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24 Apr 19 - 05:19 AM (#3988874) Subject: Making folk club recordings available From: Richard Mellish This is prompted by the Peter Bellamy gig recording surfaced! thread. I have many many hours of folk club recordings which I am gradually getting digitised. I would be willing to make them available but I'm unsure about the copyright situation. Typically the club members (I had not met the term "floor singers" in those days) were accustomed to having my microphone pointed at them and raised no objections, but I did normally ask permission from guests and indicated that the recordings would be for my personal use. Some years ago I contributed my recording of an evening with Tony Rose to a project by his family, but that was clearly legitimate. One of my two recordings of Lou Killen telling the Geordie Bible tale of The Christmas Outing (not the one that I linked to on another thread but from an earlier occasion) was preceded by his remarking that it was "strictly for the archives". All my other recordings from 40 or 50 years ago might be regarded in the same way, or they might not. There's also a website devoted to folk club recording, which I have not yet contributed to. |
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24 Apr 19 - 05:34 AM (#3988879) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST,Ray My inclination would be to keep the lid firmly on this can of worms. You’ll not only have potential issues seeking permission from the performers themselves but you may also have issues with those who wrote the songs/tunes they performed. Get thee to a good solicitor! |
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24 Apr 19 - 06:27 AM (#3988886) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Howard Jones Artists retain copyright in their performance (entirely separate from any copyrights on the material they perform) so strictly speaking you would need consent from everyone on the recording. Where guests are concerned you had told them this was for personal use, so you would definitely have to get their consent to use it for something different. Where floorsingers are concerned it was probably reasonable for them to assume this was for personal use, and again their consent would be needed. You might also need to sort out copyright on the songs themselves. Of course you could publish and be damned! Would anyone be bothered about enforcing it? Hard to say - professionals might not be happy about it, and even floorsingers might not want to see their efforts broadcast to the world, especially if they feel they don't now reflect their current abilities. Others might not be bothered. If you tell people you are willing to remove material on request that might help. Another point to consider is that most platforms require you to own the copyright of material you post, or at least have consent, so you might run into problems with them. Where the songs are copyright you might get objections from the publisher (see the separate thread about Youtube). In many respects this is a pity, because these archive recordings are probably of considerable interest, especially to those who attended the club, and more widely where they include notable performers who are no longer with us, or whose official recordings have been Bulmerised. |
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24 Apr 19 - 08:12 AM (#3988904) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Jim Carroll Whenever we recorded at folk clubs we first asked the performers permission to do so - unless they stated otherwise, we always assumed that, providing we did so responsibly we were free to pass them on I see no harm in doing so here I wish others adopted same attitude - good luck to you Jim Carroll |
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24 Apr 19 - 08:26 AM (#3988909) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker What are the options then - let these culturally valuable tapes be lost and destroyed, or only accesable to exclusive elites...??? |
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24 Apr 19 - 08:38 AM (#3988910) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST,Jack Campin Soundcloud supports private links and private playlists. Facebook's "secret groups" would work better, but FB doesn't permit sound files. |
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24 Apr 19 - 08:41 AM (#3988911) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST,SB The same goes for the thousands of BBC recordings that they have junked, wiped and destroyed, and indeed still do. Folk enthusiasts have been home-taping folk programmes off-air for years. Yet my experiences are that even if offered the tapes back - because the Beeb has wiped whatever they had - the Beeb usually simply ignores the offers. So much has been lost - well bulmerised, wiped or junked. Yet anyone who tries to create an online archive of lost recordings is quickly served with a take-down notice for the files or they are simply deleted by the ISP. |
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24 Apr 19 - 08:51 AM (#3988915) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Jim Carroll Have been discussing this with a friend who, like me, has a number of club recordings which he wished to share He suggests that those who wish to do so join together and share away - I'm more than happy with that - I already do this with anything I'm happy to pass on - I use PCloud, but I'm sure there are others Jim |
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24 Apr 19 - 09:10 AM (#3988919) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Howard Jones The OP said he was worried about copyright. He's right to be, because copyright law is not on his side. That doesn't mean that these recordings shouldn't be made available. I'm sure they would be of interest to many, and I entirely agree with Jim's attitude of "share away". It does mean that he faces a lot of potential obstacles. However I emphasise "potential". It is probably unlikely that the majority of those he recorded will care about them being made public, and provided he responds appropriately to those who do want them taking down that will probably be the end of the matter. It does mean that there could be a lot more work involved than just digitising and posting the recordings, as he may also have to spend some time dealing with copyright requests. These are possibly more likely to come from the songs' composers than the performers. Essex County Record Office has a large number of recordings of Chelmsford Folk Club and other local clubs made in the 1970s and 80s by Jim Etheridge and Dennis Rookard. I would love to hear them, not least because many of them feature me and my friends, as well as some impressive guests. However, even setting aside the costs of digitising them, I suspect copyright would prevent the ECRO from ever putting them online. |
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24 Apr 19 - 09:19 AM (#3988922) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Big Al Whittle One's sins will find you out! |
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24 Apr 19 - 09:22 AM (#3988924) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker One less than satisfactory solution is donating collections to Universitys, which might mean they can only be listened to by academics in Uni libraries... I don't know if copies are made for listening, or if the originals are at risk of degrading each time they are played...?? To be honest I'm not certain of the facts of this option... |
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24 Apr 19 - 09:34 AM (#3988931) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST,Jack Campin Almost all university libraries are open to any member of the public, though a very few (like Edinburgh) will charge you because they're run by bean-counting philistine arseholes with MBAs. I assume a library's attitude to conservation and handling of originals will depend on how much demand there is and how much value they put on the material. |
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24 Apr 19 - 09:56 AM (#3988935) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST,matt milton I say publish and be damned. Except you probably won't be damned but thanked. Who does it hurt? Nobody. Who does it benefit? Folk fans (and the performers themselves are presumably folk fans too) The only way I can conceivably think of any harm being done is the extremely unlikely event that the musician themselves had recorded the same material and had plans to release them. But that's 1000-1. The worst that will happen is someone will ask you to take them down. |
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24 Apr 19 - 10:37 AM (#3988941) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker There were [still are ???] some very well researched and presented folkie blogs with downloads... My main criticism is that they were lossy mp3s... But importantly, there was no need to be friends of the right people who were in the know.. or signed up members of pass worded selective societies.. No, these sites were freely available for anyone with an interest and enthusiast's desire to hear long abandoned and witheld recordings... If any artists complained with a justifiable reason for their LPs to be taken down, then the bloggers usually complied and apologised.. But that's not very satisfactory for potential listeners if those LPs then still continued to be unavailable to purchase, or hear any other way... If I had a box of old amateur recordings and let it be known publicly, It'd be up to an artist to contact me if they saw commercial potential in any recordings of themselves. Otherwise I'd consider the most effective way to make them freely available on a non purchase/ non profit basis... ..call me naive and idealistic... |
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24 Apr 19 - 10:44 AM (#3988945) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST If you indicated or implied the recordings were for personal use then I feel it would be wrong to change that now. Of course it is a shame for people not to have access to them as awonderful folk resource, but if you said one thing you should not then go against it. That would be dishonest and a breach of trust. |
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24 Apr 19 - 10:47 AM (#3988946) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST,Sandy I really don't think anybody will have a problem with this, as long as they are free of charge. You're not depriving anyone of income etc. Tens of thousands of live recordings of most popular music artists are shared on sites like dimeadozen.org. They have a system whereby any artist that objects can notify them, and then material by that artist is disallowed. see http://wiki.dimeadozen.org/index.php/DimeTOS:Not_Allowed_Artists_and_Bands If you was to get a complaint, just remove the link! |
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24 Apr 19 - 04:18 PM (#3989043) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Nick So is any of it any good? Does any of it have anyone 'well known' on it? Why exactly do you want to make it available? What does it add to the world? I also ask as someone who records things (because I record things - which is a different discussion perhaps) |
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24 Apr 19 - 04:22 PM (#3989045) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Nick A few examples - I recorded (and lost) a very early Hissyfit thing. perhaps even one of their first paid gigs. I think only Hazel has a copy. An early Edwina Hayes concert (with permission). But both are where they stay I have hundreds of hours of dross on an old cassette recorder |
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24 Apr 19 - 04:34 PM (#3989050) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Nick I couldn't comment on recording proper paid folk in a performance environment From my end I did it to see if we were getting any better rather than whether we could record something for posterity. I do have a very sweet evening where a very good band (some of them became Blackbeards Tea Party and some didn't and went and played really really good jazz - magic p or something) came and shared some tunes. But most of it is what you hear each week in an environment. And most of it is same same old The one thing I realise as I need to sing again next month is that I am a much better guitarist and a much worse singer. So that needs rectifying and why recording is good |
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24 Apr 19 - 04:43 PM (#3989052) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Steve Gardham Nick, You appear to be in the East Riding from what you say. We are in the throes of digitising local folk club performances at the moment and already have an operative Hull Folk Archive going back to the 60s mainly involving Folk Union One and its spring offs, morris and other dancing teams, other local folk clubs etc. We are not quite ready to deposit the digitised material yet, but if you have any material digitised when we are ready we will take on other local material. The material in the archive is in the name of the Hull Folk Archive and anyone wishing to make copies of what is there would have to ask our permission via Hull History Centre where it is housed, but the material can be consulted freely without any need to address copyright, providing it is for non-commercial use. If you have old recordings there is a strong likelihood that a lot of the people recorded are no longer with us or are no longer performing. As others have said the option is always there to remove material at the request of the performer or song writer. |
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24 Apr 19 - 07:03 PM (#3989077) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Nick Steve - I have sat sang with you before now. North Yorkshire myself but I happen to slightly know some people from your part of the world like Les and Mick and Linda and Hazel I'm desperately trying to wonder what is the point of digitising local folk clubs? Most of the people I know in your part of the world love their music but also would quite like to make a name for themselves. And some are doing well now over the 15 years I have known them. Most of them are not rich from their music. Linda and Hazel would have kittens if I decided to release/digitise their local performance from all those years ago. And so I wouldn't. |
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24 Apr 19 - 08:06 PM (#3989088) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker "Linda and Hazel would have kittens if I decided to release/digitise their local performance from all those years ago. " I don't know these people, but can you be so sure of that...??? My experience is that there are not enough surviving tapes of our band's past and origins, and we'd welcome a chance to hear and share any that resurfaced... no matter how unflattering.. it's our history and we enjoyed living it, warts and all... Particularly the green plastic cassette from circa 1975... and the reel to reel tape from 1981... long MIA presumed binned... Maybe you are being too oversensitive and protective on other performer's behalf...??? why not ask, and if necessary gently persuade them... |
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24 Apr 19 - 10:27 PM (#3989105) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST,Rossey There are different issues. You have the song copyrights, depending on whose repertoire they are singing. Even if there are songs that were Trad. in a strict sense, then the artists performing them are entitled to claim and be paid for their arrangement. If there are songs in copyright, then they would equally have to go through MCPS licensing for commercial use. Now though previously published recordings made after 1962 are in copyright for 70 years (and performers can re-claim the recordings if they are unused after 50) - unpublished recordings have a copyright duration of 50 years from their making "if a recording is not published or communicated to the public, the performers` rights last for 50 years from when the recording was made" Songs of course are themselves in copyright for 70 years after the death of the writer or arranger/s. |
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25 Apr 19 - 12:15 AM (#3989113) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker Though in this thread we are primarily talking about amateur recordists sharing their archive recordings of mostly amateur and semi pro local performers, before the tapes are lost or destroyed forever... It is unhelpful to try to make the situation more complex and legalistic than necessary... Our culture widely accepts a tradition of informal non profit sharing of non commercial music. This is long established over many decades and rarely of any harm to artists or their estate. There are even big name artists who actually condone and encourage amateur taping of their concerts. However, it seems a minority of old folkies are unaware of this 'underground' music sharing tradition and are perhaps a little overcautious, perhaps even paranoid, regarding the consequences of making 'lost' music freely available to their friendly community of folk music enthusiasts... I feel I am stating something so obvious, as so many here will understand and readily accept all this. But if some folks are really worried, the rest of us need to positively reassure them... Sharing old amateur recordings is ok, it's no big problem... Whatever was said or agreed decades ago while you set up a microphone, folks can and do change their minds over time. Sharing the music is ultimately a very good thing, not a sin... |
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25 Apr 19 - 01:17 AM (#3989117) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST,Observer " I did normally ask permission from guests and indicated that the recordings would be for my personal use." That is what you said and on that premise permission was given to record. You are therefore bound by what you said - personal use means personal use. It would be wrong for you to use that material in any other way. |
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25 Apr 19 - 01:17 AM (#3989118) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST,Observer " I did normally ask permission from guests and indicated that the recordings would be for my personal use." That is what you said and on that premise permission was given to record. You are therefore bound by what you said - personal use means personal use. It would be wrong for you to use that material in any other way. |
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25 Apr 19 - 01:30 AM (#3989119) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Richard Mellish Thanks to all for the various (very various) answers. As a late friend of mine used to say; "a definite qualified maybe". If I'm going to make my recordings generally available (as distinct from sending copies on USB sticks to one or two individuals) there's also the matter of how. The recordings that I have digitised and indexed so far come to about 7 GB as WAVs, and that's not counting any of my tapes from the Herga that are digitised, but indexed only as images of my handwriting on the tape boxes or a pieces of paper. All of it can of course be converted to a compressed format, but it's still going to be an awful lot to upload somewhere. |
