The Demise of ottrlibrary.org

I sort of agree and disagree at the same time.
Take the Carole King song "One Fine Day" that was performed by the Chiffons. Now the writer and the performer have made their money, right.  But even though the song was written close to 60 years ago, a new crop of people could still buy the record or what if the song was used in a commercial now, shouldn't Carole King still get royalties for the use of her song? No matter how much time has passed? Say a Beach Boy song is  used in a movie or a commercial, no matter how old it is, should that matter? A whole new generation could discover the Beach Boys and even though 50 years has passed since the songs were written should that mean anyone can use what Brian Wilson created and in effect leave the creator of the songs without any control or benefit of the use of their creation?
This can apply to anyone, I just took two examples.
So yes I see your point but sort of half agree.
Oh Yes another good example......The song "black Betty" in 1978(If I remember right) by Ram Jam, a rock band. The song was a pretty big hit. They did their own arrangement of it but the song was written in 1933 and performed by Huddie Ledbetter("Lead Belly") and he is credited with being the writer. If the song is rediscovered years later does it matter how much time has passed? Especially if a song was written and the writer never had success with it and it went into archives but then got discovered and performed 60 years later or used in a commercial or movie should not the artist still share in the success of his/her work? By the way he also wrote Good Night Irene.....same thing. Time shouldn't matter.

Just my two cents.

Two things:

1.  Time does matter.  Why should people other than the creator(s) of the song benefit, i.e., why should the estate, which consists of people who had nothing to do with a song creation, benefit?  Those that were writing and performing songs and radio shows in the time period being talked about knew the terms and conditions of the then copyright laws.  At the time, the entire show (including the music) was copyrighted for 25 years, and you had to request an extension for a further 25 years - most didn't.  Retroactively changing the laws to benefit dead people or corporations who weren't interested at the time is just plain wrong.

2.  In terms of OTR, many of these shows might contain incidental music and/or one performance that fits into the plot.  In almost all cases it's not the music that people are listening to the show for, but the comedy, or the performances.  Why should the addition of a single song cause the entire show to somehow not be public domain after the requisite period of time?  There are many movies from the 30s, 40s and 50s that have fallen into the public domain, and the included musical soundtracks don't change that fact.

Virtually all OTR shows, including copyright, were outright owned by their sponsors.  They saw little value in saving the shows, and junked the master transcriptions.  The only reason that some shows survived is that people went into the trash to retrieve what was thrown out.  For that reason alone, all these OTR shows should be in the public domain.

In comment to your first point, What if the writer is alive? Should "Yesterday" be public domain? Should everything Brian Wilson and Mike Love(Beach Boys) wrote now be public domain? What about the hundreds of hit songs Carole King wrote in the 50s and 60s? And 70s. She's still alive and well.

What if say, James Taylor, to pull a name out of a hat, writes "Fire And Rain" and the song is a smash hit, but he dies a year later. Should the song be now public domain?

Someone could take Black Betty as my example song and claim it as theirs if they want, if it's public domain. Songs that Carole King wrote could just be stolen after 25 years, or 50 years whatever. Even if she's alive.
This is my argument.

The fact as to whether a song creator is alive or dead is not the issue here.  Perhaps I haven't been clear.

Old time radio shows were owned solely by the sponsors.  It was the sponsors who paid for everything (including music rights), eventually getting the master transcription disks, and it was the sponsors that decided their intrinsic worth and threw them out (only to be rescued by diehard fans).

In most of the shows (except for musical variety ones), the few songs that were included became a fairly minor part of the overall performance (similar to movie soundtracks of the time).  At the time, copyright for an entire radio show was for 25 years (including the music and everything else in it), and could be extended for another 25 years.  Virtually no owner extended that copyright (why would you if you were essentially throwing out the shows in the garbage?).  So after that 25 years, most shows lapsed into the public domain.

How then can anyone claim copyright now?  The law states that if something lapses into the public domain, it can't be taken back out.  Even if individual songs contained within an OTR show are still copyrighted, the entire show may not be.  Just as is the case with movies that have fallen into the public domain from the 30s, 40s & 50s.

