Democracy of Sound: Music Piracy and the Remaking of American Copyright in the Twentieth Century

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Democracy of Sound: Music Piracy and the Remaking of American Copyright in the Twentieth Century Page 35

by Alex Sayf Cummings


  117. By the 1960s, talk of an “information revolution” became fashionable, especially among academics, computer firms, entertainment companies, and the makers of office equipment. RCA sponsored an exhibit on the subject in 1967; see “RCA Exhibit Is Tied to Information Revolution,” New York Times, September 22, 1967, 77; Xerox Corporation, “Is Salesman a Dirty Word? (ad),” New York Times, January 9, 1966, 303; Harold M. Schmeck, Jr., “Oceanographer Urges Support For Research on Social Sciences,” New York Times, January 27, 1966, 35.

  Chapter 4

  1. Mark Blackwell, Interview with Wim Wenders, Ray Gun 48 (August 1997), n.p.

  2. Richard West, “Reds Like Rock and Roll—But Need Interpretation,” Los Angeles Times, June 25, 1965, A1.

  3. Artemy Troitsky, Back in the USSR: The True Story of Rock in Russia (London: Omnibus, 1987), 19.

  4. Robert Burnett, The Global Jukebox: The International Music Industry (New York: Routledge, 1996), 106.

  5. Edward Tatnall Canby, “Make Your Own LP’s,” Saturday Review, August 25, 1951, 48; Pekka Gronow, “The Recording Industry: The Growth of a Mass Medium,” Popular Music: Producers and Markets 3 (1983): 70.

  6. “The $100-Million Market in Bootleg Tapes,” Business Week, May 15, 1971, 132.

  7. Greil Marcus, “The Bootleg LP’s,” Rolling Stone, February 7, 1970, 36, 38.

  8. “Bob Johnston Remembers,” Rolling Stone, July 22, 1971, 19.

  9. Charles Edward Smith, “Background to Bootlegging,” Record Changer, January 1952, 3.

  10. “Revolutionary War,” Time, June 28, 1971, 72.

  11. Bob Chorush, “Feds Are Leaning on Bootleggers,” Rolling Stone, October 14, 1971, 10.

  12. “Jimi Hendrix,” Inquisition, vol. 2, no. 3, May 27, 1969, n.p.

  13. Howard Sounes, Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 222–5.

  14. R. Serge Denisoff, Solid Gold: The Popular Record Industry (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1975), 241–7; Clinton Heylin, Bootleg: The Secret History of the Other Recording Industry (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), 46.

  15. Jerry Hopkins, “‘New’ Dylan Album Bootlegged in LA,” Rolling Stone, September 20,1969, 5–6.

  16. Hopkins, “‘New’ Dylan Album,” 5.

  17. Michael R. Frontani, The Beatles: Image and the Media (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007), 172.

  18. “$100-Million Market in Bootleg Tapes,” 46.

  19. Heylin, Bootleg, 52–4.

  20. “Disc Firm Sues over Dylan Bootleg Album,” Los Angeles Times, November 29, 1969, A6.

  21. Edd Taub, “Dylan: Bootleg Albums,” Protean Radish, December 17, 1969, 16.

  22. “Revolutionary War,” 73.

  23. Aubert Clark, The Movement for International Copyright in Nineteenth Century America (PhD diss., Catholic University, 1960), 35.

  24. Heylin, Bootleg, 143; Deep Purple, Purple for a Day (Trade Mark of Quality, 1973?), Sound Recordings Archive, Bowling Green State University (BGSU-SRA).

  25. “Bootlegs,” Hot Wacks 7 (April 1979): 3; for an example of Ze Anonym Plattenspieler, see the Flamin Grovies [sic], No Candy (ZAP), BGSU-SRA.

  26. Ed Ward, “The Bootleg Blues: The Rise and Fall of Rubber Dubber Records,” Harper’s Weekly, January 1974, 35; Marcus, “Bootleg LPs,” 36.

  27. Ward, “Bootleg Blues,” 37.

  28. Ibid., 36; Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology, ed. C. J. Arthur (New York: International Publishers, 1970), 53.

  29. “Revolutionary War,” 73.

  30. Lorana O. Sullivan, “Piracy on the High Cs: Classical Recordings Often Made Illegally,” Wall Street Journal, December 3, 1969, 1.

  31. Heylin, Bootleg, 45.

  32. Ibid., 44.

  33. “Revolutionary War,” 73.

  34. Ibid., 73.

  35. Denisoff, Solid Gold, 368.

  36. Heylin, Bootleg, 55.

  37. The Beatles, Sweet Apple Trax (Newsound, 1970s), BGSU-SRA; The Beatles, Let It Be (Apple, 1970).

  38. Charles Reinhart, You Can’t Do That!: Beatles Bootlegs and Novelty Records, 1963–1980 (Ann Arbor, MI: Pierian Press, 1981), 104–5.

