Breach of Copyright - and Integrity

Subject: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 20 Jul 14 - 06:12 AM

There's a rather disturbing news item just appeared in Musical Traditions , courtesy of Mike Yates.

It concerns a bootleg recording of English and Scots traditional singers, called Under the Hills and Nearby, to which banjo accompaniment has been added to the unaccompanied singing.

This act of piracy has been perpetrated by somebody calling himself Sam Callow, which is almost certainly a nom de plume. Think of the title and think of Over the Hills and Far Away. Then think of Sam Callow and Sam Cowell.

In a footnote to Mike's piece, Rod Stradling points out that this creep lives in France, and suggests that he may consider himself safe from prosecution under French copyright law.

I can assure him that he isn't. I can also assure him that residence in France doesn't render him immune to a bunch of fives either.

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST,c.g.
Date: 20 Jul 14 - 06:42 AM

This appears to be the item in question. There is an email contact for Sam Callow.


http://celebrationtapes.bandcamp.com/album/under-the-hills-and-nearby

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 20 Jul 14 - 06:56 AM

There's no shortage of email contacts. However, I'd like to find out what his real name is and whereabouts in France he lives. Then perhaps we can do something about it.

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: Leadfingers
Date: 20 Jul 14 - 07:00 AM

Sadly , this happens FAR too often with folk music - I am a self confessed Song Thief , but I DO credit all my sources , and have been known to send 'MY' version to writers before including in an album , an action not always carried out by other singers

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Jul 14 - 07:27 AM

One of our recordings there too - 'Coochie Coochie Coo Go Way' (Keach in the Creel), by Jamesie McCarthy, from 'Around the Hills of Clare'.
Peter Kennedy rides again, it would appear - he did exactly the same with the recordings he made for the BBC when he re-issued them on his 'Folktax' label with dreadful inept accompaniments and choruses dubbed on.As he, the accompaniments were so tastelessly bad as to make the songs unlistenable.
Interesting to note he has copyrighted his creations -perhaps it might be possible to pirate them and re-sell them, donating all proceeds to English Folk Dance and Song Society, Irish Traditional Music Archive or The School of Scottish - or the U.s. equivalent.
There cannot be any possible legal objection to doing so, nor a moral one - and as far as Pat and I are concerned, there wouldn't be any objection from us.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST,#
Date: 20 Jul 14 - 08:26 AM

https://soundcloud.com/4treck-underthehills

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Jul 14 - 08:55 AM

I'm happy to let anybody have a copy of the original version of Jamesie McCarthy's Coochie Coochie Coo Go Way alongside a dubbed down copy of the polluted version, which I have lifted from the site, for comparison, free of charge - Dropbox, maybe? (a voluntary donation to The Irish Traditional Music Archive would not be unacceptable) -
All proceeds from the album 'Around the Hills of Clare' from which the recording has been lifted, are automatically donated to I.T.M.A - so it is Irish music that is being ripped off, not us.   
In this case it's all academic anyway - Jamesie's version will be free for listening along with transcribed text, extensive annotations and background information on the singer, when all our Clare recordings are made freely available on the Clare County Library website in October.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST,Mike Yates
Date: 20 Jul 14 - 09:41 AM

I have just received this from the aforementioned Mr Callow:

This project was only even about playing along to traditional singers just as hobby....and is just an expression of my enjoyment of the music. A friend approached me to put in onto tape for some individually hand recorded tapes. Part of the point of this was to help people become more aware of traditional singers, rather than having the impression that the common perception of folk music is just about singing acoustic standards, and also to provide a bridge into discovering field recordings. I was in touch with Topic about this, and someone at the Alan Lomax archive and contacted the son of one of the recordists - who said it was ok to use a recording. I was trying to find out about some recordings that were attributed to Peter Kennedy (it appears he has put his name to some of Lomax's - but I can't be sure). I was doing all this to perhaps develop this into a proper project, but after seeing the legal minefield, I've given up on it. My bandcamp page is up, but nothing is for sale. I will with a heavy heart dismantle this project, sorry.

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Jul 14 - 12:29 PM

So if [young ?] Sam Callow's response & apology is sincere,
then surely this looks more like the naive actions of an enthusiastic musician and trad folk fan,
than any wanton act of unethical bootlegging ?