Again, artists need to be paid.  They were, and they are even more so today.  Just don't go changing the copyright rules of yesteryear to benefit the estates of people that already have been well paid.

I see your point and agree there.

I watch TV shows on youtube like Bonanza(full episodes) etc and I was watching Gunsmoke for a while every night and suddenly the many full episodes that were there recently disappeared! Only excerpts still are there. Was this a copyright thing that happened? Yet other shows from the 50s 60s and 70s are all still there...hundreds of full episodes. Lots of full length movies....Vincent Price horrors, Westerns, Old radio dramas, CBS radio Mystery Theater(hundreds of those). Guess those are in the public domain now?
I agree that if it's not the owner of the song or TV show/movie that has the rights and it's a corporation who had nothing to do with the creation of it or an estate then I agree fully with you. Is this what happened with Gunsmoke? It was in the public domain and was suddenly reversed?

Holy cow. There is so much mis-information and speculation in this thread!

This all starts with a guess.  We must "imagine" that an OTR site is gone because of copyright laws.

Then it goes downhill from there. Sponsors did not "own" the shows.  The stations or networks didn't haul stacks of 16" transcription discs over to sponsors offices.  99% of the time the sponsor and the show creation location were in completely different cities.  Often across the country.  They did not ship them around the country.  In fact there were actually recording services that provided sponsors (who signed up for and paid for) with recordings of shows so they could hear the content and make sure it aligned with their product and standards. Every major city had someone offering an "air check" service. Recording requested shows off the air in certain cities for the sponsors to review.  Sponsors certainly had some (some more than others) control over content, that is certain.  And actors, engineers, etc were paid from the money collected from the sponsors but the sponsors did not pay them directly.  Just like today, we sell commercials.  We use that income to pay the stations costs including announcer salaries and  music rights, right on down to the power bill and postage stamps.  But we don't say our sponsors or advertisers "own" the broadcasts!

There was no copyright term in the USA of 25 years. 28, yes taking effect in 1831.   There are many more complexities involved in the rights and ownership of an OTR show than simply the copyrights that I don't have the time to go into.

Generally once something falls into the Public Domain it must stay.  Some details here https://www.zootradio.com/Copyrights.html but you can find the information at much more formal and official sites as well, here it's just explained in more people friendly terms.  And yes, since this was posted there have been changes in the law. As of 2010 there are some exceptions to this but congress must approve something leaving the PD.

Now, here's MY take on copyright.  For what it's worth -- which may not be much.

I cannot grasp the concept of being a content creator and expecting to get paid for your work basically forever. Whether you're a song writer, book writer, photographer, poet, or creator of any other "intellectual property".   The original copyright laws of the USA protected such for 14 years, and could be renewed for 14 more. (interesting timeline at: https://www.copyright.gov/timeline/timeline_18th_century.html ) I think 28 years is more than enough, total, for copyright.

This whole "I wrote a song and need to be compensated my entire lifetime and that of my children and grand children too" is nuts. What makes a song, book, or whatever so valuable that the creator should get revenues forever? It's clearly not that hard to create.  Millions of songs have been written, published, recorded, distributed. Millions. If not billions by now. Sure, most were not "hits".  But note that a song I make up right now, on the spot, while sitting here in my underwear typing this, is protected exactly the same as the latest Taylor Swift hit. So hit status is irrelevant.

What do you do for a living?  Oh, I'm a song writer. What have you written lately? Nothing.  I wrote three hits in 1961 and I'm living off the royalties.  I don't even need a retirement plan, and my kids and grandkids have money assured them after I die too.

Everyone else has to continue to work for a living, save for retirement, and save for their kids college education.  But if you write a song, take a picture or write a book, you expect to be paid forever.

Does the heart surgeon who saves your life get paid forever?  Do all his patients continue to send him a check every year that they're still alive? I mean, after all, it was his skill as a surgeon that's keeping them alive. Shouldn't he be paid? OH, right. Writing a song is SO much more work, requires SO much more time, effort, and skill... than replacing a heart valve.