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25 Apr 19 - 02:01 AM (#3989120) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker Richard - sharing by cloud storage is relatively easy, but may be a strain on your time and broadband. I'd be fairly certain some of the more experienced contibuters to this thread would welcome your USB sticks mailed to them so they could take care of the uploading for you.... Uncompressed source files WAVS are preferable to mp3s, and again, anyone uploading for you could make the music available in optional WAV/flac or mp3s to suit downloader preferences... Despite the hard-line naysayers, such a project is an essential function of a music scene inspired by shared music traditions and social history.. cheers... |
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25 Apr 19 - 02:11 AM (#3989125) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker I forgot to mention, if you are concerned 7 GB is large, it's not a problem. For instance, I buy music tech software - virtual intrument sample sets etc, 7 GB is a modest size by these common standards. That's the same size as one sampled grand piano I easily downloaded as a single zip file a few days ago... Uploading 7 GB of individual tracks would be more time consuming for an uploader, but it'd be a simple task to plan and execute... Some mudcatters in this thread probably have that kind of experience, and could volunteer on a joint project with you...??? |
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25 Apr 19 - 02:54 AM (#3989129) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Jim Carroll "in a strict sense, then the artists performing them are entitled to claim and be paid for their arrangement." If this is true, every trad song is an arrangement and has no right to have been placed in the public domain - it really is time that that people came to terms with this. Walter Pardon's versions are 'unique' (Mike Yates once offered a very fine reason for this) Why should a modern folkie have the right to claim for his/her versions while our older singers did not ? This obsession with payment continues to damage the future of folks song - in needs to be knocked on the head. As far as 'personal use' is concerned, that is a meaningless term; we never used it. We asked singers if they had any objections to us recording their singing - that we would not go off and sell it went without saying - 'arrangements'and payment didn't feature much in folk song in those days and, especially considering the uncertain future of folk song, it shouldn't now. As far as distributing material; my maye Bob's suggestion of setting uup a 'sharing' group seems more and more sensible He pointed out that PCloud were offering a bargain-price increase of space I use their freebie space, but have been considering expanding my space - I see no reason why a group of like-minded people couldn't share the cost and share the space About time folk got back to the grass-roots sharing philosophy that gave us the pleasure that is folk song Jim |
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25 Apr 19 - 03:08 AM (#3989133) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST,Observer "Personal use" is a far from meaningless term Jim, it means exactly what it says on the tin. In making YOUR recordings you stated that you never made any such pronouncements but you still asked prior permission. That permission having been given then meant you were free to do whatever you liked with the recorded material. |
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25 Apr 19 - 03:35 AM (#3989138) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker GUEST,Observer - you are reacting as if any agreements made decades ago, to which you were not a witness, were somehow written in blood on sacred parchment... We're not exactly talking about Knights of the Round Table swearing noble oaths before King and God... ..just ordinary folks who often say things for courtesy, social diplomacy and convenience.. Things that normal folks can forget or change their minds about in time... Things they might not even have cared about too much many years ago, or if they did, have now lightened up and relaxed about it... Folks are at liberty to reconsider, adapt, and move on... Blimey, you do take things so seriously... |
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25 Apr 19 - 04:14 AM (#3989142) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Jim Carroll "it means exactly what it says on the tin. " t depends on ow you phrase yor question As a singing workshop member my "personal use" would be to share it with other members Your request should ascertain whether singers you wish to record had any ojctions to sharing their performances with others - no more than that - I can't remember anybody ever objecting to that idea Jim |
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25 Apr 19 - 06:47 AM (#3989171) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Howard Jones punkfolkrocker, whilst I agree with most of what you said in your post of 25 Apr 19 - 12:15 AM, the legal question cannot be entirely ignored. The OP asked about copyright and this has been answered. Unfortunately copyright law is at odds with the sharing culture you describe. Also, that view may not be shared by the rights holders in some of the copyright material which was performed. However I disagree with your post of 25 Apr 19 - 03:35 AM about "personal use". Whether those undertakings are contractually binding or not, surely there is a moral obligation to abide by them? Doesn't the sharing culture also imply an obligation to act in good faith and to respect our fellow participants? "Personal use" means just that and by no stretch of the imagination can it include sharing it with the entire world. On balance, I think the archive value and interest in these recordings should outweigh the legal considerations and the OP should go ahead. There is no commercial gain here, and little commercial loss to anyone. It is unlikely that most of the performers will object, however if they or other copyright holders should object the OP must be willing to take down those recordings. He should also be prepared to fall foul of PRS, who I doubt will be impressed by the "sharing culture" argument and will expect to receive an appropriate fee (appropriate in their eyes that is), assuming of course they become aware of it. |
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25 Apr 19 - 06:53 AM (#3989173) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST,Rossey Legality works both ways, and can be made to defend use of material as well as protect it. As I pointed out anything pre-1970 odd..(over 50 years) if taped and never heard before, the performer has no legal say. As long as it's previously unpublished in any form, then under the most recent revision of the copyright act in the UK, it's fair game. Though the songs they perform are still copyright works and as you know european article 13 has been passed Previously published recordings or radio tapes are a different matter and usually hold longer copyright for the performer (Unless pre-1963). But that's all pretty much commercial usage. |
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25 Apr 19 - 07:14 AM (#3989175) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST,matt milton Surely it's worth reminding ourselves that these are recordings of people who chose to sing in public at a folk club? Seems weird to suggest that anyone happy to make their music public (to a room full of people) would have a big objection to making their music public (via the internet). YouTube is full of iPhone-captured footage of gigs, buskers etc. I think anyone under 30 would find the qualms expressed in this thread completely mystifying. |
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25 Apr 19 - 07:15 AM (#3989176) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Nick PFR - "Linda and Hazel would have kittens if I decided to release/digitise their local performance from all those years ago. " I don't know these people, but can you be so sure of that...??? Yes totally. I recorded it with permission. But equally explicit was that it was not for anyone else apart from me and them. There is a person who uses this forum who wanted a copy and was explicitly excluded from having a copy. Similarly with Edwina Hayes. I recorded it with permission because my wife couldn't attend the concert and she is the only other person who has heard it. And I respect that. I went to see James Taylor and Bonnie Raitt last year and was sitting in the front row. And asked before the gig whether I could take pictures or not - who wants an idiot sitting in the front row taking pictures without an ok - and as it was ok I have some nice pictures. If anybody has pictures or recordings of anything I have played in then yes it would be interesting to see (when I started playing gigs did they have videos in 1969 or would it be on Super 8 or something and reel to reel? So it's unlikely. I do have some stuff on reel to reel from 1969 - I wonder what happened to the drummer he was very good?). But I wouldn't necessarily want it to be out of my control and for someone else to feel it is "their's to do as they wish". I played a gig recently which I recorded for us (as I do because I like to see and hear how we are doing) and offered the same to the person we supported. They said 'no' so I didn't. But I did take some photos (allowed) and the person who didn't want something of quality wanted some of my snaps. And then popped them online. They are awful photos because of lighting and all sorts of reasons and I actually didn't want to be put on the world for people to see how bad I am as a photographer. :) Perhaps if he had published them without my name with them I would have been OK. Historical things are interesting and sometimes they are nice things to have. But not necessarily to share. There is a nice pipe player who played with a very fine guitarist who died some years back. And I did send him a copy of the two of them playing when they played at a session in a pub near here that we organised. And it was a nice thing to have for him. But I wouldn't share it with people generally just because I have it. Perhaps in 50 - 100 years time it won't matter. But it would also have very little interest. Scarcity is the thing. Having everything is a curious thing. Either you want facebook or archive.org :) The latter had issues with photos and music though which made, what is the hugest (I think), archive anywhere less useful. But it also (I think) archives the archives which is interesting. I have a lovely fondness for the days when you could put "the end of the internet" in google and get one response. Now the same joke returns 2.3billion copies. I realise I'm being a partial Luddite :) |
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25 Apr 19 - 08:28 AM (#3989186) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker Howard - like I said, "..call me naive and idealistic..." I am not alone in becoming sick of petty legalistic disputes between stubborn embittered greedy old men [and perhaps a few women..] resulting in music, movies, & TV shows being permanently witheld from the world; whilst the tape and film decays beyond any further usability. Where are their 'morals'...??? How many classic and obscure old TV series and films are locked up rotting away because of disputes regarding music and song rights...??? How annoying is it, when a boxset does finally get released, and the familiar title theme is missing or replaced, or vital scenes cut because of a song playing in the background....??? Moral highground in these circumstances is a misplaced concept... However, here we are talking about amateur taping for non commercial use. I still ask folks to consider that informal unwritten agreements made 40 years or more ago should carry a certain degree of flexibility, when weighed up against loss to enthusiasts of valuable taped material.. The recent Live Young Tradition CD comes to mind, an excellent tape from 50 years ago, recorded secretly without permission by a keen young folk fan. Who was too timid to confess what he had done until only a few years ago.. What if he'd asked and been refused consent to tape. How 'immoral' of him to do it on the sly... 'Morality' is not the most meaningful concept to apply to archiving and availability of our social/cultural history... Gentlemen's agrements are a nicety, and ought to apply until they are no longer reasonable or rational... I actually agree that my word should be my bond, and I have a quite stern personal moral compass. But I accept it cannot be the final word in all circumstances. Now in an age of phone cams and Zoom mini recorders, how many even even bother to ask anyone anymore before recording and uploading all minutae of life to social media. But back then taping was not so easy and convenient, and fewer social events were recorded for posterity. These few remaining tapes and super 8 films can be important and entertaining social history artifacts. Their value far outweighs words said and often barely remembered about their creation... My dad was a rarity in the 1950s and early 60s, a factory machinist with a keen interest in amateur photography, and a decent camera. I have negatives of all kinds of council estate & pub social activities, which should not be left to rot in my mum's attic. It's on my to do list, but I daresay at least an odd higher principled over opinionated mudcatter will insist I should destroy all but those I can identify and trace back to surviving family members to ask their permission...??? Morality is a guidline, not an excuse to willfully withhold and destroy our social history... We should respect agreements with folks as best as we can, but after a long enough time also ought to be willing to reconsider when and if these old words of ours are too binding and restrictive beyond good sense... Unseen and heard archives of amateur recordings are recognised by museums as invaluable assets whose holders should be positively encouraged to share what they have or our hidden national heritage... |
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25 Apr 19 - 08:37 AM (#3989191) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker btw.. I see the thread has moved on since I started writing, the last one I read was GUEST,Rossey - PM Date: 25 Apr 19 - 06:53 AM.. I think most of us are in accord on general principles of making our archives available, at least to museums and suchlike... Regarding sharing amateur material more widely on a non profit basis, my personal view is some folks are too hindered by their extensive knowledge of legalese.. I do take on board Howard's fair minded reservations.. A beacon for me is Jim, who I respect in these matters, but not folks such as GUEST,Observer... |
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25 Apr 19 - 09:00 AM (#3989197) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Nick PFR I think it's lovely that you have loads of things that are treasures. I think - your motive is to share something that otherwise would be gone forever. Whether the stuff actually has value apart from existing is a different thing I think Who do you want to share these things with? My guess is the people who might be interested rather than everyone. What has changed is 'those who might be interested' and 'everyone' have become the same thing Which then goes back to "how do I sort out everything" when everything is growing faster than you evaluate it. And most of it is shit. And so we look to google or bigger and bigger things to decide what we should look at. etc etc When I found the internet around 1998/9 I used to be all over the place (surfing I think). After a few years I found I went to very few places. Having access to everything is a great thought but has its own dangers Look at your internet cache for this month and compare it to last months (or last years). With access to everything the world doesn't get easier |
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25 Apr 19 - 09:01 AM (#3989198) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Nick Control of data is the biggest issue of the next decade as it has been since the 60s |
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25 Apr 19 - 09:03 AM (#3989201) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST,Rossey Photos are a different issue and that is an archive to be proud of.. there are plenty of provisions in place covering unknown ownership of visual images, plus if your old man took them, you inherit the rights to use photographs on behalf of his estate, and gain for commercial use, or waver that, and donate them in any way to an archive (who still often charge for commercial reproduction and then equally will claim copyright as a collection). You can share them on flickr, but the vultures will hijack and make use of them for commercial gain. Different issues though over copyright music, and the rights held by publishers/writers and song rights agencies. Also, some singers are likely to be dead, and there is the emotional point of using someone's voice, which maybe upsetting, cringeworthy - or equally comforting and exciting to those relatives of the performers, bringing someone's voice back. |
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25 Apr 19 - 09:19 AM (#3989207) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Nick A thing is With the laudable objective of sharing and availability and all sorts of things that seem good. It's hard as it changes. Let me go back up the thread a lot. I think what Jim Carroll and Steve aim for is positive and laudable. And PFR. It's caretaking of the past because of the limitations of technology. But in this day and age as technology moves on the things change. The aim to have everything available to everyone in real time means ... I know I am being constantly being manipulated by stuff as people know more and more about me. As long as you are aware of it you - like me - you will be complacent like me Ha Ha I'll move off |
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25 Apr 19 - 09:24 AM (#3989208) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker I'm having to dictate this on my phone as my PC crashed about half an hour ago, And is not running yet. Here I remind myself as much as tell you folks that I used to be a museum photo archivist, and also worked on social history multimedia projects. We worked with old artefacts, with no knowledge of any words spoken or agreements made at the time of their creation. The photographers and home cine filmmakers long gone... we just considered it an honour to be able to present such treasures to anyone interested in them. The fact that any survived at all was a source of inspiration. But it was frustrating and saddening to handle fragments of glass negatives that were all that was left of once significant collections... What we might think of as a box of old crap collecting dust and getting in the way, May actually be invaluable to archivists and researchers. Let alone the general public... Maybe this gives a better idea where I'm coming from on this issue...??? I'm not just an obsessive music lover... |