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST,mauvepink
Date: 20 Jul 14 - 12:42 PM

There but for the grace of god go we all.... or many of us.

Only today I contacted a well known singer/songwriter to ask his permission to soundcloud one of his songs. In this case he was more than happy that I am out and about singing it.

What a minefiled it is when you are singing someone's song and someone else then puts it on youtube. Is this not some kind of infringement too but how many do it regularly?

My general motto is that if I do not have the song-writers permission then I will not record it. If others record me doing it then I am not responsible if I miss them doing it. I do usually always ask the singer if I can record if I am out anywhere but also give them assurance that I will not then pass it on to others. It's a strategy that seems to work and shows respect.

Perhaps the chap above really has made a genuine mistake. I guess time will tell.

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 20 Jul 14 - 12:48 PM

Guest. I agree. It reminds me of another enthusiastic novice who decided to record the singers and musicians at a certain traditional music/song weekend, a few years ago.

No problems. Nobody objected. But then the guy decided to make a CD of the proceedings without asking any of the people he planned to put on the disc. I was one of them and what that says about his musical taste is anybody's guess. All I can say is that I would never have consented to his using the song he'd chosen, had I been asked.

When it was pointed out that you just can't do that kind of thing, it had clearly never occurred to him that he might be breaching the law or people's codes of ethics, and he imediately cancelled the project.

Sometimes it's as well to remember that there are people around who are just not as well clued up on these things as some of the rest of us.

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Jul 14 - 02:50 PM

As far as I'm concerned, it would be far better if the 'copyright' issue were removed from this altogether.
Whatever this guy's motives, I have been informed via his website that I can still purchase mine, and everybody else's recordings for a minimum of £6.00
During the run up to our putting up our field recordings onto the Clare Library website, we went to a fair amount of trouble contacting the surviving relatives of our singers to obtain permission to do so.
Hopefully, we will not have to now explain to Jamesie's relatives why it is possible to purchase the recording we made of their father on the internet - with a banjo accompaniment, no less!!
Financial aspects aside, around here in West Clare, banjos are regarded slightly higher up the artistic chain than bodhrans.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Jul 14 - 03:07 PM

Please distinguish copyright and performers' rights.

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 20 Jul 14 - 04:18 PM

I'm sorry if I misled anyone by including the word copyright in the thread title. As far as I am concerned, copyright of the songs is not an issue because the songs are all in the public domain and nobody owns them. What is at issue here is the copyright of individual performances. It is this which needs protecting. That plus the right of any artist not to have their work tampered with.

Actually, I think I smell another copyright isue. Some of the stuff which our Mr Callow has used seems to have come from Topic's Voice of the People. All the material used in that series was remastered from the original recordings, at considerable expense to Topic.

I may be wrong, but I'd have thought that use of someone else's remastering work would constitute another breach of copyright. Indeed I would cite JSP's use of remastered Carter Family recordings which had been carried out by Bear Family. BF sued JSP over same and won.

Finally, one of the reasons why I'm so annoyed about this is that unaccompanied singing is an art in its own right. All of the people on Mr Callow's list (except possibly Emma Vickers, who was known to accompany herself on a melodeon) honed their crafts around the fact that they had no musical instruments to impede them in terms of ornamentation, rhythmic variation, tempo changes or whatever. As an unaccompanied singer myself, I know full well the straightjacket feeling which can arise when some eejit decides to join in on a guitar or banjo or whatever.

We have no way of knowing what the old singers would have thought of their performances being electronically dubbed with banjo accompaniment. However, until someone finds a way of communicating with the dead, we can probably safely conclude that they wouldn't have wanted it, and act accordingly.

They left us these songs to be listened to and enjoyed and learnt from, not to be messed about with.

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 20 Jul 14 - 04:26 PM

Cant help with case but certainly if anyone wants to sing, record, put on you tube any of."my".songs.they can. Blanket permission. And i plan to put out a couple more cds which will be.sold for.expenses but people will also be.able to.copy them. Everyone has a different philosophy on this.

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Jul 14 - 04:41 PM

"Copyright of original performances" - er - no. Look it up.

Here's a clue

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/part/II

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 20 Jul 14 - 04:55 PM

A.P.Carter and Ralph Peer slapped copyright marks on tons of traditional stuff that they never wrote. Ain't it strange how a worm turns?

