Longtime followers of my audio podcast will recall that I have ambivalent feelings about copyright. Yes, I want my work to be protected, but copyright limits open exchange of cool ideas.
And now we have to ask: What history is being lost due to copyright?
To wit: Check out the great article in the 3/11/07 New York Times about the daunting task the Library of Congress faces in digitizing their collection. If the Library managed to digitize 500,000 text records a year, they would still need 1,800 years to complete the task, to say nothing of the expense.
And to say nothing of who holds the copyright.
Tim Brooks, author of "Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890-1919" (University of Illinois, 2004) is quoted:
"Copyright is a very blunt instrument. Once you have copyright, you have total control; there's very little room in the copyright law even for preservation, much less reissuing material.
Examples of works being lost due to copyright include original recordings of John Philip Sousa's band and Noble Sissle, an African-American tenor whose recordings are owned by Sony BMG.
If there's no obvious money gain in releasing these old recordings, they just sit in the vault.
How much new music of today is being kept behind the closed doors of copyright?
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