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25 Apr 19 - 09:34 AM (#3989212) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Howard Jones According to this apparently authoritative website, in the case of sound recordings the period of protection of performers' rights is extended from 50 to 70 years: Copyrightuser.org To Matt Milton, it is one thing to sing to a small audience in a folk club, many of whom may be your friends. It is quite another thing for that performance to be broadcast to the whole world. Likewise, someone who is now a polished and experienced performer may not be keen to see their early efforts exposed. So I don't think it can be assumed that those performers won't mind if these recordings are made public, although I suspect most won't be bothered, and many will be pleased and flattered. The other matter to bear in mind is that composers' rights are largely administered by rights organisations eg PRS who have a duty to their members to generate income where their works are being used - even on a non-commercial basis. They are unlikely to ignore this, assuming it comes to their attention. It is up to the owners of the rights to tell PRS that they are willing to waive them in particular circumstances. These are issues which are faced by museums, galleries, universities and other institutions who want to make their material widely available. In most cases they take a risk-managed approach. I suggest the OP does the same - put it online, but be prepared to deal promptly and politely with any objections. It might be possible for the OP to claim a "fair usage" exemption on the basis the material is being made available for private study and has no commercial value. However fair usage is difficult to define and will depend on the facts. The criteria, as established by one court case, include: (1) The degree to which the alleged infringing use competes with exploitation of the copyright work by the owner. This is likely to be a most important factor… (2) Whether the work has been published or not… (3) The extent of the use and the importance of what has been taken. In many cases this will be a highly important factor…’ Whether this would be enough to deter PRS is another matter. I have found them quite difficult to deal with - not unreasonable, but inflexible. |
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25 Apr 19 - 10:12 AM (#3989218) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST,Rossey Howard.. that 70 years is correct for published recordings. They introduced a new regulation for unpublished recordings which is 50 years, the two are different with different terms. Recording artists can also claim back ownership of published recordings after 50 years on written notice if little use is being made of them. Anything pre-1963 recording wise is out of copyright recording wise. The keywords are published and unpublished recordings - ie recordings that have never been communicated to the public, as opposed to broadcast or recordings previously issued on records. The songs though are separate copyright and when you assign rights to the PRS, it is a binding contract. |
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25 Apr 19 - 10:29 AM (#3989220) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST,Rossey It is a bit confusing but here you go Howard.. " How long copyright in sound recordings lasts The length of term of copyright in a sound recording depends on whether or not it has been published (released) or has been communicated to the public (for example, played on the radio) if a recording is not published or communicated to the public, copyright lasts for 50 years from when the recording was made if a recording is published within 50 years of when it was made, copyright lasts for 70 years from the year it was first published if a recording is not published within 50 years of when it was made, but it is communicated to the public, copyright lasts for 70 years from the year it was first communicated to the public if a recording is first communicated to the public within 50 years of when it was made and is then published at a later date (but within 70 years of its first communication to the public), copyright lasts for 70 years from the year it was first published" I hope that clarifies the difference. But pre-1963 is a cut off point, as the act didn't apply. Hence a whole load of golden oldies compilations with rock n'roll hits that may occasionally include the Beatles 'Love Me Do', but not 'She Loves You'. It used to be a straight 50 years for all recordings, but they extended it to 70. But unpublished tapes are 50 years. Hence Apple released some rarities on the Internet for a short period and removed them, to be able to say they had 'published' them and give themselves a reserve stash of material that would have been out of copyright. |
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25 Apr 19 - 11:17 AM (#3989222) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Jim Carroll I find all this rather depressing I've always found it a problem giving recordings we've accumulated - the disinterest has often been underwhenlming, to say the least Virtually all the recordings we have have been given with goodwill and generosity; the field singers we interviewed were all insistent that they we happy to pass on their songs because "if nobody has them, they;'ll die" Collectors like Tom Munnelly, Hugh Shields, MacColl, Charles Parker, Bob Thomson... adopted the same attitude Now we're bogged down in copyright, ownership, commercial use.... anything other than how to pass this stuff to those who can use it Personally, I'd rather swallow the stuff we have with a plateful of fava beans rather than pay PRS and Imro a penny - the money they accumulate goes first to the more successful performers; the ordinary folk love features very small on their Richter Scale The BBC recordings were paid for by my parents taxes and licence fees, yet, if I want to use them I have to pay the same as I would for a Mick Jagger track When I came into the scene, money was the last thing that entered the mind of those involved - nowadays it seems to be an insurmountable hurdle - we've been handed back to the same money-men we escape from way back when Whatever others decide, I will continue to pass on what I have (with discretion, as I always have) I only hope there iis enough people left on the scene to use it to make a difference Jim |
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25 Apr 19 - 03:15 PM (#3989248) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Howard Jones Jim, I think your situation is very different. I don't doubt that you made it very clear to your informants what you were doing and why, and they gave their consent to this, either expressly or by implication. The songs themselves were almost certainly traditional or out of copyright, so PRS have no jurisdiction over them. I don't think you have anything to worry about on the copyright front. The OP obtained consent to his recordings on the clear understanding that they were for his personal use. Whether he still feels bound by that or now considers that the interests of posterity override it is up to him. At worst he runs the risk of damaging a friendship through a breach of trust - but in those cases he is probably close enough to the person to seek their renewed consent. There are many areas in life where laws and regulations put in place for entirely justifiable purposes may appear heavy-handed in fringe situations. No matter how much we might wish it were otherwise, the law does have a bearing here. However we shouldn't get it out of proportion. The OP won't get sued or prosecuted. Financially the worst risk is that there is a chance that PRS might try to charge a licence fee. They can only do this if he is making copyright music available, so he could get around this by removing those recordings which PRS could show they administer. They can do nothing about material which is out of copyright or where the composer is not a PRS member. So while copyright must be a consideration, it should not prevent him from going ahead, but it might influence what he puts online and how he administers it in future. |
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25 Apr 19 - 03:25 PM (#3989251) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker Howard - excellent summary... |
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25 Apr 19 - 03:49 PM (#3989256) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Steve Gardham I am with Jim 100% here. There are 2 clear separate issues. Placing material somewhere it can be accessed by interested parties as Jim and we do; and placing material online, which has opened up this great can of worms. Once our digitised recordings have been deposited we intend with the remaining funding to set up a website of selected material from the archive. This thread has at least given me food for thought that this must be done quite carefully and with appropriate permissions. Like Jim I am no lover of PRS. If somebody registers their material with PRS hoping to get the pennies they accumulate then that's up to them, but what was going on at Festivals a few years ago was actually pernicious. We were being told that we had to fill in forms listing all the songs we sang and the festival then had to pay certain amounts to PRS regardless of whether they were nearly all public domain. We were then informed by the legal whizzes that almost all of this income was being sent to the likes of Paul McCartney. I tore mine up. Some of the songs I have written are now being sung by others and all that means to me is, wow! they want to sing my songs, the more the merrier. I would actually pay NOT to register them with PRS! |
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25 Apr 19 - 11:23 PM (#3989286) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST,Gerry 1. I wish that people discussing the intricacies of copyright law would include in their posts some indication of just exactly whose copyright law they have in mind. I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on the internet, but I have formed the impression that different jurisdictions actually have different laws, so what's legal in Botswana may be illegal in Bhutan, and a hanging crime in Saudi Arabia. 2. There's a fellow who takes video recordings of every performance at a local folk club where I occasionally take the stage. He has my permission to release in any form he wishes any recording he has made of my efforts, provided only that he waits until I'm dead. |
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25 Apr 19 - 11:48 PM (#3989288) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker "provided only that he waits until I'm dead." errrrm... you'd better hope he's not too impatient... |
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26 Apr 19 - 12:07 AM (#3989289) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees I do have an interest in this - mostly regarding recordings (audio and/or video) of professional and semi-pro performers - i.e. featured acts - at clubs, concerts and festivals. I figure the recordings may one day be perceived to be of cultural value but also appreciate that the performers themselves might like some control over what gets out there into the public arena (off nights etc.) I do not have any answers at present - as has already been said, for recordings uploaded to public sites the uploader should notionally have the copyright not only to the performance (which belongs to the performer/s) but also to the performed works (which belong to the writers and/or their publishing companies) - which of course I do not. To date I have copied a few things to DVD and sent them to the performers concerned for their interest - but only occasionally does this seem to be very productive in terms of preserving the material. Of course there are audio sharing sites like Dime and Sugarmegs where a range of noncommercial recordings can be found, but the process of uploading them is probably of doubtful legality in most cases. So no obvious way forward at this time - in contrast to the still photographs which have already received some useful discussion on a related thread A repository for your music pictures... ... |
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26 Apr 19 - 02:07 AM (#3989296) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Richard Mellish punkfolkrocker 25 Apr 19 - 02:01 AM said > Richard - sharing by cloud storage is relatively easy, but may be a strain on your time and broadband. That is indeed one issue. Downloading many GB has become almost routine but most people's upload speeds are a lot slower. But there's also the matter of the storage space that has to be paid for, either in cash or by advertising. > I'd be fairly certain some of the more experienced contibuters to this thread would welcome your USB sticks mailed to them so they could take care of the uploading for you.... Insofar as the issues of upload time and storage space, plus the original issue of copyright, are resolved, I can probably do the uploading myself as easily as anyone else. Insofar as copyright may be an issue, it is mainly copyright in the performances. Nearly all the songs would have been either traditional or, if recently written, from writers like Steve who have no wish to enforce copyright. |
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26 Apr 19 - 02:29 AM (#3989298) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees RE my message above but one - to clarify, for "recordings (audio and/or video) of professional and semi-pro performers" I mean original recordings I have made - generally from the audience and/or the soundboard for audio. Usually without asking permission I'm afraid. Anyway they presently repose in my archive but without further action will probably go to the tip upon my demise... which does seem a bit of a waste to posterity. By contrast, historic audience and soundboard tapes of some of my favourite bands and performers (think early Fairport, Sandy Denny, Albion Band and the like) have made it into the public domain via bootleg issues or tape sharing sites which is all the better for history, in my book, though I very much doubt that any permissions have been sought from the artists and/or composers involved. Regards - Tony |
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26 Apr 19 - 02:38 AM (#3989299) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker Richard - I recently saved a link to a good article on best free and affordable cloud storage.. I'll try to remember to find and post it here.. If I am too over-enthusiastic, [perhaps verging on unrealistic..??] it's because extra positivity and encouragement is often required to counterbalance the usual expected mudcat negativity which is intended to spoil good things from ever happening... ie.. here's a crude generalisation based on 40 years of community music activity, and coping with old-over officious miseries trying to stop the fun just because they can... "Someone wants to do something interesting and helpful, I feel so important and powerful I'm compelled to tell everyone why they shouldn't..." |
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26 Apr 19 - 02:47 AM (#3989300) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker We've currently got a right one in our town, she'll automatically raise objections to any social event if she has the slightest suspicion it has any connection with local labour party members... |
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26 Apr 19 - 03:29 AM (#3989305) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Jim Carroll Can I just clear up my situation here - I'm sure some of you are aware of it already, but it cuts right across the board of both personally collected recordings and those accumulated otherwise We were part of a Singers Workshop for many years - as a group, we threw in material to assist each other, from recordings made by others, as we were doing, club performances..... right through to each others records... for learning largely Almost immediately it became obvious that it was growing so fast that it needed organising into something more than a pool of recordings, so we decided to make it an archive, Terry Yarnell became the first archivist - I took over shortly after When the workshop finally died, Terry and I were left with copies of what amounts to probably one of the largest privately held archive of traditional song and music in existence It is organised into sections, fully digitised and listed - and it is up for grabs for anybody interested and responsible to take it on I have yet to explore the 'pn-line possibilities fully - some of our own recordings are already on-line - Clare County Library has put up our Clare songs and music and the Irish Traditional Music Archive have put up others. Limerick University has mooted the idea of putting up our Travellers Collection and have agreed to accept our full collection and library as a bequest, for the use of their 'World Music Department' Which leaves us with the problem of the material given to us by others or accumulated otherwise These include club performances, recorded lectures, radio programmes by the hundreds and material given by other collectors As far as club performances are concerned, as long as they weren't clandestinely recorded, I really can't see the problem We have many recordings done at the Singers Club - Ewan and Peggy never raised an objection to being recorded, nor our passing things on. If you ask a singer for permission to record, unless otherwise stated, I can see no reason in the world why you shouldn't share those recordings with others - what's Peter Bellamy going to do - come back and haunt you ? In our case, the same goes for Seamus Ennis, Joe Heaney, Paddy Tunny, Tom McCarthy, Bobby Casey...... or all the wonderful and generous people who kept the songs and music alive to pass on - as far as I'm concerned, we have a responsibility to do just that I suspect that many of you are approaching my age group - you need to come to terms with the future of what you hold - Kennedy and Bulmer needs to be remembered when you do that As Walter Pardon once told us - "they're not my songs, they're everybody's" "We've currently got a right one in our town, " Don't know if your a 'Killing Eve' fan - Villanette is not to well at present, but I believe she's open to offers Jim |
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26 Apr 19 - 04:36 AM (#3989316) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Howard Jones Actually, I am fairly supportive of PRS, although I have found them inflexible to deal with. I am in favour of creative artists getting paid for their work. If people like Steve wish to give their work away for free that is their privilege, but I assume they have other sources of income. By charging the venue rather than the performer it removes the obligation on me to agree terms with the composers of songs I perform, which would be both onerous and impractical. The system is far from perfect, but in the world of commercial music where the material being performed is all copyright it works reasonably well. And if the bulk of the payments go to those whose music is most widely played that it probably to be expected, but from time to time I get £50 or so, which is very welcome for playing my own compositions, so it is not just Paul McCartney who benefits. Where the system does not work well is in our world, where much of the material performed is either traditional or by composers who are not PRS members. The licensing system is inflexible - you pay the same fee for playing one copyright song as you do for 100. There is a justified sense in the folk world that we pay too much in licence fees with too little coming back. |