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 20 Jul 14 - 05:02 PM

It wasn't Carter or Peer who turned. It was Bear Family. The Carter Family stuff was out of copyright. What Bear family argued was that JSP had no right using other people's remasterings.

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST,tony Rath aka Tonyteach
Date: 20 Jul 14 - 07:54 PM

I teach singer/songwriters and guitarists. I always urge them to register their creations and to be careful if they think someone is going to rip them off. I have also had to point out to one of the above that his tune sounded like something one of the Beatles wrote and that he should think again.

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 04:37 AM

"I can also assure him that residence in France doesn't render him immune to a bunch of fives either."

.,,.

Ah. That charming Mr McC marshalling his customary convincing intellectual arguments yet again, I observe.

~M~

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 05:44 AM

Ahh, so we've got it. MtheGM is the real Sam Callow. He's the one who's been bootlegging all these wonderful old recordings, and dubbing on tasteless banjo accompaniment. He's probably done it to boost his pointless, overblown and totally irrelevant ego.

If anyone thinks I have maliciously maligned MtheGM, and wants to know what further proof I can offer, he is the only person on the planet who plays that badly.

Good job you didn't try and sing along on any of them.

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 10:30 AM

"a bunch of fives"? I've never heard that expression. Fred, are you threatening to beat MtheGm with your fists?

I believe that's technically illegal. Further, you don't just sound annoyed, you sound like a nutcase.

MtheGM is a good man and a good catter. Leave him alone.

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 10:45 AM

Leenia. If you'd read the entire thread, you would have realised that I was not referring to MtheGM, but to somebody who calls himself Sam Callow, and who is currently offering bootleg recordings of traditional singers with banjo accompaniment dubbed on.

Just for the record, I realise that MtheGM is not Sam Callow. However, as he is a pompous right wing chronic bore of a Thatcherite, who regularly intervenes in various threads with inane accusations, which are usually addressed to me, I thought I'd have a laugh at his expense.

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 10:51 AM

Thank you, Leeneia. In fact it wasn't me he was threatening this time, but this other man Callow -- though he did so threaten me on a previous occasion, the one to which he knew I was referring.

Odd history: I once accused him of ill manners when he said the Royal Family made him want to vomit. The only response he could think of was to go on and on about what a terrible singer I was, though most of those who have gone on to my youtube channel have expressed approval:- "You have excellent taste in songs," was, for example, the judgment of Brian Peters, no mean member of the folk community here.

What this F McCormick thinks he can prove by such obsessive rants I have not ever established; but I just let him get on with them. It's his hobby to go on about how I am not a very good singer, & nobody else seems to take much notice so it does me no harm.

If you would like to judge for yourself, in case you have never done so, my youtube channel is at



http://www.youtube.com/user/mgmyer

Best regards


~Michael~

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 10:56 AM

X-posted --

There you have a fine example of McC thinking. "Thatcherite - right-wing -". Well, dear me, that's me told, eh? Behold me: destroyed; demolished; dismayed and dismantled.....

hehehehehehehehehehehehohohohohohohoho

☺〠☺~M~〠☺〠

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 11:01 AM

MtheGM - objectively, you are well out of order.

This was a rare sensible on-topic thread until you butted with no good relevant reason.

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 11:04 AM

And his other hobby, expressed in OP and ref'd above by me as he appreciated, is to threaten physical violence ('bunches of 5s' &c) on this forum to those of whom he disapproves for any reason.

Not quite in the highest of Mudcat tradition, might one say? Have Max or Joe or the mods anything to say about this habit of his, I can't help wondering?!

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST,GUEST
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 11:04 AM

Hello everyone.

I am Francesco Consolini - one of the two person behind the tape "label" Celebration - in fact, just two friends and music enthusiasts releasing other friends musical projects we find pleasant to hear.

First of all, I can assure you that Sam Callow is not a "nom de plume", but a real UK native living in our city of Reims and a very active musician in other projects.

Second point is, we insisted to release what was a "hobby project" for him, a tribute to all this traditional music from the United Kingdom (sorry for my lack of precision on the geographic origin, but you can easily guess that I'm far from being a specialist) without any idea of improving them in anyways; I can't speak for him but I genuinely think he just wanted to play with this wonderful cultural legacy, and we were more than happy to release this "sans prétentions" excerpt of this still badly known culture in our country.