Ahh. Royalties. Greatest invention ever. The songwriter gets a check no matter who records the song.  Even though he  made no further effort, or made any investment at all. 23 years later some band decides to record the song again. They buy instruments. They learn to play. They hire a studio.  They pay for having the record pressed up or digitally distributed, or whatever, investing a lot of time and money, and then paying the cat who wrote it -- often in ten minutes while waiting for a bus -- royalties on every copy sold. Why? Because the writer worked once?

The concept of copyright was to insure the creator that he would be compensated for his work. Being compensated for 28 years seems like plenty.

Not only do you need to get paid when someone else records and sells their cover of your song, but you get paid when someone else HEARS it. Any public performance of that song, by ANYONE, even if they're not making money off it, generates a royalty.  If a guy is standing on the corner with a tip jar on the sidewalk singing a song you wrote you shall be paid. He the ASCAP guy walks by and heard you, you can bet you'll be asked for your public performance license.  Even if you DON'T have a tip jar, you'll be asked.  Because public performances MUST PAY for the rights to the song even if you're not making any money!

Here's an idea (I swear I've typed this before someplace, maybe here years ago). Lets look at the mechanic.  He's pretty skilled. And his work is more critical than that of a song writer, and clearly it's harder to do since there are substantially fewer ASE certified mechanics out there than there are registered BMI and ASCAP song writers.  So, lets say you have the mechanic do a brake job on your car. Obviously not something the average guy can do himself.  And you pay him for the work.  Just like a songwriter might get paid for a song he wrote. Now, that song writer will go on to collect royalties.  From others who record it, for every public performance, etc.  Lets do that for the mechanic.  We put a counter on the car so it counts up every time you stop. At the end of the year you pay .008 cents for every stop.  I figured out approximately how many times I might apply my breaks driving to work every day.  At .008 cents times per use of brakes that's about $64 a year (notice how I spared you all the math). That's JUST driving to work.  Now multiply that by how many brake jobs the mechanic does in a year. Adds up to a nice chunk of change doesn't it!

But it doesn't stop there. Lets say he has the same sort of deal a song writer gets. Everyone who benefits from , or enjoys a song pays for it. People pay to buy it on a CD. They pay for a download (these are the general public, beyond what the song writer got from the band, label, publisher, etc who got the rights to record the song) add in radio royalties, video royalties, etc..etc... So, lets say that mechanic gets paid from everyone who benefits from the brake job he did on your car.  You stopped at a 4-way stop intersection.  All three other cars there also benefitted from that brake job you got, as your brakes worked and prevented you from crashing into any one of them.  They ALL benefitted. So they should each pay some tiny amount to the mechanics royalty fund to cover their benefit from your brake job. And of course you too should pay a tiny amount to their mechanics for preventing their cars from hitting you. Then there were those pedestrians in the cross walk that you didn't hit.  And those kids crossing at the school crossing.  Without those brakes you may have hit them.  How about the owners of all those buildings where you parked?  You stopped at the Starbucks for coffee.  Didn't hit their building.  They owe the mechanic. Now, of course, keeping track of all this would be impossible so a Brake Rights Group is set up (much like ASCAP or BMI) who, using complex formulas (which no one is allowed to know) determines  how much each person should pay.  These monies are sent to the BRG, who of course keeps a chunk of it to operate their group and pay salaries.  Then sends a yearly check to the mechanics based on their reporting forms indicating how many brake jobs they did that year.

Everyone has to pay a little bit in to compensate the mechanics for their skills in doing brake jobs (or whatever). Why is it putting brakes in a car that prevents mass carnage on the roads every day isn't worth as much as "Louie Louie"?

