price or quality, the gap will be filled by the black market. In the end the consumer will get the goods. This is not condemnation nor condonation, merely a fact.

Probably be more ideal for the recording industry to alter their position. Otherwise, as so aptly stated by another Freeper of the industry: "Nice buggy whip!"

Callas for $3.99 and I will buy again.

Way back when you had to hand crank your CD player, I paid $35 for Callas, but no more.

I won't even pay $15 for Brassed Off which I would like to own.

I don't think so. There were several movies I felt were good.

As opposed to the music of 2002: I can't think of ONE song, written in 2002, that was any good. Not one. I actually can't even think of one I'm able to remember.

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