  39. The Beatles, Let It Be (Apple, 1970).

  40. Reinhart, You Can’t Do That, 160–1.

  41. Patti Smith, Teenage Perversity and Ships in the Night (Ze Anonym Plattenspieler, ca. 1976); Patti Smith, Horses (Arista, 1975).

  42. Lee Marshall, “The Effect of Piracy on the Music Industry: A Case Study of Bootlegging,” Media, Culture and Society 26 (2004): 175.

  43. Heylin, Bootleg, 108.

  44. Charles H. McCaghy and R. Serge Denisoff, “Pirates and Politics: An Analysis of Interest Group Conflict,” in Deviance, Conflict and Criminality, ed. McCaghy and Denisoff (Chicago: Rand McNally & Company, 1973), 303.

  45. McCaghy and Denisoff, “Pirates and Politics,” 302.

  46. Ibid., 303.

  47. Doug Rossinow, The Politics of Authenticity: Liberalism, Christianity, and the New Left in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 248.

  48. Doug Rossinow, “‘The Revolution Is about Our Lives’: The New Left’s Counterculture,” in Imagine Nation: The American Counterculture of the 1960s and ’70s, ed. Peter Braunstein and Michael William Doyle (New York: Routledge, 2002), 99.

  49. Nadya Zimmerman, “Consuming Nature: The Grateful Dead’s Performance of an Anti-Commercial Counterculture,” American Music 24 (2006): 195.

  50. Bruce Schulman, The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society and Politics (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2002), 87–90; Bruce Schulman, “Out of the Streets and into the Classroom? The New Left and Counterculture in United States History Textbooks,” Journal of American History 85 (1999): 1530–1.

  51. Rossinow, Politics of Authenticity, 248.

  52. To the credit of Rossinow’s thesis, some saw a live recording or unvarnished demo tape as more “authentic” than the official products released by record labels. Lee Marshall has also commented on the appeal of the authenticity of bootlegs in a genre of music—rock and roll—that often celebrated the rawness and rebelliousness of its performers; see Marshall, “Effect of Piracy,” 175.

  53. “Beatles Beat Socialisti Teakettles,” Los Angeles Free Press, February 9, 1968, 16.

  54. Ward, “Bootleg Blues,” 37.

  55. Chorush, “Feds Are Leaning on Bootleggers,” 12.

  56. William J. Drummond, “Admitted Music ‘Pirate’ Tells How Bootleg Market Started,” Los Angeles Times, July 20, 1971, back page; Chorush, “Feds Are Leaning on Bootleggers,” 10.

  57. Patti Smith, Free Music Store (Brigand, ca. 1980s), BGSU-SRA.

  58. Denisoff, Solid Gold, 172–201.

  59. “Bootleggers Success Laid to Major ‘Fantastic’ Offers,” Billboard, April 17, 1971, 12.

  60. Taub, “Dylan: Bootleg Albums,” 16.

  61. Ibid., 16.

  62. John Carpenter, “Bootleggers Hustle New Dylan Album,” Los Angeles Free Press, December 19, 1969, 52.

  63. “$100-Million Market in Bootleg Tapes,” 44.

  64. Incidentally, the label Gleason worked with in the 1970s, Fantasy, ran into legal trouble years earlier, when it sold 40,000 copies of an early Joan Baez tape without her permission. Ralph J. Gleason, “Perspectives: All the Quack Robin Hoods,” Rolling Stone, October 14, 1971, 30; “Baez Wins Suit,” Billboard, October 10, 1964, 6; Baez v. Fantasy Records 144 U.S.P.Q. 537 (Super. Ct. San Francisco County 1964).

  65. “Piracy Hearing: Tape Piracy State of New York before Attorney General Louis J. Lefkowitz,” Performing Arts Review 5 (1974): 40.

  66. Interview with Francis Pinckney, Charlotte, NC, July 26, 2007.

  67. Ibid.

  68. Ibid.; House Committee on the Judiciary, Prohibiting Piracy of Sound Recordings: Hearings before Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary, 92nd Cong., 1st sess., 9–10 June 1971, 92–108.

  69. House Committee on the Judiciary, Prohibiting Piracy of Sound Recordings, 90.

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nbsp; 70. Interview with Francis Pinckney, Charlotte, NC, July 26, 2007.

  71. Robert A. Rosenblatt, “Tape Pirates: Industry Fights Bootleg Music,” Los Angeles Times, February 28, 1970, 23.

  72. “Revolutionary War,” 73.