We didn't won any money on these; it was a less than 50 tape release that costed us more than the price we sold it (mainly to our friends & family in fact).

Sam gave us this description that was online and in the tape and everywhere when the tape / recordings where still available (we deleted it as soon as we heard of the problem - thanks to Mr Stradling for informing us); I think it speaks for itself :
'Under the Hills and Nearby is a project whereby old folk song collector's recordings of peoples' songs are accompanied by 5-string banjo.

Started a few years back, Under The Hills and Nearby has developed from being a part of the 4tRECk set in to a new project in its own right.

This is a project of Sam Callow ... who also plays as 'one-man-band" under the name 4tRECk. I simply provide banjo and/or apallachian dulcimer accompaniment to field recordings of traditional singers from around the British Isles.
The source material is all traditional music, passed down through generations, with each new singer adding his/her own interpretation,and each song branching off into different evolutions.

Visit Topic records (the Voice of the People series), and Alan Lomax's series Folk Songs from Britain and Ireland (Smithsonian) to learn more... and I recommend you buy some too!

I am open to any propositions to play live. Contact me on : sam_callow[at]yahoo.co.uk"

As I said to Mr Stradling, we acted like enthusiasts but clumsies amateurs ; we are really sorry for the copyright we infringed, naively thinking this was a good way to promote the same music you all seem to promote here. Moreover, and that may seem unbelievable to your ears, we really enjoyed Sam's accompaniment - and some people outside France seemed to enjoy it too.

In the end, and to correct a point I read in this thread, everything has been deleted as soon as we heard of this story; one question that will remain is why the gentlemen who have been the most injured by Sam's accompaniment haven't made the effort to write us an e - mail before getting on their high horses.

Best regards,

Francesco Consolini

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 11:06 AM

Guest. I totally agree. This is a serious discussion on an important topic. MtheGM's intervention had nothing to do with that discussion. It was simply to have a pointless dig at me.

Perhaps I should not have risen to the bait, but having done so, I would like to say two things.

1.

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 11:07 AM

...& Don't we all love aggressive and denunciatory 'Guests' who are so sure of their virtous ground that they sedulously avoid identifying themselves!

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 11:16 AM

I'm Guest Date: 20 Jul 14 - 12:29 PM, & Date: 21 Jul 14 - 11:01 AM.

At least be thankful this small amateurish Euro Indy cassette lable project
has not sampled the source field recordings for Hardcore Club Techno Dance or Industrial Death Metal tracks.

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 11:18 AM

Sorry, the Submit button ate my posting before I'd finished it. The entire missive should have read as follows:-

"Guest. I totally agree. This is a serious discussion on an important topic, and one about which I feel particularly aggrieved. MtheGM's intervention had nothing to do with that discussion. It was simply to have a pointless dig at me.

"Perhaps I should not have risen to the bait, but having done so, I would like to say just one thing.

"Michael Grosvenor Myer, why don't you butt out and allow the rest of us to continue this conversation in peace?"

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 11:22 AM

"why the gentlemen who have been the most injured by Sam's accompaniment haven't made the effort to write us"
Because we shouldn't bloody well have to - you have as much right to right to take an artists work and deface it as you have to draw a mustache on the Mona Lisa because you think it will draw in more punters.
Nor have you the right to take the results of anybody else's field-work and resell them, no matter how few to whoever... simply a matter of manner and consideration, obviously in short supply as far as you are concerned.
I asked before, rather than apologising for breaking copyright, would you care to address the damage and potential damage your behaviour might have caused?
Rather than help promote traditional song, your behaviour does much to ascertain that much of it remains on archive shelves, safe from the hands of predators such as yourselves.
I was prepared to put your behaviour down to naive ignorance - your arrogance indicated that I was premature in my judgement
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 11:28 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.H.O.O.Q.

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST,Mike Yates
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 11:33 AM

Can we, please, get back to the original thread! Thank you Francesco for your imput. But, you say, " one question that will remain is why the gentlemen who have been the most injured by Sam's accompaniment haven't made the effort to write us an e - mail before getting on their high horses". When I started this thread (actually on the Musical Traditions website) I had no idea who had dubbed his banjo etc onto the field recordings. Rod Stradling of Musical Traditions found out and so I did send an email to this person. I then gave his reply on this thread. So, as I said, I did make an effort to make contact.

