[Dixielandjazz] Independence Hall JB CD

[Mike Marois]

Hello Jerry et al;

Oops, my bad.  I just jumped in out of turn, but I thought everyone should
know about the pirate labels out of Europe and what they're doing with some
American Artists' works.  As for the big companies not paying royalties, the
Estate of Frank J Assunto still gets checks from the major labels in the US.
I guess it's all in the contract you cut with them.

Mike


-----Original Message-----
From: Jazzjerry at aol.com [mailto:Jazzjerry at aol.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2003 5:27 PM
To: mikemarois at hirelivemusicians.com; Jazzjerry at aol.com;
Nickdragos at cs.com; ds.augustine at mail.utexas.edu;
dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Independence Hall JB CD



In a message dated 18/6/03 19:32:04, mikemarois at hirelivemusicians.com
writes:

<< In my honest opinion, people should only deal with the Columbias, RCAs,
and Universal labels.  When someone purchases a CD on those labels the
artist
still gets his/her royalties >>

Mike,

This is not correct at all. Over the past few years these labels
particularly
EMI /Capital have been putting out CDs of British bands such as Chris
Barber,
Humphrey Lyttelton etc. from there back catalogues and they haven't even
bothered to send the artists a free copy of the CD let alone pay them
anything!
One bandleader actually bought a copy of a CD of his recordings from me so
that
he could find out what was on it. He knew he was not entitled to any
royalties
because of the payment deal done at the time but was interested anyway!

In Europe the copyright in recordings expires after 50 years which is how
come the labels on this side of the Atlantic can put out all the classic
recordings which were made prior to about 1953.

Actually I would not have classified the Dukes of Dixieland recordings as
'classics' and if the recordings were made within the last 50 years and are
being
issued in Europe then I presume they are coming out in breach of copyright
but the whole thing is very muddled with a multitude of licensing deals
being
done over the years and often no-one knowing who actually owns the rights.

Thankfully I don't have to rely on selling albums put out by the major
companies or otherwise I would have gone bust several years ago. For every
CD I sell
from the Columbia catalogue I sell around 100 from that of the French
'Classics' label and for every one put out by Universal I sell 20 from the
small
independent British  'Frog' label. Even when they do put out 'classic'
recordings
from the 1920s and 1930s which is certainly not very often they usually make
a
complete cock-up of it and it is only the specialist little labels who do
the
job properly. For example Sony Columbia have deleted in the UK the Bessie
Smith series so the only way to get these classics properly remastered and
annotated is through the ongoing Frog series.

Stuff the big boys and support the specialists is what I say!!!
(But only when the requisite laws are complied with)

Cheers,

Jerry,
Norwich,
U.K.