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26 Apr 19 - 04:57 AM (#3989321) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST,matt milton In instances like this I'm not interested in law or copyright. Like any moral person, I'm only interested in whether it could actually do any harm. No-one's proposing selling these things. Can we safely assume that all of the hundreds of traditional singers archived in collections on the British Library website were aware that their singing would be available to "the whole world"? I very much doubt it. Yet there they are, and I'm very glad that I can access them. Howard said: "So I don't think it can be assumed that those performers won't mind if these recordings are made public, although I suspect most won't be bothered, and many will be pleased and flattered." Sure, we can't *assume* that literally every single person concerned would be happy about it. But if the *strong likelihood* is that most people would welcome it and we know how the internet works - any that are unhappy could always ask for them to be taken down - well I think you should go for it. |
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26 Apr 19 - 05:31 AM (#3989323) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Jim Carroll "I am in favour of creative artists getting paid for their work" I would be if it was done even handedly and all-inclusively - neither is the case It favours the most successful and it ignores the creative artistry that went into the making of our folk songs Onnce you hang a price tag on creative art it ceases to be art and becomes a commodity The folk scene was created to escape from that rat-race Jim |
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26 Apr 19 - 08:39 AM (#3989340) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker I stated in a previous thread that I believe artists deserve to earn from their published songs and recordings during their lifetime. But the work should become public domain at a more reasonable time after their death. Eg, no longer than the death of their surviving spouse, or perhaps the 18th birthday of any children. Whatever could be made to work for the artists immediate family for a sensible time. A compromise that encourages - not prevents - the positive aspects of creative music performance and enjoyment within complex and dynamic societies... Far too many problems are caused by mega corporations who have no understanding of, or care for living music culture; bulk buying music rights as merely another lucrative asset in their portfolio. Profiteering through enforcing draconian fee collecting regimes that are simply legalised extortion and racketeering... WEA and Sony are two main offenders immediately springing to mind, and their collecting agencies who are more than likely incentivised with hefty bonuses and commisions... Currently they are waging war on popular part time music educators on youtube.. Obviously the reality is rights ownership and exploitationis becoming increasingly longer due to the wealth and power of these corporations, able to lobby and buy copyrights laws to suit their favour... It's depresssing, and forces good ordinary people into situations where they risk heavy legal penalties simply for commiting the crimes of sharing music to help others broaden their appreciation and education... These music enthusiasts are clearly not the criminal gang professional bootleggers and counterfeiters of overhyped music corporations/media propaganda... |
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26 Apr 19 - 09:12 AM (#3989343) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker Her's the article I saved a few days ago... Best ways to share big files: Cloud sharing large folders made simple ignore the survey cluttering the top of the page, and scroll down to where the article actually starts.. "If you've just recorded a home video or created the ultimate mix tape – a digital version of that old chestnut, of course – no doubt you'll be eager to share it with your friends and family..." |
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26 Apr 19 - 10:36 AM (#3989357) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST,Old Performer Aside from copyright, what nobody seems to be considering is the audio quality of the recordings. A lo-fi recording with badly placed mic(s) can render a good performance deceptively underwhelming. OK as a "field recording" as an aide memore for learning songs or tunes, probably not welcome for a pro or semi-pro performer. Always ask permission. If permission can't be got because the artists or their heirs/descendants are deceased or untraceable, the answer has to be taken as "no". |
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26 Apr 19 - 10:43 AM (#3989359) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Jim Carroll Theer is another, somewhat problematical aspect to this subject During my life I have accumulated a large number of commercially produced albums of folk songs - some quite rare at the time or unobtainable in Britain,, virtually all now unavailable For my own use I have digitised them all with the notes When my friend, Tom Munnelly, died, his son digitised his large collection not with the notes, and distributed it to Tommy's friends because he believed that this is what he would have wanted. This is a formidable collections of no-longer-available mateial I assume the companies that issued these albums made what they weer going to make at the time and most of the performers did also (those who were paid) What do I do with them ? They will all end up deposited with ITMA or Limerick Uni, and be subject to the same restrictions as will any collection left in their care It seems bloody-minded not to pass these on to those who might be interested (I do so anyway) Wonder what people think Jim |
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26 Apr 19 - 10:59 AM (#3989363) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker GUEST,Old Performer - agreed, these days there are no excuses for poor quality shoddy recordings.. The widest availability of cheap digital recorders in one form or another enables anyone to make clear unmuffled distortion free recordings. A few quick easy lessons in proper operation of these devices will minimise handling and backround noise.. The results should be acceptable for most amateur purposes. However, back in the days of cheap rubbish cassette recorders, good recording quality was the exception.. If those surviving tapes are all we have to cherish. Then even the most advanced software noise removal techniques can't shine up a turd into a diamond. But if we care enough about the artistic and historic importance, then we do our best to tolerate hiss, tape drop outs, tape flutter, and all the rest of the audio garbage.. I just bought a cheap Sandy Denny CD of informal recordings in another artists house. Every review emphasises how shite the sound quality is, I've not got round to playing it yet. But am prepared for the worst... |
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26 Apr 19 - 11:01 AM (#3989364) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker btw .. the answer certainly does not have to be taken as "no".. Who are you to lay the law down...!!!??? |
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26 Apr 19 - 11:18 AM (#3989368) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Jim Carroll Reminds me of the story of a very deaf Maud Karpeles listening to the cylinder recordings at C# House and smashing the ones she couldn't distinguish There seems to be an unjustifiable assumption that we are talking about marketing these for general consumption _ I certainly am not If anybody find collections of songs "underwhelming" perhaps they are listening for the wrong things Jim |
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26 Apr 19 - 12:01 PM (#3989376) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Jack Campin Count me as a NO. I've been filmed or recorded on many occasions and I have a hard time thinking of even one I'd like to perpetuate. I like playing in noisy, chaotic environments anyway, where nobody would try to record anything, but even the occasions that made for sonic and visual perfection mostly led to recordings that don't communicate anything like what I wanted. Not every performance needs to be frozen forever. What really matters in folk music is the process, not the product: the fact that it can be re-created at any time. Like the topical songs Jim Carroll likes to cite, where "if anybody farted, somebody made a song about it" - you can bet nearly all of them were crap and that the people who made them never wanted or expected them to be perpetuated. What is NOT crap, and IS worth perpetuating, is the cultural infrastructure that allows people to create new songs in that way. You are not perpetuating the tradition by packaging it as if were popping products off a conveyor belt. |
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26 Apr 19 - 12:32 PM (#3989379) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker Jack - Surely it's up to each individual acting as an informed criticical 'consumer' to determine what they personally want to listen to and enjoy, learn from, or learn how not to.. It's all too complex for simplistic absolutist pronoucements... Artists are often the worse judges of their own performances and creativity, and their vanity & egos can make harsh unreasonable poorly considered decisions on what they want witheld or destroyed on their death.. Deceased artist's relatives can be some of the most boneheaded and greedy custodians of an artist's estate.. Ill-informed interfering strangers hurling random dogmatic "thou shalt not"s are just a pain in the arse... |
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26 Apr 19 - 12:38 PM (#3989380) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Jim Carroll It has to be down to the individual artists as you say I would have thought that anybody who gave a diabolical performance after giving permission to record would have the sensse to withdraw that permission as soon as.... Jim |
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26 Apr 19 - 12:46 PM (#3989383) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker I enjoy audiophile pro pecorded and mastered recordings, and also rough as a white dog turd home demos and rehearsal tapes.. ..and anything else in between that helps shine a light on a favourite artists creative process and personality. It's all valid on it's own terms.. Agreed, much of it is crap - but usually worth listening to at least once.. Only once have I ever been severly disapointed by a witheld out-take track that an artist was embarrased of.. But even that one is liked by other fans who got the chance to hear it... Try telling Bruce Springsteen and Beatles fans they have too many bootlegs... A recording of John Lennon clipping his toe nails would probably lead to frenzied bidding at a memorabilia auction house... |
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26 Apr 19 - 12:52 PM (#3989385) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker Jim - 30ish years ago I worked at an Ozzy Osbourne concert where he was hours late sobering up enough to get on stage and his performance was terrible... But that gig has probaly become legendary by now and his fans would clamour for a bootleg, or even an expensive official box set.. Go figure...??? |
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26 Apr 19 - 01:06 PM (#3989390) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker Btw.. in such discussions as this, we're bogged down with facts versus opinion, which gets even cloudier when morality is invoked... However, one near as damn it fact is that often an artist's demos are 'superior' to the finished product commercial LP release; even if they are a bit hissy and muffled... and some more emotionally dificult artists refuse to release their best work in their lifetime for whatever troubled personal reasons...??? We can also think of philistine prim relatives who destroyed artist's unpublished works for fear of shaming the family name... History hates them... |
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26 Apr 19 - 03:01 PM (#3989412) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Jim Carroll WE had the opposite of what is being argued about heer on a number of occasions Some of our early recordings in Clare were made in pub sessions - usually one of us with a recorder stood up and asked would it be ok to record - if anybody did, then the recorders were put away When we produced a CD of Clare singers we used two particularly good songs from one of these sessions by singers who were long dead We were called on by the nieces of one singer and asked if we were the ones who put "uncle Michael's on a CD Somewhat alarmed, we said we were The ladies asked if we would like the family recordings of their uncle Jim |
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26 Apr 19 - 03:03 PM (#3989413) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Jack Campin Listening to a recording that the person recorded didn't want made public is as prurient as putting a webcam in a toilet. Fuck the "consumer". |
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26 Apr 19 - 03:11 PM (#3989415) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker Jack - millions disagree.. it's you against the tide on this one... It'd be easier trying to my mum to stop showing people my baby & toddler photos... |
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26 Apr 19 - 03:12 PM (#3989416) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker ..to tell.. |
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26 Apr 19 - 03:19 PM (#3989418) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker Jack - btw.. that recent excellent Young Tradition live CD... The tape came to light only a few years ago... If I recall, the young taper didn't ask for permission. What if he had, but been told no [because of fragile egos, or mean minded bean counters] then still did it on the sly anyway... Who would condemn him.. it's a bloody good concert from 50 years ago... and a fine addition to their legacy... |
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26 Apr 19 - 03:29 PM (#3989420) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees I believe from an artistic standpoint, the variation in delivery of a song or an instrumental rendition from one performance to another is the most fascinating part. I don't want to hear [artist x] perform a song that is a carbon copy of the recorded version, I am thrilled by the new interpretation and subtleties of delivery that live performance brings and might have been opportunistically captured by an enthusiast for posterity. No, I do not necessarily want to hear Sandy Denny sing *every other* performance of "Matty Groves" any more than she reportedly wished to keep on singing it, but among the live performances out there there are some I am very glad to hear. What will the musical appreciators of 100 years time wish to hear, from a time before they were born? Nobody knows, but I do think we should not be throwing out such recordings as exist, whatever the circumstances of their collection. Do we throw away Van Gogh's or Picasso's early work because they later thought it was not very good or representative of their later efforts? No we do not, we cherish them as a window into the artist's development and creative process. Do we care that they might have been stolen from the artist's wastepaper basket, if that is the case? If I had an unauthorised recording of Robert Johnson playing in a club in 1938 to complement his official recordings, would I be destroying it now on moral/ethical grounds? I think not, and collectors, other musicians and the general public might be just a little interested to know... who is to say that in 100 years, my live recordings of Dave Swarbrick, Vin Garbutt and Jez Lowe (to name a few) might not also be sought after - we just don't know. (Of course if there are many other similar performances on record then the vlue is diluted somewhat). Just my 2 cents of course. Regards - Tony |
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26 Apr 19 - 03:40 PM (#3989421) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker Tony - one of the 'endearing' things about mudcat, is grumpy old blokes making unreasonable dogmatic pronoucements of personal opion, quite often based on slim understanding of the topic being discussed... 'Unofficial' tapers have been a blessing to music culture, and are much appreciated.. that is an objective fact.. long may they continue... [I'm merely an apprentice grumpy old git...] |
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26 Apr 19 - 04:22 PM (#3989425) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees As Dylan Moran said in his comedy act, channelling a starving French artist waking up in the morning (after making love to his girlfriend and eating chocolate croissants): "And after my breakfast I must go and slash my paintings - they are so derivative - what was I theenking!" |
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26 Apr 19 - 05:05 PM (#3989430) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Andy7 This discussion is very much related to the old philosophical conundrum, immortalised in Star Trek: do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one? Let's take it to the extreme. Imagine that I've just given the best performance of any song, ever, in the history of the world, in a little local folk club singaround. (Not so difficult to imagine, I'll admit, if you ever have heard me sing; but that's not really relevant here!) Everyone present was moved to tears of absolute joy, and will talk about my perfect performance for the rest of their lives. Well, unknown to me, my friend Pete just made a recording of that song on his smartphone ... "You're going to do WHAT, Pete?" "I'm going to go straight home and put my recording of your song on UsTube. Not for any benefit to me; but because everyone in the world MUST have the opportunity to hear your beautiful performance, Andy; it has to be saved for posterity." "Pete, I really do not want you to do that; the song was just for the evening, for the moment. I'm absolutely delighted to hear that it brought joy to people at the singaround, that was what I hoped for; but I do NOT want a recording of it shared with the whole world. That would totally destroy the essence of what it was: one song, sung live, for one small audience, on a cold and wet weekday evening in a local pub; a special thing that belonged only in that particular time and place, and nowhere else." "Andy, I am sorry, but I do have to do this. Your performance of that song is way bigger than you as a person. It will bring joy to millions! I really do not believe that, even though you were the performer, you have any right to deny that joy to so many people. You were given, by chance, the gift of your voice, and the skill to sing that song so amazingly. And I was given, by chance, the gift of a smartphone, in the right place and at the right time, with the opportunity to share your perfect song with the world!" So, who holds the higher moral ground in this scenario, me or Pete? I really can't decide! |