Perhaps you do not undrstand why I raised the point in the first place. It was nothing to do with copyright, but rather about what I thought was a lack of respect for the source singers. When I recorded these people I did so because I wanted people to be able to listen to "real" folksingers, such as Fred Jordan, Walter Pardon, Johnny Doughty etc. I never envisaged any others "improving" the singer's work with their own accompanyments. By all means, learn the songs from these recordings. Listen to how they were sung. And, by all means, sing the songs. But, please, show some respect.

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST,GUEST - Francesco
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 12:03 PM

To Mr Mike Yates :
I didn't knew that you made contact with Sam, and I am grateful you did as I am grateful for your constructive and patient answer.

I understand that you felt Sam ' s approach as a lack of respect; I am personnally sure it was a respectful tribute or, even better, one more interpretation of these several times before interpreted songs.

Moreover, Under The Hills And Nearby gave me the chance to listen to these original recordings, which I am now very found of (even if I don't understand all the lyrics, but the musicality of the singing still "gets" me).

I understand -maybe too late - that these recordings were not meant to be dubbed instrumentally, but I can't prevent myself from liking the idea of using something in an unsual / creative way - and it is even better in this case because it doesn't destroy or alter in anyway the original (and fully described as)content - this is just to clarify the "damage caused" reproach of this dear (but a little too aggressive in my opinion) Mr Caroll.

Sam tried to contact the singers, or their heir and heiress, not knowing that the rights (of the recordings) were owned by the companies, as Mr Stradling patiently explained to me.

I hope the damage caused is now repaired; thank you for your patience and enlightenment (and sorry for my poor english).

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 12:38 PM

"this is just to clarify the "damage caused" reproach of this dear (but a little too aggressive in my opinion) Mr Caroll.(sic Carroll)"
Sorry - it clarifies nothing
As far as I'm concerned, adding accompaniment is little more than poor taste and ill manners.
Using the recordings of others without permission is both unethical and illegal.
Using the recorded voice of a tradition singer without permission undermines thirty to forty years of work and could have, and still may have put us in bad standing with the family members of those singers, who are now our neighbours and whose good will we rely on in order to make future use of the songs we collected.
No effort has been made to contact either us, nor the singers families to obtain permission - it would have been a relatively simple matter to seek such permission - none of us use pseudonyms and e-mail addresses are easily obtainable!
As I said, I was prepared to pass this of as naivety, now it appears to have been a case of predatory dishonesty.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 01:03 PM

If we give these apparently inexperienced Euro producers/musicians the benefit of the doubt,
they are now aware mistakes have been made, and seem willing to listen to reasonable explanations
of why they are in the 'wrong'
and how they should consider the 'ethics' af any future projects they may enthusiastically persue.

Jim you are right to be annoyed, but maybe in this context you are over reacting somewhat
with continuesd accusations of deliberate dishonesty ?

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 03:25 PM

"....and seem willing to listen to reasonable explanations of why they are in the 'wrong'"
I would happily accept your point and listen to such explanations, this not a one-way street - so far, no sign of that changing.
I was never "annoyed, not up till now, anyway, amused to mildly irritated with a pinch of incredulity at how somebody could lift and sell the work of others while at the same time, be street-wise enough to copyright the products of their/our efforts - but let that pass.
We entered into an unwritten contract with all the singers we recorded that no use would be made of those recordings without their permission, and that any money arising from them should either go to them or ploughed back into traditional music - we have always honoured that undertaking.
It was never a matter of 'ownership' or 'copyright' of the songs or the recordings and it was for our benefit as much as theirs - try persuading singers to part with their songs when they learned that, not only are they being sold, but also copyrighted (is is hard to notice that nobody has seen fit to respond to my point about Peter Kennedy) other than Mike Yates' mention of his sharp practices.
Kennedy behaved similarly as this in selling and copyrighting material that he and other people collected, often without their permission, and in two spectacular cases, without even their knowledge.
That behaviour did inestimable damage to the song traditions of these islands which has yet to be put right.
Apart from our collecting, we also spent a considerable among of time and energy attempting to set up an English traditional music archive to bring together some of the known collections and to entice out tome of the large number of small, private ones i order to make them available.
We have not yet begun to scratch the surface, not in the England anyway.
The sort of behaviour here can set back any possibility of it ever happening years.
Of course I'm more than happy to overlook this if it were a genuine mistake or even thoughtless laziness (though the absence of any indication of an attempt to contact either singers families or collectors while being prepared to go to the lengths of copyrighting the recordings casts some doubt on either of these.
I am not prepared to let pass a failure to acknowledge any potential damage done, nor am I prepared to accept being made to feel guilty about feeling increasingly angry about the dismissive attitude on display here.
This type of behaviour wouldn't be given the light of day were it applied to an other musical or art form - sorry, Mr Jagger, just thought you'd sound better with an indifferently played banjo accompaniment - didn't think you'd mind if we sold it - give us a break folks!!
Damn - just missed University Challenge!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 03:36 PM

