This might be a little thread creep but here is some interesting info that I scanned off of the liner notes on one of Harvey Reid's CD's. I was going to use it to start a thread when I noticed this thread. Coincidence or alien influence? You decide! ********** About the Public Domain (P.D.)

You may have seen (P.D.) or (Trad) on album covers and wondered what it meant. (Trad is short for traditional). The U.S. Copyright, Patent and Trademark laws provide a period of ownership for creative works, inventions and product names, after which ownership is supposed to expire and pass into the Public Domain, which means that they are available for any use by anyone without threat of infringement lawsuits. However, law a1lows the copyright of an arrangement of a public domain work, and there are thousands of arrangements on file for well known PD works, and it is unclear exactly what is privately or publicly owned.

ASCAP and BMI are private licensing organizations that monitor radio, TV, movie, restaurant, store, and live performances of copyrighted music and require users to pay yearly license fees to create a fund (now a yearly amount of about $320 million), from which royalty payments are made according to statistical samples of airplay and various calcu1ations. If an arrangement of a public domain piece is sampled during such a survey the copyright owner receives less money (about 1/5) than an original work.

Many of us feel that the current system is not ideal for several reasons. It discriminates statistically in favor of major artists, since money is paid out based on very small samples when the computer power exists to actually log airplay, as is done in many countries. It prevents popular artists and record companies from recording and disseminating traditional music because will make a lot less royalty money, thus making it hard to find traditional music on mass media. (If you play your own songs on TV you make a lot more money.) there are also many songs (including some extremely well known songs) that have traditional melodies but that are registered as original music. The copyright owners receive royalty money for music that belongs to everyone. Many familiar songs that were learned as folk music or collected as folk lore were copyrighted by folklorists and musicians in the 1920's and 1930's. Club owners and promoters who hire traditional music performers must pay license fees to ASCAP and BMI that are paid out based on sampling of radio airplay and this tend to end up in the pockets of the rich rather than the actual authors of the music. (ASCAP samples public radio at a .000066 or only 27.6 minutes a year per station!) Many of us feel that public domain music has been used for personal profit rather than to benefit the public, much like our public lands and resources, yet the system is set up such that there has never been legislation passed (except by irate states that tried to outlaw ASCAP and lost in Federal court) by elected officials to regulate it.

For more information or suggestions as to what you might do to help our traditional arts, send a SASE to me c/o Woodpecker I am currently researching the issues of public domain copyrights, and will gladly pass along my findings Our national musical treasures must be cared for and remain available for all of us to enjoy, just like our natural resources and parks