[Dixielandjazz] Seeking 1925 music of Sugar Foot Stomp

[TCASHWIGG at aol.com]

In a message dated 7/21/03 8:22:49 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
jazzboard at hotmail.com writes:

> 
> Perhaps someone can clarify that for the rest of us.
> 
> 1. How long is a copyright on a composition? 

 Usually 28 years, and renewable, but there have been so many revisions to 
the law and 
> applications that you really have to spend a lot of time trying to 
> understand it.

There are so many copyright laws and revisions on the records that it is 
literally impossible to figure it out anymore, and purposefully so, as the 
scoundrels who started the scheme have changed it so many times to confuse everyone 
except themselves and their lawyers.  If you want a real live nightmare, just 
try suing somebody for copyright infringement, and you better have real deep 
pockets to pay the legal fees for the expert copyright lawyers to try and figure 
out how you could possibly ever win.

The last time I tried this on an open and shut case it took a year and they 
still could not even decide what laws applied and which revisions, and the 
judge took one look at the 750 page copyright revision book published for that 
year and said forget it, let's hear the case on the grand theft charges rather 
than spend the rest of our lives trying to understand the copyright laws.

Since that case, The RIAA association still uses my prosecution procedures of 
that case to win their copyright and illegal bootlegging cases.  It proved to 
be far more effective and explainable and you could actually get a judge to 
stay awake on the bench long enough to understand it and make a ruling.  To the 
best of my knowledge they have not lost a case since they started doing this.


> 2. Does it start at the time of its creation or the time of a formal 
> copyright?

The best way to protect it if it can actually be protected, and unless it 
becomes a smashing BIG hit recording it does not need to be protected, because 
you will never see any money for the money you pay to file the copyright in most 
cases.

Make a copy of the "work" either in paper or on a tape recording, or in 
today's world burn a CD of it and put on it the good old circled c for copyright, 
listing yourself as the author of the "work" and owning all rights to it.  Now 
mail the thing to yourself through the US Postal Service and the date of the 
canceled postage will become the official copyright date of the "WORK."  Also 
once you have recorded the material and released it on a commercial recording 
the record label will also carry the copyright information and the date of 
manufacturing will establish the recorded rights copyright as well.
> 
> P.S.   Don't stay home a lot waiting for the royalty checks, unless of 
> course Kenny G, records your song and starts selling a million copies of it, now 
> you can collect some money, but you will still have to wait for 1/2 of the 
> rest of your life to get any of it, because the lawyers, RIAA, BMI or ASCAP or 
> SESAC and the Library of Congress will all have their hands out to collect it 
> for you and pass it around within their ranks to dissipate most of it before 
> you actually get any of the crumbs that are left over.

Bottom line, if they give you Credit as the song writer, take it, that's 
about what it will be worth to you at least financially.  You can then have Name 
recognition and start to get other famous artists and producers interested in 
using or buying some of your other songs, if they are HIT material.
> 
> Entertainingly yours,
> 
> Tom Wiggins
> 
> "Been there and done that"