I watched it on i-player live as I sat here. Shan't tell you the result as a spoiler, as you should be able to see it on i-player tomorrow.

Z~M~

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST,Francesco
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 03:59 PM

Just to say, we didn't copyrighted anything. There is no copyright on any of our cassettes in fact; the copyright mention you can find on bandcamp can not be removed - I think it's a copyright mention for the bandcamp trademark and / or design.
Also this type of behaviour is common in other musical and art forms : call it sampling (which created whole music forms), tribute, or pop art (I think someone wrote about Marcel Duchamp ?)or what you want, it's another discussion.
Oh, and Sam tried to take contact too, as he told Mr Mike Yates.
We have made several mistakes - and we apologised for them - but treating us several times of thieves is becoming a little annoying Mr Caroll, even if it seems "amusing" for you; all I can say is that we took this matter seriously and with all possible respect as soon as we heard of it. Sorry for making you miss University Challenge, maybe you can find a re - run on the Internet.

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST,Francesco
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 04:26 PM

... And it also seems that Mr Jagger also made a little bit of sampling or covers, and have been covered several times : http://www.whosampled.com/Mick-Jagger/

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 04:30 PM

I'm coming in a bit late on this, but I wish to support MtheGM.

Fred appeared to be threatening the perpetrator of the offending recordings with common assault. Michael made a sarcastic comment about that, which Fred described as "a pointless dig at me". It was not pointless, because it was directly relevant to what Fred had said.

By contrast, Fred's comments about Michael ("the only person on the planet who plays that badly" and "pompous right wing chronic bore of a Thatcherite") were not only extremely ill-mannered but entirely irrelevant to the thread.

BUT, can we please stop the personal attacks and concentrate on the rights and wrongs, and on the adequacy of otherwise of the apologies and explanations that have been offered.

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST,sam callow
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 04:33 PM

Hello everyone,

This 'project' only came about by my own love of the songs and the recordings made by people such as Mr Yates, and many others. I have been a keen listener and purchaser of many collections over the years, and have been greatly informed and inspired by The Traditional Music Hour amongst many musicians.
I took up playing the 5-string banjo about 7 years ago and many of the melodies I had been listening to seemed to fall into place quite easily on this instrument (many chords are implied within the tune, and this is enhanced due to the resonances of the open banjo tuning). I found myself quite naturally being able to play these songs. This is as natural as hearing a song and wanting to sing it - and is of course the way songs are handed down and left to evolve and live on in a healthy folk tradition. It only came about by chance, that one day I happened to be listening to Harry Cox singing 'knife in the window' and my banjo happened to be in the same key (capo6 open g), led me to trying, and I stress to play along. This was nothing more than a hobby, a way for me to feel closer to the songs. It also became a way of feeling closer to my English origins, and grew into (I see now) as a rather naïve purely fan-driven project to make people more aware of these songs and recordings. I did a handful of house gigs with lyrics projected onto walls (and the translations) and the reaction was generally warm (in that the humour and tragedy came across and people could engage in the songs - leading people to discover that there even was such a thing as traditional music the other side of the channel from anywhere other than Ireland). I must stress that the scale of this is miniscule - a handful of people were at these gigs, and that I'm not at all trying to improve on these songs. I prefer the original unaccompanied versions completely, and have always directed people to the sources. My bandcamp page had catalogue numbers, recordist's names, dates etc and I always urged people to seek out the originals.