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26 Apr 19 - 05:30 PM (#3989434) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees "one song, sung live, for one small audience, on a cold and wet weekday evening in a local pub" - well the performances I recorded were not quite in that category, they were in public venues, for audiences who had paid to hear a professional performance, by a professional (or semi-professional), paid act. So shades of grey here... |
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26 Apr 19 - 05:49 PM (#3989435) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker The ends justify the means... But the meanies try to justify ending everything... |
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26 Apr 19 - 06:07 PM (#3989438) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees Well one thing is for sure, Sandy, Dave Swarbrick and Vin are no longer with us so there will be no more live recordings... we should treasure what we have... |
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26 Apr 19 - 06:18 PM (#3989439) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker The Sandy Denny CD with warnings of shite audio quality is "19 Rupert Street" lesss than 4 and a 1/2 quid on amazon.. I don't know how bad it sounds because since I bought it in February it's been tidied up somewhere before I had a chance to listen to it... The Young Tradition CD is "Oberlin 1968"... |
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26 Apr 19 - 07:51 PM (#3989448) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees Hi PFR, all - You can preview tracks from "19 Rupert Street", and read editorial and audience reviews, at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rupert-Street-Sandy-Denny-Campbell/dp/B0057MP51A - enough to get a taste for the audio quality and historic interest. - Tony |
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30 Apr 19 - 07:21 PM (#3990165) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees Returning from slight thread creep - I have a probably otherwise unheard original live recording of the Albion Country Band (Hutchings, Carthy, Kirkpatrick, Harris, Nicol, Swallow) from the 1973 Norwich folk festival which I am about to transfer from cassette to digital file. I have offered it to Ashley Hutchings via his Facebook page so will see what happens. Ideally it should end up in some publicly accessible repository (courtesy of the original performers) for posterity but who knows... |
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01 May 19 - 03:07 AM (#3990206) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST,Some bloke We ask our booked artists if we can record the concert with a view to making CDs for sale of no more than two songs per artist (otherwise their own CDs don’t get sold) and preferably (if they sang them) traditional or written by the artist. These become raffle prizes and sold to subsidise the running of the club. Many are ok with it. We record in very high quality through the main mixer and ambience mics and I spend hours mixing it down in post production. Some artists have included our recordings as live tracks on their own albums. Granted, one or two feel they are contracted not to and only one has said no based on personal choice. If we get into discussing copyright and unauthorised recordings, bear in mind how many phones are busy recording. I’m delighted when a video of me appears on Facebook although I didn’t know I was being recorded but I’m sure Mick Jagger thinks differently. Most folk circuit performers like the publicity, and few are tied to litigious record labels these days. |
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03 May 19 - 03:11 AM (#3990476) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees I am reading Brian Hinton & Geoff Wall's authorised biography of Ashley Hutchings (vol 1) "The Guv'nor and the Rise of Folk Rock" (2002) and am re-acquainting myself with their chapter on the various incarnations of the Albion Country Band (of which more anon...) - Albions Mk1 and Mk2 never made a record, Albions Mk3 did but it was not released for 3 years as the band broke up immediately after recording it. RE Albions Mk1's first London appearance: "Fortunately a tape survives, and as we will find with the Albion Country Band, it is only because of fanatics hiding tape recorders under their pullovers that much of the story can be told at all." (p. 251). Just sayin'... |
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03 May 19 - 03:56 AM (#3990481) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker ..so there is a good utilitarian reason for the clichéd folkie aran sweaters...??? |
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03 May 19 - 04:14 AM (#3990487) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST,matt milton @Richard Mellish: after all the posts in this long thread it will seem a massive anti-climax if we don't actually get to hear any of the recordings you have made. If you have uploaded any of them to the web, even for private or limited-invite listening, feel free to send me a PM letting me know where. |
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14 May 19 - 03:42 PM (#3992382) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees Re-reading this thread there are some interesting and fair points made. I think there is a distinction that can be drawn with on the one hand, informal, amateur music making that perhaps should not be shared with the world (if at all) except with the consent of the performers in question - who may not wish their efforts to be disseminated by the same means as more "professional" or polished works - and amateur recordings of professional acts which may be of some present or future cultural value to preserve. As punkfolkrocker says above: "Unseen and heard archives of amateur recordings are recognised by museums as invaluable assets whose holders should be positively encouraged to share what they have of our hidden national heritage..." This is the category the majority of my holdings fall into, either as audience or soundboard recordings, unauthorised though they may be. So, I have dipped my toe in the water and let one out via Youtube here (quality is not fantastic but I at least enjoy listening to the performance again): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kW7tF_hvUz8 (my thanks to Colin Harper for doing the upload on my behalf). Maybe this is one solution (subject however to possible take-down notices for copyright infringement...). Dime (dimeadozen) is another route, though I am not really sure how that works and I have a feeling it is a lot more complicated for both uploaders and downloaders (having had no success to date on the latter front). Regards - Tony |
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14 May 19 - 04:09 PM (#3992389) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Richard Mellish > @Richard Mellish: after all the posts in this long thread it will seem a massive anti-climax if we don't actually get to hear any of the recordings you have made. > If you have uploaded any of them to the web, even for private or limited-invite listening, feel free to send me a PM letting me know where. Not done yet apart from the few of Bert Lloyd. I'm trying to keep too many balls in the air at present but should get round to uploading some recordings sooner or later. The issue of upload time and web space remains to be addressed, but considering the recording circumstances a lossy compression format such as MP3 probably wouldn't lose much. |
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05 Jul 21 - 09:46 PM (#4112440) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees Just revisiting this thread after some gap... OK, I have uploaded some audience recordings as audio (or video in one case) to youtube - avoiding (in most cases) either persons/acts who are still around and performing (so as not to possibly hurt their feelings), or recordings of performances that I do not consider quite pass the "worth sharing with posterity" bar. Folk have the opportunity to ask for youtube to take them down, as well, if they object. Here is the list to date (maybe more in future...) mostly folk or folk-rock, but some jazz and country as well: Albion Country Band - Norwich Folk Festival 16/6/73 Richard & Linda Thompson - Cambridge Folk Festival 1975 Richard & Linda Thompson - Oxford Town Hall, 22 April 1975 (audio) - Part 1 of 2 Richard & Linda Thompson - Oxford Town Hall, 22 April 1975 (audio) - Part 2 of 2 Dick & Camilla Fegy - London February 1981 (audio) Richard & Linda Thompson with Simon Nicol - Lesser Free Trade Hall, Manchester, U.K., 7 February 1981 (soundboard recording) (original provided by a friend) Waso (Belgian Gypsy Jazz) - Sevenoaks, UK, March 1982 (audio recording) Häns'che Weiss Quintett, Cambridge Folk Festival, UK, 26-27 June 1975 (audio recording) Jon Delaney Quartet, Hobart 2011 (Gypsy Jazz) - video recording Scott Hamilton + band, Hobart 1989 (Jazz) - audio recording Albert Lee + Vince Gill, with the Flying Emus, Melbourne Feb 1988 (audio only) Fairport Convention: "Folk Meets Pop", 1969 (audio only) (copy provided by a tape trader) If any of the links do not work, let me know... To date, this seems like the best method (for me) to make these recordings publicly available. Audio quality is a bit compressed by the youtube algorithm but not noticably so. They can be downloaded from youtube as well by a number of "back door" methods as needed - the one I use is called "Youtube video Downloader" from savefrom.net, but there are others. I have a lot more video in the drawer, but the performers are in general still around so I am hesitant to upload without their permission, as described earlier in this thread. Hoping the above is of some interest, Cheers - Tony Rees, Australia |
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06 Jul 21 - 03:30 AM (#4112451) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST Tony You are a pirate, all the acts have rights, all the songwriters have rights, all the publishers have rights - you are breaching those rights and Mudcat should not be a platform for promoting relatively modern recording bootlegging. It matters not if the performers are' still around', this is still piracy. |
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06 Jul 21 - 05:45 AM (#4112457) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Bonzo3legs And who might this whinging guest be I wonder. Thank Clapton that we have had all these live recordings since 1st lockdown last year. Thank goodness I recorded The Mysteries in 1985 and 2000, and The Transports in 2017(??). Thank goodness another mudcatter would stand for hours holding up 2 mics to record Fairport. Thank goodness a few forward thinking folks recorded Nic Jones back then. I curse those who hoard live recordings and refuse to share them - Twickenham Folk Club for instance!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
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06 Jul 21 - 07:07 AM (#4112462) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker Whoever that toxic GUEST is, he/she/they easily wins "mudcat misery of 2021" award.. .. and we're still only half way through the year... |
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06 Jul 21 - 07:13 AM (#4112463) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker Full respect and thanks to Tony.. A real positive music enthusiast...!!! We need more folks who enhance the joy in life.. The balance is more often being too heavly over-weighted by all the mean spirited miserly miseries... |
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06 Jul 21 - 07:52 AM (#4112466) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees "Guest" does have a point, and a basis in copyright law. I personally do not view myself as a pirate - I have not pirated anyone else's recorded product - but as a cultural saver of otherwise unavailable performances. However I am more than happy to remove these tracks from youtube if others think they should not be there, and maybe think further about other ways to share them (remember tape trading days...) - just mentioning that this phenomenon has always been around, and probably always will be, so long as there are comitted fans interested in more than just the official releases... - Tony |
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06 Jul 21 - 08:26 AM (#4112467) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Sandra in Sydney keep up the good work, Tony We've recorded concerts at my folk club since a bloke who enjoyed recording turned up in 2008 & have published the grand sum of 14 songs since then! But a complete record of every concert since then (10 per year) are sitting on a couple of external memories as an archival record of our club. Performers are asked if they want to be part of the archival record, & they can get a copy of their performance if they want it. I've just realised I have no idea of what we will do with them ONE DAY, whenever that is, maybe our local library might want to add them to their archive of local stuff. The Library hosted an exhibition of our history a few years back. sandra |
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06 Jul 21 - 08:31 AM (#4112468) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker Many folks bend or completely disregard far more important rules & laws, which they have no respect for; and continue to get away with it scot-free.. Such rule-breaking is popularly accepted and encouraged by general society, who feel these laws are unfair and should not apply to them... I wonder how many of the legalistic obsessive anti music sharing moaners in this thread, habitually break rules which could have potentially serious hazardous consequences...??? Here's a possibly not too exaggerated example just for laugh.. Driving slightly over the speed and alcohol limit, while using a handheld mobile phone to post to this thread how illegal and antisocial music sharing is... If only these anti sharing obsessives could realise how out of touch they are, and try to keep their negative opinions on these matters in perspective... We should not pander to them. We should not allow them to feel they have the moral high ground and control to prevent enthusiasts from sharing and enjoying music, which has mostly been forgotten or discarded. Fair enough if the music industry can monetize these scrapings from the bottom of the barrel of music history. Even better if profits can be reinvested in encouraging young musicians.. As long as the music is made available and remains easily accessible at fair prices.. What we don't need are the miseries who hoard old tapes until they rot beyond use. Or deliberately destroy them out of pettiness and spite... |
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06 Jul 21 - 04:02 PM (#4112508) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees Thinking about this further ... it seems there are two distinct approaches - either 1, treat the (copyright) laws as sacrosanct - in which case, at least half of the materials posted to youtube would have to be pulled, plus most/all of other music sharing sites such as Dimeadozen, Sugarmegs, etc., or 2, treat the relevant laws as flexible... for example, can it be morally justifiable to break a law to save a life, or a forest, or a cultural artifact? If the answer to any of these is "yes", then posting a recording for which one does not own the copyright to a public site might be seen as defensible on grounds of cultural value. I simply do not know which is better in the present situation. Clearly taken to the extreme, one could argue that this material should not exist at all, however we are all aware of historic, legitimately issued compilations that would not be possible except for the enthusiastic recordings of amateurs in the past, and can clearly be seen to be of artistic/cultural value to future listeners and viewers. My present inclination is that probably I will remove this material again and wait for a better solution, or for us all to die, whichever is the sooner... - Tony |
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06 Jul 21 - 05:11 PM (#4112512) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: The Sandman How about making available any items that are trad arr, would that get around the problem, Personally if it was any of my own songs I would not be worried. I think calling you a pirate is a bit over the top, having said that i will probably be the next person to be insulted by an anon guest |
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06 Jul 21 - 06:46 PM (#4112520) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST Reading back I think the problem here is that the poster was recommending the use of a downloader along with the links, which does make it piracy as there are modern pop/folk rock and country songs involved. These arguments go round and get nowhere, so I'll leave it there. |
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06 Jul 21 - 08:34 PM (#4112527) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST,Lou I have the task of digitizing and annotating several years of board recordings form a local folk club in California. The only way we are able to do this is a (substantial) grant from the Grammy foundation to pay for the transfers and the lawyer to obtain permissions before it gets put out on achive.org - I can tell you the bulk of the grant (like 80%) is to pay for the lawyer to obtain the permissions! Listening to hundreds of hours of mostly poorly recorded, often badly performed material to try to extract titles is a horrendous task! The ten percent of it that is good recordings of excellent performers is small reward, almost as small as the pay I get for doing the work. Oughta make the d*mn lawyer listen to it all hisself! :-) Oh, and the idiot recording them paused the recording between most songs, so if they introduced the name of the songs the names did not get recorded Darn that was stupid of them! I shoulda become a lawyer instead of a sound person! |
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06 Jul 21 - 08:41 PM (#4112529) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: RTim You want Folk Club Recordings? Well there is a YouTube site with at least the last years recordings from Sharp's in Isolation weekly Zoom sessions.....songs from many locations....have a Listen and enjoy.. Tim Radford https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvqDn8d3uUq1a3Wk87Q9GMsW87L6qdFqJ |
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06 Jul 21 - 09:25 PM (#4112532) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Stilly River Sage GUEST, Lou, it hurts just to read that the recorder turned off between songs. I have shelves of such material here to digitize and am going to have to set up a database to keep track of who performs what. This will be donated to a university collection, mostly, but I have other things on the Internet Archive and will be putting a few of these songs there. |
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07 Jul 21 - 12:44 AM (#4112537) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker Tony - You are doing a GOOD thing... But, you are also being too kind to the opinions of the mean minded anonymous GUEST anti sharers. I suggest you are over thinking the problems they inflict on us. .. and should definitely NOT ever remove the recordings you have uploaded, just on their say-so.. We shouldn't give in to their cranky control freakery... Obviously, if a named music artist requests their recordings be witheld, that's a different matter. But even then, there should be some scope for positive reasonable negotiation... |