What's harder? Writing a song or doing a brake job? Or doing brain surgery?  The only one with royalties is writing a song. A great example is "Blue Suede Shoes" written by Carl Perkins.  He overheard a guy at a dance tell his date "Do what you want but don't step on my blue suede shoes".  Carl quickly jotted down some notes on a potato chip bag. Came up with "One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, now go cat go" .... but don't you step on my blue suede shoes...".  OK, so his opening line is from a children rhyme that dates back to the 1800's.  Did he pay royalties for that? Copyright existed then.  Did he pay the guy on the date who said the line that the entire song was based on? Did he slave for hours crafting a brilliant song?  Did he some up with a unique melody?  No, he used a standard three chord blues progression (chord progressions can't be copyrighted, BTW).  But, his estate is still collecting royalties. The guy who basically gave him the entire concept for the song got nothing.

Interesting that if I invent a cure for cancer and get a patent, it's protected for 20 years. That's 20 years from when I get the patent. Not 20 years from when it goes on the market.  So if I get the patent (which you would do before you try to market your cure) and then spend 5 years finding a company to produce it and get it into production -- not to mention all the time wasted getting FDA approval, etc) you may end up with 5-10 years of actual practical protection for your life saving invention. Then, once that 20 years from date of patent goes by any one can make your product and owe you nothing.  So, you dedicate your life to curing cancer. Spend untold amounts of money working on it.  And in the final analysis get a few years of protected income for it.  In the meantime the writers of  "Do that to Me One More Time" by the Captain and Tennille get royalties forever.  Then their kids get the royalties. Then their kids kids get the royalties.

This is why so much innovation these days is done with software.  Automakers for example, rarely make mechanical changes to cars, except in the software in the vehicle computers.  Or they make engine advancements that require certain software to work right.  So the patent on the engine advancements runs out, but the copyright on the software to make it work goes on forever, thereby protecting their new technology basically forever -- not with the patent, but with the copyright for the software that makes the patent valuable.

Getting back to OTR.  Notice that there are substantially fewer shows around from before about 1943. That's because the discs they were recorded on had aluminum cores.  The transcription discs were made of lacquer coated aluminum discs (still are for mastering todays albums).  When WWII hit and they needed aluminum a major campaign was done to get stations, studios, etc to turn these in at scrap drives for metal for the war effort. Tons of transcription discs were donated for the war effort.  At the time of course there was no need to save them. They were heavy and took up lots of room.  Also, all the disc manufacturing companies before and after the war offered a return service. After a disc was no longer needed you could ship them back to the company for credit on your next purchase of blanks.  There would be ten times more shows laying around if not for these two facts.

Well. That was a long rant.

TIB

You're correct in stating that copyright issues being the cause of the disappearance of otrrlibrary was speculation on my part.  However, it is informed speculation, as many, many, other OTR sites are disappearing.  otrrlibrary.org was one of the largest, and therefore, most visible.

There's also no doubt that there is plenty of conflicting information regarding OTR copyrights and OTR rights in general.  I based mine on experience in being involved with OTR for many years, and research (including the reading of many books from those involved in that industry).  There could indeed be errors or misinformation in that.

But there's also no doubt that no less an authority than the Library of Congress has stated that most OTR shows passed into the public domain long before the copyright laws were revised in the late 70s.  In fact, "nor was any attempt to place them under such copyright protection was [sic] made when the window of opportunity for such existed in 1978-1979 when the copyright law regarding such recordings changed."  NO US broadcasts for the period 1929-1950 applied for such protection, just a few foreign ones.

That hasn't stopped some individuals and corporations from claiming copyright.  In most cases, the prospect of a costly legal battle eliminates the little guy, and sites like otrrlibrary just vanish.

For example, Conde Naste has single handedly caused most sites hosting The Shadow OTR shows to go away by claiming ownership (and threatening $150,000 minimum damages).  Now, there's no doubt that Conde owns The Shadow trademark, having obtained it in a company purchase.  But that doesn't necessarily mean that they own the rights to the radio shows, whose copyrights lapsed (and, as stated, no attempt was made to renew).

A similar situation exists with Superman and DC Comics.  DC Comics owns the Superman trademark, but there are a number of Superman cartoons made in the 40s that have lapsed into the public domain.

Radio Spirits, one of the OTR distribution pioneers, made the claim that they had purchased the rights to many OTR shows and threatened lawsuits (in the early 2000's).  However, if these shows had already lapsed into the public domain, there was really nothing to purchase.

