The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #18045   Message #176760
Posted By: GUEST,T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
11-Feb-00 - 01:41 PM
Thread Name: BS: copywright question - not mudcat related
Subject: RE: BS: copywright question - not mudcat related
That's DEFINITELY one for the lawyers to work on. The copyright status of records is complex. My (entirely private opinion, this is not legal advice) understanding is: records made in 1972 (or 1973, I forget the precise date) and later are protected by federal copyright. Records made in the U.S. prior to 1972 are not protected by federal copyright, but may be protected by state anti-copying laws. Many foreign records (originating in Berne countries) made between 1923 and 1972 are, however, now (since 1996) protected by federal copyright. This applies only to the recording itself. The music and/or words on any record may have its own copyright in addition to any copyright in the record itself. Pretty simple, isn't it ?

My strictly-private-opinion-not-legal-advice hunch is that what you propose would not be legal unless you made licensing arrangements with all the interested rightsholders or their agents. Even if the legal point can be argued either way in the abstract on fair-use grounds, in practice the people who have an interest in making your proposed practice into an illegal practice have the money to take their argument to court and make it stick.

T.