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07 Jul 21 - 01:33 AM (#4112538) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: The Sandman it also shows that there is not just folk music played in folk clubs, apparently these recordings include quote,,, as there are modern pop/folk rock and country songs involved. |
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07 Jul 21 - 01:59 AM (#4112539) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker "Reading back I think the problem here is that the poster was recommending the use of a downloader along with the links, which does make it piracy..." Downloaders are legal and are widely used... They are a legitimate tool, with accepted function and purpose, beyond your narrow minded definition of 'piracy'... You might just as well be accusing anyone of sailing a boat of being a pirate...!!!??? Downloaders are essential for folks who struggle against crap unreliable internet connections who are unable to stream media without excessive buffering, glitches, and freezing.. Sometimes the only viable option is to download online video/audio for playback offline... I can tell you for a fact, that even with 'good' broadband music streaming services I PAY for, are problematic and frequently unlistenable... .. and these legal corporate streaming services are definitely actively ripping off music artists, far far worse than any dedicated music enthusiasts who enjoy sharing amateur archive recordings... YOU are the one who is out of step with 21st Century media distribution culture... |
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07 Jul 21 - 02:01 AM (#4112540) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: The Sandman The problem appears to be with copyright on modern popfolk country recordings, not trad arr folk musics logically if folk clubs consisted of people playing ONLY trad folk music the problem would not exist Before Anyone misinterprests this post.I am only pointing out what is the root of the problem not attempting to stop anyone singing any music |
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07 Jul 21 - 05:15 AM (#4112570) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Bonzo3legs On our few visits to the Ram Club, now sadly closed for good, the floor spots were mostly trad songs, unlike Croydon which hopes to reopen, anything goes! |
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07 Jul 21 - 07:24 AM (#4112591) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: The Sandman i did a few evenings at both clubs over the years. croydon, more recntly, also had a blues club at the same venue as the folk club, most of that material was probably not copyrighted |
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07 Jul 21 - 08:01 AM (#4112598) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Bonzo3legs I went to the blues club just once - that was more than enough!! |
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07 Jul 21 - 11:02 AM (#4112618) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: The Sandman well i was never booked there so i cannot say, but most blues are not copyrighted which was my point, i consider blues american folk music, whereas some of the material played in folk clubs is as described by someone else as modern popfolk country and has copyright problems, i find it ironic that material played in a blues club has not copyright problems but SOME music played in a folk club has. |
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07 Jul 21 - 12:49 PM (#4112623) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Howard Jones Sandman said "The problem appears to be with copyright on modern popfolk country recordings, not trad arr folk musics logically if folk clubs consisted of people playing ONLY trad folk music the problem would not exist" The performers own the copyright in their own performance, which is quite separate from the copyright (if any) in the material they perform. Performing only trad/public domain material doesn't get around that issue. |
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07 Jul 21 - 03:50 PM (#4112645) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: The Sandman Howard, irrelevant as far as the the royalties on trad arr are a pittance compared to the composers royalties on their own composotions the morality of performing other peoples work for financial gain without their permission[ relvant to the piracy remark made by someone else earlier] |
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07 Jul 21 - 05:28 PM (#4112660) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: The Sandman Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Jim Carroll - PM Date: 26 Apr 19 - 05:31 AM "I am in favour of creative artists getting paid for their work" I would be if it was done even handedly and all-inclusively - neither is the case It favours the most successful and it ignores the creative artistry that went into the making of our folk songs Onnce you hang a price tag on creative art it ceases to be art and becomes a commodity The folk scene was created to escape from that rat-race Jim |
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08 Jul 21 - 03:17 AM (#4112670) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees For those who believe audience recordings of performers from the past should be made available to fans of the music, the following may be of interest... if not, feel free to skip this post. It turns out that another of my originals has become available, this time via Dimeadozen (www.dimeadozen.org), not uploaded by me but by someone else from a low generation copy... in fact I do not even have the original of this any more, so it is great that it is preserved somewhere. It is Nic Jones recorded at Oxford Polytechnic in March 1975; I believe Ralph Jordan ("Ralphie" to mudcatters) was supplied with a copy of this at the time he was compiling "unearthed", but the tracks were probably not used (I have not done a detailed comparison). Anyway the relevant info is at http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=684401 and http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=684402 (2 versions were made available) but availability to view these pages and/or download depends on a user having a Dime account, also on persons who have "seeded" it (not an area I am familiar with), which apparently means that it is currently unavailable. I would be interested to know if persons keen to hear and/or download this material prefer the Dime approach to that on youtube, which latter does actually break their rules regarding copyright material, also they do not officially allow downloads, as kind folk on this thread have informed me... Personally I find Dime a bit of a dog to use, since you have to be an uploader as well as a downloader, have plenty of bandwidth and a PC permanently connected to the net for file sharing, with kinda rules me out anyway. My preference is really for a site such as Sugarmegs where all the download links are readily available, however in mp3 (compressed) format or similar which is a little sub-optimal. - Tony |
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08 Jul 21 - 04:25 AM (#4112675) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker I never bothered with Dime, because it seemed to me too elitist and exclusive. So it's been out of my mind for years... Also torrents were too much of a faff, and regarded as a risk at a time when USA music corporations were trying to criminalise teenage music fans; and extorting mega thousands of $$$ fines for downloading a mere handfull of mp3s.. But that was years ago before spotify and other streaming services became so lucrative for the music industry.. Enabling them to even more effectively rip off their own contracted artists... Tony - really all you need to do is upload [lossless flacs ideally] to a free cloud host, eg, www.mediafire.com and provide links in your own relevent mudcat threads. It works easy enough for other mudcatters who are kind enough to share to our community... cheers... |
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08 Jul 21 - 04:44 AM (#4112679) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: The Sandman well i would like to hear any NicJones recordings that you have |
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08 Jul 21 - 04:49 AM (#4112680) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: The Sandman Nic, is contactable,it might be a good idea to ask him first? |
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08 Jul 21 - 05:05 AM (#4112682) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees Indeed... Actually I was waiting to see if I can get that particular tape remastered by it present custodian - report back awaited :) The I will contact Nic & Julia for their thoughts, which I am am happy to respect. In the bigger picture, though, I do not think individual artists necessarily have the same perspective as their fans regarding what material deserves preserving - the "I must slash my paintings" syndrome perhaps - but for performers we respect, maybe they should indeed have the last word... BTW I did not put that recording up, being mindful of Nic's situation, however it has been enthusiastically greeted by comments on Dime, to wit: "thanks a million" and so on... Cheers - Tony |
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08 Jul 21 - 09:54 AM (#4112703) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: The Sandman I agree |
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08 Jul 21 - 01:13 PM (#4112717) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Richard Mellish Irrespective of opinions about copyright, which clearly differ, an issue with most of my recordings is that, as I said in my opening post, when I asked permission to record, I stated that the recordings would be for my personal use. Many of the singers and musicians I recorded probably wouldn't mind my making the recordings available to all, but some might, and it is impracticable to contact even all of those who are still alive. I think this is one of those situations where there is no right answer, only a choice of more or less wrong answers. When I die my executors will have access to my recordings but probably won't have much idea what to do with them. |
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08 Jul 21 - 02:49 PM (#4112726) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Howard Jones In the 1970s Jim Etheridge would sit in the front row at Chelmsford Folk Club every week with his reel-to-reel tape recorder. His archive is now held by Essex County Record Office, along with other recordings by Dennis Rookard. However they don't have the resources to digitise them, and I don't know whether the public has any access to them. I imagine a lot of people will have similar recordings which might well be of historical interest and should be preserved, but how to do this? The EFDSS seems to have little interest in folk clubs or in amateur performances and I suspect they would not be interested. Digitising them yourself and putting them online is one solution, but raises issues, as this discussion has illustrated. On the one hand these performances will probably be of interest to someone, on the other hand the rights of the performers themselves should be respected. They have the legal, and in my opinion, the moral right to object. |
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09 Jul 21 - 09:23 AM (#4112763) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Steve Gardham Using a bit of common sense and a majority vote scenario, what is wrong with digitising, making available online, with the proviso that any objections from performers or their families and you take the recording down? Of course anyone still performing is usually quite easily contacted through, if nothing else, their own websites or here. I have contributed now to half a dozen websites over about 20 years material I have recorded. Not once have I been asked to take anything down, if that helps. |
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09 Jul 21 - 09:25 AM (#4112764) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Steve Gardham I should add I am here talking about the British folk scene and what we call source singers (see www.yorkshirefolksong.net) so I would not include high profile commercial singers in that, other than personal friends. |
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09 Jul 21 - 10:56 AM (#4112770) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker I'd agree with Steve's positive pragmatic position.. ..except.. Families who inherit an artist's estate are in some cases greedy talentless stupid philistine control freak parasites, who are the last people who should ever have been allowed to become custodians of any musical legacy... In that instance, such families are maybe best not to be heeded, and the amateur recorded music should still be made carefully available, despite their self defeating negativity...??? Caution, and short term expedient expendable anonymous download links can take care of that hindernce to sharing... Fortunately, not all familes are so wretched... If I'd become a moderately well known folk artist, and dropped dead without a will, I can think of bickering cousins who'd be a nightmare if they took control of my unreleased recordings... |
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09 Jul 21 - 12:41 PM (#4112774) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker .. I'll put it another way.. when when considering well-respected but commercially unsuccessful music artists... Dedicated fans are likely to be more knowledgeable and better equipped to evaluate and distribute a deceased artists unreleased demos, outtakes, and unofficial amateur recordings.. Families maybe not so... |
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09 Jul 21 - 01:14 PM (#4112777) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: The Sandman I would not have a problem with it particularly if i was dead, most of my material is trad but i would be glad for anyone to sing any of my songs as long as i was mentioned, but everyone has a different take on these things. i chose this form or genre not expecting to make much money , i did it because i loved tradtional music. |
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09 Jul 21 - 01:15 PM (#4112779) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Steve Gardham Some of the biggest accolades I get from folk music is when my fellow performers say about one of my songs, I'd like to sing that one. That is reward enough for me, but then again I've never tried to make a living out of it. |
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09 Jul 21 - 07:35 PM (#4112822) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST,Nick Dow Martyn Wyndham Read once said to me as we were driving to a gig, you don't get much for singing nowadays, just a bit of pocket money. That was in 1983. Most singers have some form of self employment to run alongside their gigs. Steve is right. The motivation is easy to spot. 'Just love the songs as much as me'. That will do. |
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09 Jul 21 - 10:26 PM (#4112826) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: RTim I just get excited Finding and Singing or Recording a song that no one else sings.....I love just breathing life back into a song....If someone sits up to listen its, great but anymore is a bonus. Tim Radford |
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12 Jul 21 - 11:11 AM (#4113055) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST,Peter’Green I have just come across George Blake’s Legacy and as a child of Emery Down was unaware of his songs. As a now ageing singer i wondered where i can hear his songs as i understand Forest Tracks no longer exists. I am p,green8@btinternet.com |
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21 Jul 21 - 01:52 AM (#4113953) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees RE the discussion a few posts back - I contacted Nic Jones' family by his web page asking for their permission to publicly release my 1975 Oxford Polytechnic audience tape via YouTube, and they gave me the OK! So here it is for your enjoyment: Nic Jones at Oxford Polytechnic Folk Club, March 1975 Maybe worth a notification via a separate thread for comments etc., I'm not sure... With many thanks to Nic for his superb playing and singing on the night, plus at all other times, and his family for the permission to put this out there. Regards - Tony |
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21 Jul 21 - 04:38 AM (#4113960) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST,matt milton That post above alone makes this whole thread totally worthwhile. Thanks Tony, your services to good music are appreciated. |
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21 Jul 21 - 04:55 AM (#4113961) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees You are most welcome. A lot better than these tapes mouldering in my drawer for 45+ years! |
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21 Jul 21 - 09:08 AM (#4113969) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: The Sandman yes,thanks Tony and thanks Nic |
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21 Jul 21 - 09:54 AM (#4113974) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: The Sandman marvellous guitar acc to bonny bunch of roses o |
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21 Jul 21 - 10:44 AM (#4113978) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: The Sandman 1815 Ile de France was renamed Mauritius and it was formally given to Britain at the Treaty of Paris in 1815. re his version of isle de france, and is spoken introduction makes it unlikely imo... the Queen was Queen Victoria |
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21 Jul 21 - 11:12 AM (#4113983) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: The Sandman a question about clyde water, is the accompaniment different from the one he later recorded? or is my musical memory playing tricks on me |
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21 Jul 21 - 11:19 AM (#4113986) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: RTim I have just seen the post from Peter Green - and I will try and contact you - but I am not sure the e-mail address you have used is correct?? Can you confirm your e-mail of write to me on mine - timradford44@gmail.com It was I who reseached and recorded the Legacy CD. I am in the USA...but could send you a CD if you wanted to buy one. Tim Radford |
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23 Jul 21 - 03:21 PM (#4114186) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees I started a separate thread RE the Nic Jones recording, here: Nic Jones club recording - Oxford 1975 So feel free to add further comments there, if you wish to. Currently working on a tape of Chris Foster from the same month and year (different club), with Chris' permission to make public. Stay tuned... Obviously it was a good year to be in Oxford! - Tony |