I'm beginning to rethink this whole copyright/rights issue in the light of Part 15 broadcasting and streaming.  In Canada, no creator licensing is required from SOCAN for over the air broadcasting (only streaming), and any performance over 50 years old is already in the public domain (so you don't have to worry about ReSound or any of the other rights bodies).

Maybe I'll just give up the idea of streaming.  It all seems more trouble than what it's worth, particularly since I'm usually only the listener.

It was a good try, though.

Artisan said "Maybe I’ll just give up the idea of streaming. It all seems more trouble than what it’s worth, particularly since I’m usually only the listener".

Yes, if you go to the painstaking and very time consuming task of research to compile a playlist of public domain stuff. And it is complicated. And then I would ask does that allow streaming without paying anything to the Canadian rights bodies. You would have to ask to see if you are home free with that. You could make it simpler and stream paying the fees which are not enough to be to much of a deterrent. The biggest hurdle is keeping a log if needed but maybe some streaming provider will do that(don't know).

But you made the point I have posted about several times in the past. You think you are getting to the world but you just said what I have said all the time....you are one tree in a forest. Lost in the crowd, and the only listeners you will get is someone on this forum  but most of the time you are the only listener. When you were doing the do-wop and oldies stuff I listened only because I knew about it from you. If I was on the computer surfing online stations even in a certain genera, what are the chances I would have come across your stream?

Yes, you came to a good conclusion. Is all this trouble worth it to stream with no fees(maybe no fees). This copyright thing that I have read from these posts is a complicated thing with so many ifs, buts, maybe's, laws, who owns this, who doesn't own this, etc etc,,,,,,,,.

You have as much chance of a listener besides yourself(although local) from over the air and you don't have to worry about all of this. Or just pay the fees to Socan, Resound,  and the small monthly fee for the streaming service and save yourself all the aggravation.

If something is in the public domain, you can do anything you want with it.  So there would be no fees for broadcasting the material.

It's really unfortunate that there is little case law to back up any OTR claims, re public domain or ownership.

There is the Silverman decision for Amos & Andy.  In 1948, CBS purchased the rights for Amos & Andy from the creators, and went on to do both radio and TV shows.  In that decision, it was ruled that all radio shows broadcast prior to 1948 were in the public domain, and even the Amos & Andy characters and trademarks were also in the public domain.  Anything produced after and including 1948 was copyrighted, including the TV series.  Unfortunately, Amos & Andy is a show that I would not want to broadcast.

Even though Fibber McGee & Molly started broadcasting in the 30s and onwards, the show did not register its copyright until 1945.  If a radio broadcast is considered publishing (and there's differing opinions on that), then everything prior to 1944 for that show would be in the public domain.  But again, that's another unknown.

In Canada, I just discovered that even with OTR, copyright remains with a creator (even for an OTR show) 50 years after death.  Copyright remains for an unpublished work (and that could include a radio broadcast) for 50 years after its creation.  So again, more questions.

And as I mentioned previously, there's nothing stopping unscrupulous corporations such as Warner Brothers (with the song Happy Birthday), Conde Naste (with the Shadow OTR) and Radio Spirits (with numerous OTR shows) to claim ownership.  Even if taken to court and won (such as with WB and Happy Birthday), the costs are prohibitive.  The only reason WB was taken to court was that they were charging exorbitant sums for Happy Birthday to be included in any movie or TV show, so it was worth challenging.  At least the good guys win out over greed sometimes.

Finally, it's not really the money involved with streaming that bothers me.  I streamed for years under a SOCAN non-commercial license (which included streaming) for a small, fixed fee.  But now, you have to keep meticulous records of who listens to what, when and how, and calculate royalties based on listener impressions (I want to host my own server for maintenance, control and security reasons).  That's just too much work for no reward.

If I do go ahead and stream, it will be public domain classical (including opera) music, as I can absolutely determine what is in the public domain in Canada.  There, the laws are crystal clear.