Basically at the end of last year I was asked if I'd like to try and record something for some friends who wanted to make (by hand) cassettes to be distributed to friends and acquaintances around Christmas time. I hastily cobbled together this album in 4 weeks(also to serve as a couple of xmas prezzies for my parents to be honest). I think I went well overboard with the addition of instrumentation with hindsight, and was a mistake. There was never any commercial intent, however I did make 5 Cdrs and sent them to various people for reactions/comments, and started carrying out research into who owned what in terms of rights. I was in contact with someone from Topic (he quoted me a price), and the Alan Lomax Foundation (who didn't mind the concept), I managed to get the email of a son of one of the recordists who said I could use the recording (he didn't like my accompaniment), I tried to find out about the Peter Kennedy attributed recordings (he seems to have put his name to many alan lomax recordings, by the way). Anyway, all that was to find out about the legality of it all with the naïve idea to maybe approach a real label with this idea. Anyway the whole complexity of it all and various correspondence with musicians, led me to give up on that idea - too disheartened, and it struck home that these voices had real backgrounds and the recordists had real intentions to preserve these moments in time. I've only skimmed through this thread, as to be honest, it has been a bit of an emotional and tearful shock, but I'd just like to say again that, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to spoil the songs for people(I don't want to state the obvious, but drawing a moustache on the mona lisa defaces the painting, but these recordings are copies and the original moments of beauty remain intact).

Anyway, I've told Celebration to delete their page. I've stopped the whole idea. If any money has been gained from this tell me where I can send it (Cecil Sharp house?)If ever I bring myself to play traditional songs again I will sing it myself (not a pretty prospect!)and everyone in France can go back to their Mumford and sons albums, blissfully unaware that there is such a thing as traditional singing.

Apologies again

Sam

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST,Francesco
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 04:43 PM

One last point here : we would be more than happy to continue the diffusion (and / or to let anyone "pirate" it) of Sam interpretations and give all the possible incomes to the English Folk Dance and Song Society (and the Irish and Scottish equivalent, of course), because we really enjoyed listening and learning from these songs, even if it seemed like someone was "messing" with them.
I didn't knew of these structures; if so, I would have took contact with them a long time ago.

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 04:59 PM

A bit of an anticlimax, I am aware, after those last two important posts; but it would be impolite of me not to express appreciation of Richard Mellish's support. Many thanks, Richard.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: Howard Jones
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 07:35 PM

I fully understand Mike Yates', Fred McCormick's and Jim Carroll's point of view on this. However I've listened to a few of Sam Callow's tracks on Soundcloud and it seems to me that he's coming from a very different musical background, one in which sampling other recordings is part of its own culture. He appears to have approached this with a genuine love of the music, but from a background which regards existing recordings as a resource to be used, and without understanding the significance they have for others. He is also part of a culture which rightly or wrongly sees it as normal to share music via the internet without proper consideration of the rights and legalities involved.

Sam and Francesco now understand that they made a mistake and caused offence, but I believe this was not intentional. I think they have acted entirely honourably in admitting their mistake and correcting it without quibble, and by removing the offending recordings. The point has been made and taken, and any further protest would I think be an over-reaction.

I'm sure this is not the first time source recordings have been used in this way, and I wonder whether this would have caused the same outrage if the accompaniments had been more sensitively done than was apparently the case, or if they had been by a more established artist in the UK. After all, the much-praised "Full English" album includes a track where Joseph Taylor's "Brigg Fair" segues into an instrumental fantasia around the tune - no one seems to have objected to that, and it was "Best Album" at the BBC Folk Awards.

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 09:48 PM

This is hardly a new thing...

Some of you(the cool ones, anyway) might remember that back around 1990, with no permission from anyone, a couple dance music producers took Suzanne Vega's a capella recording of "Tom's Diner" and added a dance beat track to it, and in the process made it a big hit single.

You may also remember that drums, electric guitars and bass were added to Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sounds of Silence" without either their knowledge or permission.

Both, of course, were very successful, which makes all the difference...

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 11:27 PM

cough... ahem.. Lomax field recordings.. Moby... $$$$$$$$

Subject: RE: Breach of Copyright - and Integrity
From: Songwronger
Date: 22 Jul 14 - 01:10 AM

Copyright protection is on its way out. Witness the heinous breaches on Youtube of musical performances, clips from films and so on.

The destruction of copyright is being touted as the 'democratization' of creativity. In reality it is being done in order to remove the profit motive from creativity. If you can't make a buck off your protest songs, then you'll quit writing them. The government has effectively silenced you.