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23 Jul 21 - 06:41 PM (#4114196) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees Of clear relevance to this thread, I note the following on Soundcloud, not mentioned previously as far as I know: John Knight's Tapes From the description: "This playlist contains digitised and remastered excerpts from John Knight's extensive 1970's and 80's folk club, tune session and kitchen table recordings, which are slowly but surely being unearthed by his grandchildren, from his original cassette tapes - They represent a priceless cultural and historical record, as well as a source of significant musical inspiration. ... The project is entirely DIY and without official funding. We have an on-going fundraiser for the project to help support the good work, and we really appreciate any small amount you might like to contribute." Regards - Tony (no affiliation to the above project). BTW there is part of a Nic Jones club performance there as well, recorded in Godalming Surrey, 13th May 1974 :) |
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24 Jul 21 - 01:38 PM (#4114264) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Steve Gardham 'Isle of France' being used by sailors during Victoria's rein is eminently plausible. It was known as Mauritius before the French captured it and then when the British recaptured it reverted to Mauritius. But old habits die hard amongst old salts. They practically had their own language and their own names for everything. It's also quite plausible that a returning convict from Oz should be shipwrecked and wash up on Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. Apart from which there is every chance the item is just a piece of fiction. |
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24 Jul 21 - 02:27 PM (#4114274) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: The Sandman john knight was a real gentleman, he used to attend the unofficial singarounds at the then "cutty sark" in whitby, this was a singaround started by amongst others the wilsons, chris timson ann gregson ,myself, mai y i wish you every success with the project |
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04 Aug 21 - 04:03 PM (#4115401) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees As per the Nic Jones 1975 recording recently made available by myself, here is another from my archives for your enjoyment, which I have posted to youtube with Chris' permission: Chris Foster at the Gypsy Davey Folk Club, Oxford, March 1975 Audience tapes of Chris from this era seem to be virtually non existent (I have never heard another, although maybe Chris might have some) and so, seeing he is definitely in my "top three" of English traditional-style singer guitarists of the era (along with Martin Carthy and Nic Jones) this tape is pure gold. In fact I am not sure why it has lain unheard by others in my drawer for 46 years, but there you go. For those who may not be aware, Chris has resided in Iceland since 2004, but continues to make fine music and tour outside of that country on occasion. To keep up with his activity and purchase more recent music, visit www.chrisfoster-iceland.com/. Enjoy! - Tony |
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04 Aug 21 - 08:57 PM (#4115429) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Sandra in Sydney another good one, Tony, what else do you have in the drawer? |
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05 Aug 21 - 02:37 AM (#4115441) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees the odd thing, Sandra ... have to decide what to work on next! |
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06 Aug 21 - 11:42 AM (#4115620) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST Great job Tony Rees - The Chris Foster recording is fabulous and great to hear Chris all those years ago - the wonderful rural tones are still there in his voice and the guitar is there too....well done both. Tim Radford |
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06 Aug 21 - 02:45 PM (#4115646) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees To answer Sandra's question a bit more seriously, i.e. what's in the drawer - probably at least 50-100 different club/concert recordings, I do not have a count, on cassette/analogue video tape/a few CDR (DAT quality) and a few of the more recent ones as digital video (but not many of the latter), mostly trad and contemporary folk with a little jazz and country. Quality to posterity is variable - some local performers only of no general interest, others are professionals or semi-professional, either in UK or (since 1986) Australians, and Americans/UK on tour in Oz; some of the tape quality is variable too, especially the earlier ones. If I work up 2-3 per year for release there is probably 20+ years' work there, by which time I will be approaching ninety! So perhaps I should get my skates on. As discussed earlier, one stumbling block is getting performers' permission to release - but perhaps I should try harder - a few feelers put out in the past but no concerted effort. However (for example) both Nic Jones and Chris Foster have come to the party this year, so to speak... others just put put out there for "historic interest" without asking permission thus far. |
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06 Aug 21 - 03:40 PM (#4115648) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees And then there are off-air recordings too (radio and occasionally TV) - some not apparently available elsewhere (but that is a fish of a different colour...), plus a few traded tapes/things given to me by friends (not first generation, but who know if better copies survive...) - ho hum... |
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06 Aug 21 - 06:23 PM (#4115665) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees Some follow-up discussion on the Chris Foster recording on his Facebook page - not sure if you have to be his friend to read it - see Chris Foster comment + more - Tony |
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09 Aug 21 - 02:36 PM (#4115946) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: The Sandman re |
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25 Aug 21 - 04:12 AM (#4117774) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees Hi all, just chipping away at the archive further: Monsieur Camembert (band) - Hobart, March 2000 My live digital recording from the PA, with a little subsequent sweetening/remastering... FYI Monsieur Camembert is a 5-7(+) piece band from Sydney, Australia, who play their own blend of gypsy, swing, chanson and klezmer music, fronted by one Yaron Hallis. Their own page is at https://thehotclub.tripod.com/camembert.html. And yes, I did obtain permission from Yaron (just recently) to upload this concert recording, otherwise previously uncirculated. Enjoy... Regards - Tony |
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25 Aug 21 - 07:37 PM (#4117867) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Sandra in Sydney another good one, Tony, only (insert very large number here) more tapes to be processed! sandra ps. copying your link leads to a page with a link to their new website which gives a 404 error & a suggestion to update my browser (hmmmm, I updated my browser yesterday) & hovering over this suggestion shows browsehappy.com a site maintained by Wordpress according to Wikipedia. |
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26 Aug 21 - 02:49 AM (#4117889) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees Hi Sandra, Yes, it appears Monsieur Camembert's new web site is not online/operational yet. We will await further developments! Meanwhile you might be amused to know that the group is named after the nickname of Baro Ferret, one of Django's accompanists and an excellent (but little recorded) guitar player in his own right, so named because of his great love of that particular cheese... Cheers - Tony |
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26 Aug 21 - 05:00 AM (#4117894) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Sandra in Sydney once upon a time I had a lot of jazz CDs, including a couple of boxed set o Django's music but then I got more involved in folks & eventually the dust-collecting jazz when to a charity. being named after a classic cheese is an excellent idea. |
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11 Sep 21 - 04:23 PM (#4119623) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees Next recording from the archive (video this time): The Wrigley Sisters (Jennifer & Hazel Wrigley) live in concert, Tasmania, 2002 With thanks to Hazel and Jennifer for permission to upload! Cheers - Tony |
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12 Sep 21 - 04:20 PM (#4119745) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees Since this thread is becoming a bit long, and has also maybe served its purpose, at least for discussing the ethics of / available mechanisms for making folk club recordings available, I thought I would create a separate thread for consolidation of "my" small contributions to the greater good of making this stuff available for the enjoyment of others: so see new thread at Live recordings - Tony Rees archive. I will also use that place to announce future material that I put on line as I have enthusiasm and time available. Cheers - Tony |
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12 Sep 21 - 04:23 PM (#4119746) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees Sorry, error with the link posted above: try this one: Live recordings - Tony Rees archive. |
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14 Sep 21 - 04:05 PM (#4119958) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees Just a follow-up to some discussion earlier in this thread - regarding the ethics of putting out material with/without permission of the original performers... I have taken the suggestions on board and since this year, attempted to contact performers (in this case, pro- and semi-pro musicians in the main) before putting material up, following the principle that they deserve to be the "gatekeepers" of such material recorded by audience members - whether this is ultimately for good or bad (for posterity) is a different question of course. Of around 10 acts contacted this far, about 7 said OK (some with a little hesitation in case they thought that the performance might not be good enough, or no-one would be interested in seeing/hearing it, or they may have said something politically incorrect on the night...), so those shows have gone up... One has said no, they prefer to keep control of "performance quality" of what is available to go out to their audience, and this *might* not be good enbough (that is without seiing the footage, I have sent it privately to see if I can change their mind). One I sent to the artist who (it turns out) is doing their own series of live recording releases, and *may* want some of it for inclusion in that; what happens to the rest, or all of it if nothing is used, is not clear... Another tape is a bit bogged down... one member of the group concerned is fine with it, but needs to contact 2 others who may or may not be contactable 25+ years later to get their OK as well... Hmm. I am still hoping that one can go out at some stage. In several cases I sent the material to the artists involved several years back and received a vague "thanks" but no bites as to my suggestion to release it further, however on re-contacting them recently they said fine, why not? So it seems persistence can be required, and produce a useful result in some cases... Just my experiences so far, potentially of interest RE this thread, more to come no doubt. Cheers - Tony |
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14 Sep 21 - 04:24 PM (#4119960) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker Brilliant effort and commitment to preserve our niche musical culture for music enthusiasts .. |
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14 Sep 21 - 06:09 PM (#4119971) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees Thanks PFR for your kind comment... Just mulling over this further - I am certain that, in some cases, "original artists" can have a different viewpoint on this sort of material than "fans" or serious devotees of the music ... for the original artist, what they did 40, 20 years ago, or less, can be of little interest to them (apparently) since either they have moved on since, or may view early appearances with a certain "cringe factor" - I know I do! As per, "did I really look/play/sing like that back in those days". Hard to reconcile the two viewpoints, plus that of history to come... As you may sense from previous views expressed here, I am on the side of history, but agree that present views of of artists should be respected. What happens when some or all of us are later deceased is a different matter again, maybe... Regards - Tony |
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14 Sep 21 - 08:48 PM (#4119977) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Sandra in Sydney Since 2008 we've been recording all our concerts, but almost nothing is on our Loaded Dog Folk Club youtube channel - 16 videos in 13 years, & 2 of them came from other events! Our recordings are an archival record of a local folk club with a very famous singing audience. If the artists want a copy of their set they can get a copy. Maybe one day in years to come, maybe when we are all ash or dust, someone will go thru our archives ... |
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15 Sep 21 - 01:14 AM (#4119991) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees RE my previous post about contacting artists for permission to make their performances available, I wrote: "Of around 10 acts contacted this far, about 7 said OK" Actually I was forgetting, several other emails I sent just never got an answer. Maybe the persons involved just don't care about their old work getting out there (but their followers do!)... - Tony |
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15 Sep 21 - 01:52 AM (#4119994) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker errrmmm.. well us lot should know better than most other music fans just how difficult, unreliable, unhelpful, stubborn, petty, contrary, spiteful, etc, etc, etc, music artists can be.. Particularly as they become older and more misanthropic... Yes.. WE musicians and singers don't always have the best judgement and intentions regarding our musical legacy... Then there's obstructive greedy relatives inheriting our estates who can make matters even worse for music fans... Music enthusiast folks like you Tony deserve full praise for volunteering to put up with and negotiate all the problems to keep our long forgotten music alive and accessible... Cheers... On the other hand, us musicians don't have to become such dicks at the end of our lives; and in reality most us us hopefully aint...!!! |
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26 Sep 21 - 04:00 PM (#4121048) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees My audio and video "releases from the archives" is continuing quite well, see other thread "Live recordings - Tony Rees archive", https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=170354. Meanwhile an interesting dilemma... as sometimes happens, a touring act plays more than one show in one's home town and I happened to tape or video more than one of them (in this case, two on consecutive nights). What to do? Put up both (probably overkill); try to select the overall better of the 2 as a historical document; or fillet the best numbers/performances out of each and join them together in a form that no longer represents an intact concert? Hmm... Graham Nash did the third of these options for the 40-date tour of Crosby/Stills/Nash/Young in 1974, for a live compilation released many years later. However there are still those (myself included) who also enjoy watching a complete show at a single venue, only possible because a bootleg exists in this case (the dreaded "b" word again...) |
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27 Sep 21 - 09:57 AM (#4121085) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker Tony - you know hardcore fans would want both concerts.. .. even if casual listeners couldn't detect a single note of difference... You might find this kinda tangential related article interesting...??? https://www.soundonsound.com/people/steven-wilson-remixing-classic-albums Extracts: "Wilson's first crack at remixing for another artist was also his first experience of finding alternative takes and unheard versions among the multitracks, which can form part of the draw for fans who always want to hear that little bit extra from the archive. Wilson's personal preference is to find new songs or completely alternative treatments of songs, rather than simply alternative takes. On Crimson King he found a haunting version of 'I Talk To The Wind' with just Fripp on guitar and Ian McDonald on flute. "That was a beautiful instrumental," he says, "and a completely different piece, really, not just another take of what we already know. To me, alternate takes are not so interesting, though I understand there are people out there who would happily listen to a whole disc of studio run-throughs of '21st Century Schizoid Man'. What I'm excited by is when you find a performance that actually adds something new to the canon." "The artist can be an important contributor to the process. "They have the prerogative, of course, to change their own work," Wilson says. "You don't want to mess with someone else's vision, but all the same I think often it's better that the artist isn't too closely involved in the project, at least during the main mixing process. One artist refused to include a version of a classic track with seven or so minutes of the band improvising beyond the original fade; another vetoed an out-take because he hadn't written it. Wilson has to be a diplomat in addition to his technical duties." "Many of the Tull records that Wilson has remixed provided an unusually rich seam of unreleased or little-heard songs. In his estimation, the Tull tapes generally reveal at least twice as many songs as were selected for the final album. With Aqualung, for example, there was enough for an entire disc of such material, most of which was in an almost-finished state. "The Tull series has been a lot of fun," he says, "finding all these completely unreleased songs that even Ian can't remember recording. Apparently they quite often went into the studio, recorded a song, and then literally forgot all about it — didn't even mix it!." "There have even been instances where the artist has asked Wilson to change things and he has been resistant. "One said to me 'Oh, when we played that in the studio, we played it too slow. Can you speed it up?' I said 'No! I'm not going to do that. This is a classic album, and whether you're happy with it or not, this is like a sacred text. I'm not going to change it." |
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27 Sep 21 - 03:32 PM (#4121113) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees Thanks PFR... you write: > Tony - you know hardcore fans would want both concerts.. > .. even if casual listeners couldn't detect a single note of > difference... Correct - but there are varying levels of "hardcore" and "fans"... I think my dilemma described here arises because I am trying to do 2 functions with a single tool (youtube) which is better for the second than the first, in practice at least. The first is to archive materials for posterity (for which I too think both concerts should be preserved) and the second is to make material available (and sufficiently interesting) to potential listeners/viewers, which may require judicious subsetting, editing and splicing, or simply avoiding posting "almost" the same material twice to avoid boredom/overkill. Meanwhile in this case I have decided to hedge my bets for the moment, as follows - (1) digitise both concerts at best quality for my own holdings before the tape deteriorates any further; and (2) send a (slightly reduced quality, suitable for easier emailing and youtube) copy of both concerts to the original artist, who has expressed the desire to do the upload themselves to their own youtube channel, and let them decide which is the better one for public viewing (in other words, outsource the "hard" decision/s). Obviously this does not quite fulfil the "permanent archive" function, but also does not close off any future options, at least so long as COVID (or a passing truck) does not carry me off... Cheers - Tony |