It's too bad, as I believe I could have come up with an interesting mix of older classical recordings and off-the-beaten-track OTR.

Artisan said:

"Finally, it’s not really the money involved with streaming that bothers me. I streamed for years under a SOCAN non-commercial license (which included streaming) for a small, fixed fee. But now, you have to keep meticulous records of who listens to what, when and how, and calculate royalties based on listener impressions (I want to host my own server for maintenance, control and security reasons). That’s just too much work for no reward".

How do you know who's listening, and to what, and what their impression was? or when they listened? Is that possible? Do the commercial stations even know this? This is too far fetched to seem possible.

Oh heck yeah. They know.  In "real life" I work for three commercial stations, and we stream of course.

Streaming services, and proper streaming software keep track of all this for you. It is possible to stream with your own server if you use the proper software.

At work we use the services of securenetsystems.  They handle all this for us.  Smaller outfits might use streamlicensing, or some such similar outfit.

Your provider or your proper streaming software keeps track of what you are playing when. It also keeps track of all listener data. How many are listening, for how long and at what time. It keeps track of where they are located, right down to country and city, what time they listened and for how long, and even what operating system their computer was using to listen to your stream, and a whole lot more. Pile all this data into the system and they can tell you exactly how many people, and where they were, listened to the song you played at 10:27 AM on Tuesday morning.  And how many of them listened to the entire song, and in fact how long they remained connected and listening.  The amount of data generated by these systems is pretty mind boggling, actually.  We get a monthly report of listeners, times, locations, etc from our provider and it's got more data than you could ever want.  All this data is provided to the computers at SoundExchange where they determine who gets paid what and how much everyone has to pay in.

When they say "listener impressions" that doesn't mean how impressed they were with the song listened to. Each time they listen it's an "impression". So even if they only listened to your stream for  8 seconds that counts as an impression. Also, they don't know specifically the persons name who was listening, but they have the i.p. address of every listener, so they know where you are.  And if necessary it would be possible to pin that down to a specific street address where the name of the owners could be obtained -- a long and complex process involving several legal hurdles -- but you still wouldn't know who was listening in that specific household.  They they know that 27 people were listening in New York, NY at 7:57 PM on July 7, 2017 for example.

It IS possible to run your own streaming server. You have to buy the right software and insure that the proper data is fed to soundexchange. Most stations simply subscribe to a streaming company who takes care of all this like we do at work. They file the reports automatically with SoundExchange and send us data reports for our own information and amazement.

On my morning show I play a lot of obscure vinyl every day. Of course none of this spews data out of the computer to the licensing gods.  Our Sound Exchange agreement handles this by requiring me to write down the title, artist and record company of every song I play that's not backed up with streaming data for a two week period every quarter. Our office manager then enters this data into the sound exchange system manually.  Naturally I make sure to play the most obscure records on private labels that I can during these logging times, LOL. When these titles are entered into the system SE generates a code for the songs based on their database.  My goal is to see how many songs I can come up with that they don't have in their database, LOL.

Oops. Ignore my comments about Stream Licensing.  I see they shut down last month!  See https://www.streamlicensing.com for information. Live 365 is your next chance.

OH, and I know nothing about the Canadian rules, but I can tell you there is NO "free" streaming in the USA. The concept of playing all public domain music (pre-1923) doesn't exist for USA streaming.  Sound Exchange collects royalties for the PERFORMERS of the songs, not the songs themselves. So if you have the New York Philharmonic doing Beethovens Fifth Symphony, over the AIR that's free to use as PD but for streaming you pay royalties that go to the orchestra.  The only way you can play PD music on a stream in the USA with no royalties is if you're performing the song yourself, or an orchestra, band, or performer you hired is playing it. Even the Library of Congress will tell you there are zero PD sound recordings in the USA. Songs, yes. Recordings no.

The closing of Stream Licensing as an entire subject for a new thread!

TIB

In response to Tim's post.....absolutely amazing that the stream server can do all this! And know your computer's operating system?, mind boggling.

At least all the work of keeping a log is done for you, at a cost I presume.