European Copyrights Expiring on Recordings From 1950's

The New York Times ^ | 1/2/2003 | Anthony Tommasini

[GeneD]

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protection lasts only 50 years in Europe compared to 95 years in the United States, even if the recordings were originally made and released in America.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

The stakes for EMI are considerable.

"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."

[quebecois]

If the recording industry is squawking now, just wait another 10 years when the music from the 60's goes public. How much did Michael Jackson pay for all of the Beatle's music? The clock is ticking on that freak's investment.

[SauronOfMordor]

The copyright expiration would also apply to movies. I would bet that there are lots of movie reels (including American-made) from the 50's and earlier in Europe, just ripe for being put on DVD (or onto a server for Internet download in these days of high-speed Internet links)

[zeugma]

Indeed. There are a lot of movies from before the 50s that are disintegrating as we speak because the 'entertainment' industry wants to hold onto things forever. They'd rather have a box of dust than allow anyone with an interest do something with this stuff. Copyright should be less than 25 years. This life+70 thing is outrageous and I pray that the supreme court finds the sanity to say so in a clear and distinct manner.