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27 Sep 21 - 06:18 PM (#4121127) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees The above small exchange prompts some further thoughts, for those that have the patience to read further... Up to now with this thread, I have been (mainly) addressing the stated topic which is "Making folk club recordings available", however in my mind I have been conflating it with a related but different issue, namely, creating a long term repository (archive) of this material, something I had already addressed (sort of) with my parallel archive of photographs, see other mudcat thread, "A repository for your music pictures...". For pictures, I figured that I could use Wikimedia Commons as both an archive and as the means to make the material available; as a repository, it allows you to upload material of as high resolution exists (more or less) and you are happy to release for public re-use, also it is maintained "in perpetuity" (hopefully) by the Wikimedia Foundation, which is a non-commercial, public-good operation. However for audio and/or video recordings, the vehicle I have settled on - YouTube - at least for now, is not really archival quality: video and, in particular audio are not stored at their original highest quality settings (although the HD video capacity is pretty good, and probably exceeds the low-to-medium resolution of most of my original videos), with the result that the question of a long term archive (preferably maintained in perpetuity by someone else, at no cost to the depositer) is not really answered at this time: when I pass on, my original materials will still most likely go to the tip. Thoughts, anyone? |
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27 Sep 21 - 08:29 PM (#4121136) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST Whilst you may try and take no responsibility - some recordings will contain copyright songs. These songs may be owned by publishers and copyright collection societies. Fine if its outright trad. stuff. but the original performers may not hold the rights to songs even if they gave you permission to put them on youtube, When you sign a rights collection agreement, it gives the organisation the rights to license the work. I note on one outright bootleg recording you put on youtube of Albert Lee, that an auto recognition software match was made on a couple of songs. It really is a step too far to start distributing copyright material without considering that you have to check each individual song's status. Make that material available on some kind of external site, and someone else is likely to take even free material and sell it, ripping off songwriters, artists, publishers, and rights organisations. |
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28 Sep 21 - 12:26 AM (#4121152) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees Hi Guest once more (I'm sure we could get better acquainted if you had a name, but there you go)... Look, I do take your comments on board and you will note that, from Nic Jones onwards with my uploads, except for a couple, I have not only refrained from putting anything up that includes "cover versions" where the copyright interests to which you allude may well apply, but also cleared the uploads with the artsts themselves, to ensure that they are happy for these audience recordings (bootlegs if you will) to be put up with their approval. RE "Make that material available on some kind of external site, and someone else is likely to take even free material and sell it, ripping off songwriters, artists, publishers, and rights organisations." - well that is what I actually call bootlegging (or piracy), taking someone else's property withut authorization and trying to make money out of it. Of course educated potential purchasers will (or should) avoid paying for such products since they can get them without charge if they look. The same bootleggers can (and do) take commercially available product and bootleg that - I cannot see why they should find old audience recordings of a niche listening area a likely target in reality, compared with (say) Michael Jackson, Sting, etc. etc. The Albert Lee/Vince Gill show to which you refer is actually an interesting case: it turns out that "the guys" did 2 shows there on consecutive days, day 1 was taped by the sound guy from the PA (better quality) and day 2 by myself from the audience (worse quality), and the "better quality" recording has just received an official release, selected tracks available here via youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Albert+Lee+Vince+Gill+LIVE+at+the+Prince+of+Wales+Hotel+1988. 2 of these are the ones picked up by the YouTube "automatic listener" as potential copyright violations... however the "official" release is a lot clearer and I cannot see in practice that my "unofficial" one is in any way a threat to any revenues that the "official" one might generate. In any case, in these situations, YouTube does not remove the material, it merely issues a caution that myself as the uploader cannot make any money from it via advertising revenue, which is fair enough in my book. The bottom line (for me) is that if either Albert or Vince, or their management, so advise, I can always take my "rival" version down (in fact I have been told that they are aware it exists, and have chosen not to do so, thus far at least). So I sleep (reasonably) happy at night in this particular case, but can always alter my position should the situation change. Ultimately again this is just revisiting territory covered earlier in this thread, for which there are a range of viewpoints, for which the olders are unlikely to change their positions any time soon... |
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28 Sep 21 - 02:15 AM (#4121154) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST Auto recognition only works in certain cases, and is never failsafe on any side. But what it does do is allow the publishers and some copyright societies to monetize the track if they should choose. There are so many millions of videos out there, that a lot gets ignored and never found. However, any copyright holder can order youtube to remove material but they have to know that they are being pirated in the first place. Youtube will remove it when a complaint is made. There are separate copyrights involved in the performance and the songs being performed. Just cause nobody has seen it doesn't make it legal. You are still a bootlegger and acting against the copyright act, it's just that those involved don't know. But it was your intention to freely distribute modern copyright recordings which is totally immoral. There is a fine line difference between putting up a niche recording on the quiet and the creation of a specific free exchange system of copyright material. Also it does people out of artistic credit for songs, and people thinking there is no copyright in a work. As I say though a different matter for old trad. material, but even then there may be published arrangements involved. |
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28 Sep 21 - 03:10 AM (#4121155) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker "totally immoral.. GUEST - .. and with that you have blown any chance of being taken seriously, or being accorded further respect for your position. Tony wasted too much time and energy being reasonable and polite to you, when 2 short sharp words would have been far more apropriate... .. totally immoral FFS.. get a grip... Tell us you aren't one of those music biz legal/accounting parasites screwing your big fat percentage out of the meagre earnings of music artists...??? Why not talk about the scandal of major music corporations getting away with plaguing youtube musicians with dishonest false rights claims on their hard work videos, to ruthlessly extort advertising revenue.. That's real piracy with menace.. That's what's bloody immoral...!!! |
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28 Sep 21 - 04:03 AM (#4121158) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees "Totally immoral" - no, since putting up the Nic Jones show, the copyright for all the material that I have uploaded is either trad (no copyright) or resides with the performers who have given me approval to put up the shows (own compositions), namely: Jez Lowe, Tasmania 1997 - own compositions, permission given Mark Robson (musician), Tasmania 1995 - own compositions, permission given Kristina Olsen, Tasmania 1997 - own compositions, permission given Kavisha Mazzella, Australian singer-songwriter, Tasmania 1996 (main hall set) - own compositions, permission given Neil Adam (Australian Singer-Songwriter), Tasmania 1997 - own compositions, permission given The Wrigley Sisters (Jennifer & Hazel Wrigley) live in concert, Tasmania, March 2002 - own compositions plus trad., permission given Monsieur Camembert (band) - Hobart, March 2000 (audio) - own compositions + trad., permission given Chris Foster in concert 1975 / in session 1977 (audio only) - traditional, permission given Chris Foster at the Gypsy Davey Folk Club, Oxford, March 1975 (audio only) - traditional, permission given Nic Jones at Oxford Polytechnic Folk Club, March 1975 (audio only) - traditional, permission given If regarding other shows my actions are "totally immoral", I am in good (bad?) company, e.g. see Dime, Sugarmegs as well as Youtube - many, many, many, many more shows put up there than mine. I suggest you address your complaints there in the first instance and see how far it gets you... There are indeed a small number of older shows that I uploaded for which I did not seek permission, but the weight of views on this forum (other than yours) seems to be that there is minimal harm done, and they can be removed if requested by relevant parties. Honestly, I am not trying to pick a fight here, just trying to find a way to save culturally significant material that would otherwise disappear when I do... - Tony |
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28 Sep 21 - 08:24 AM (#4121169) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Dave the Gnome If anyone is in the slightest bit interested, Swinton Folk Club had a YouTube page All recording from around 2010 and all done with permission. |
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28 Sep 21 - 10:55 AM (#4121186) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST Performers giving permission is not a guarantee, or get out clause. You would have to check every single song, and its ownership status. An artist doesn't necessarily own a song, it depends whether it is public domain, whether it has a publisher, whether it is signed to a collection society. There are two rights, the performer's rights (which they may have wavered), and the material they are performing, which they may own or not own. It might be fully trad. To forgo some of these rights is not for the artist to do, if it is assigned to a publisher or copyright society. You are still acting illegally with the Albert Lee/Vince Gill recording and other modern copyright material. It's just that you may not ever get noticed, and they have untold amounts of bigger issues to deal with. |
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28 Sep 21 - 11:00 AM (#4121188) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Dave the Gnome Interesting, above Guest. Thank you. Do these things still apply if no money is changing hands? |
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28 Sep 21 - 11:29 AM (#4121192) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker "illegal" - that's a big powerful threatening word to be bandying about...??? GUEST - So.. sharing free niche genre amateur recordings with fellow music enthusiasts and archivists.. This evil immoral crime is TOP of international law enforcement's list of most important urgent investigations.. is it ??? Tony Rees - Public Enemy Number One.. If seen, do not approach this arch criminal. He may be armed with an old cassette recorder... .. get a grip...!!! |
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28 Sep 21 - 11:50 AM (#4121195) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST Yes Dave the Gnome. Though it is seldom a problem, as the Internet is so vast. But you can have any copyright material pulled, whether money is changing hands or not. Also even youtube have started placing adverts on channels. The big guns use auto recognition software to pick up on song use, but it is seldom effective and often wrong. As in the case of Albert Lee and Vince Gill. It only picked out two songs, and not the actual recordings being used. So it will not at the moment pick up on Joe Bloggs performing a cover of some obscure folk song. The copyright notice you receive is not permission, it just means that two songs were picked up on, and that the owner can place adverts on the songs, usually instead of having them removed. But they can still ask for removal. All rights holders can have anything removed, but many are happy to see old recordings appear. But as said, the artist may not have the right to give permission on the song they are singing, unless it is truly traditional or they own their own rights. |
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28 Sep 21 - 12:02 PM (#4121197) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Dave the Gnome Thanks again, Guest. Much appreciated. Is the word "illegal" right though? Surely, if it is illegal, it is a criminal offence and can result in criminal prosecution and punishment? Or is that what unlawful means? I always get the terms confused! Anyhow, whatever the case, posting or performing copyrighted music would not incur criminal proceedings but civil ones would it not? And, as long as the party performing or posting complied with any ruling on the civil case, they would not be prosecuted. Or is that too simplistic? |
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28 Sep 21 - 01:24 PM (#4121205) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: GUEST Just technically illegal, but on a small scale - intellectual copyright theft in the UK. Almost always civil means are used. The federation against copyright theft, and BPI take down websites on a larger scale - like they used to do with pirate factories, but mostly copyright owners are left to get on with it using civil means, as there are always plagiarism claims and duplicate claims. The costs are prohibitive. So criminally usually used to take down 'factories' and illegal download websites that kind of larger stuff. But it is not a lie to say recording material from a concert and making it available, without all permissions in place, is usually technically illegal. Then I bet even the odd police man whips their mobile phone out records a concert and shoves excerpts on social media. When do we cross a line between low key sharing odd videos and recordings for fun, and something that is obviously dodgy and deliberately going to a different level? It is a difficult call to make. |
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28 Sep 21 - 01:35 PM (#4121210) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker Despite the power and greed of American / International music industry lobbyists, these laws are effectively way outdated, and near impossible to enforce. Beyond occasional showcase trials and draconion punishments intended to intimidate sharing music fans. The Music biz has had 30 years to adjust to the internet, and is now gleefully ripping off music artists with legal streaming sites.. .. and bullying youtube channels to hand over their pittance of advertising revenue.. So who are the real villains...??? |
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28 Sep 21 - 03:18 PM (#4121219) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: Tony Rees Actually I do believe that YouTube and similar sites operate in a bit of a grey area of "technical illegality" at the present, however the existence of audience and similar non-professional recordings (in particular) is tolerated by the copyright holders, where infringed, on the basis that (1) most publicity is good publicity, and helps also drive new users to "official product" from which money can be made, and (2) the artists themselves (and by extension their lawyers and publishing companies) maybe do not want the bad press that would accompany prosecutions of fans for sharing such material, since without fans, they would have no existence in the "music business", also they prefer to look more like good guys than bad guys... I do foresee 2 alternatives down the track (a bit like home video taping TV shows, technically illegal in many countries for a long period in the past - you could technically buy the machine, but it was illegal to use it) - one, come down in a draconian fashion on all unauthorized content on YouTube etc. (force them to take it down), or two, accept it is there, make it legal, and monetize it with ad revenue back to the copyright owners (which is almost the situation today). I would be interested to know whether those shouting loudest about the technical illegality of these actions can place their hand on their heart and say that if visited tomorrow by the copyright police, said police would not find in their possession a single home-burned CD/digital copy of a commercially released item, or a cassette copy of a vinyl record made in years gone by, or even a video recording made off the TV for purposes other than time shifting - all other cases where the law if applied to the letter would look stupid. - Tony |
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28 Sep 21 - 07:44 PM (#4121249) Subject: RE: Making folk club recordings available From: punkfolkrocker "Grey area"...??? Youtube business model depends on turning a blind eye... Millions of folk work hard on uploading videos to provide youtube with free content, which they then monetize with advertising rake-offs. Feeding a little revenue back down the chain to individual video makers. Major corporation rights holders, and other criminals, then exploit any petty accusations of infringements to mug the small fry videographers, forcing them to hand over their ad money under various threats to their channels.. Easy scam money off the backs of powerless ordinary folks, simply by employing AI and minions to log petty, or downright false, complaints on an industrial scale. Youtube automatically sides with the dispute fabricators to maintain a charade of stringent legality. Meanwhile, youtube is also making a nice little earner charging subscription fees to stream and download all this 'no questions asked / grey area' content on Youtube Premiun, and Youtube music... The main premium selling point is the facility to DOWNLOAD...!!! Youtube could't survive if they only provided 100% technically legal content... We know it.. they know it... |