  73. “Piracy Hearing,” 40.

  74. Ibid., 43–4.

  75. Ibid., 46.

  76. Heylin, Bootleg, 118.

  77. Ibid., 179, 189.

  78. Elvis Presley, Elvis’ Greatest Shit!! (RCA Victim, 1982).

  79. House Committee on the Judiciary, Prohibiting Piracy of Sound Recordings, 42.

  80. “$100-Million Market in Bootleg Tapes,” 45.

  81. Ibid., 45.

  82. Name withheld, e-mail message to author, New York, NY, September 27, 2007. (Tom Brown is a pseudonym.)

  83. Ibid.

  84. Elton John and Leon Russell, Live at the Convention Center (Rubber Dubber, 1971); Neil Young, I’m Happy Y’all Came Down: Live at the Los Angeles Music Center, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (Rubber Dubber, 1971); James Taylor, Live at the Anaheim Convention Center (Rubber Dubber, 1971), BGSU-SRA.

  85. Heylin, Bootleg, 80.

  86. Ward, “Bootleg Blues,” 36.

  87. Name withheld, e-mail message to author, New York, NY, September 27, 2007.

  88. Heylin, Bootleg, 83.

  89. Ward, “Bootleg Blues,” 37.

  90. Name withheld, e-mail message to author, New York, NY, September 27, 2007.

  91. “Bootlegs,” Hot Wacks 7 (April 1979): 2.

  Chapter 5

  1. Goldstein v. California 412 U.S. 546 (1973).

  2. Abraham L. Kaminstein, “Preface,” in House Committee on the Judiciary, Copyright Law Revision: Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law, 87th Cong., 1st sess., July 1961, x.

  3. Glenn M. Reisman, “War Against Record Piracy: An Uneasy Rivalry between the Federal and State Governments,” Albany Law Review 39 (1974–1975): 90.

  4. W. M. Blaisdell, “Size of the Copyright Industries,” in Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Copyright Law Revision, Studies Prepared for the Subcommittee on Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Study No. 2, 86th Cong., 1st sess., 1960, Committee Print, 1.

  5. Kaminstein, “Preface,” ix.

  6. A parallel can be drawn to the hearings for the 1909 Copyright Act; early on, song publishers were preoccupied with stopping the illegal copying of their sheet music, and only when the prevalence of piano rolls and phonographs increased did they shift their attention to mechanical reproduction.

  7. See Paul Goldstein, Copyright’s Highway: From Gutenberg to the Celestial Jukebox (Stanford, CA: Stanford Law & Politics, 2003), 78–128, for an in-depth discussion of the “fair use” photocopying debate.

  8. Kaminstein, “Preface,” v.

  9. Edward Samuels, The Illustrated Story of Copyright (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2000), 131, 136.

  10. The Oxford Companion to American Law, ed. Kermit Hall (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 663.

  11. Jisuk Woo, Copyright and Computer Programs: The Role of Communication in Legal Structure (New York: Garland Publishing, 2000), 3–4.

  12. House Committee on the Judiciary, Copyright Law Revision Part 2: Discussion and Comments on Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law, 88th Cong., 1st sess., 1963, Committee Print, 242.

  13. Ibid., 381.

  14. Ibid., 242.

  15. Marci A. Hamilton, “Commissioned Works as Works Made for Hire under the 1976 Copyright Act: Misinterpretation and Injustice,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 135 (1987): 1284.

  16. House Committee on the Judiciary, Copyright Law Revision Part 2, 11–2.

  17. Ibid., 13.

  18. Ibid., 260.

  19. House Committee on the Judiciary, Copyright Law Revision: Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law, 87th Cong., 1st sess., July 1961, 18.

  20. House Committee on the Judiciary, Prohibiting Piracy of Sound Recordings: Hearings on S. 646 and H.R. 6927, 92nd Cong., 1st sess., 1971, 16.

  21. Alan Latman and James F. Lightstone, eds., The Kaminstein Legislative History Project: A Compendium and Analytical Index of Materials Leading to the Copyright Act of 1976 (Littleton, CO: Fred B. Rothman & Co., 1981), xxxii.

  22. House Committee on the Judiciary, Prohibiting Piracy of Sound Recordings, 21.

  23. Melvin Garner, “The Future of Record Piracy,” Brooklyn Law Review 38 (1971): 413.

  24. Capitol Records Inc. v. Greatest Records Inc., 43 Misc. 2d 878, 880 (Sup. Ct., 1964).

  25. Reisman, “War against Record Piracy,” 102.

  26. Capitol Records v. Richard W. Erickson, 2 Cal. App. 3d 526 (Cal. Dist. Ct. App. 1969).

  27. Capitol, 2 Cal. App. 3d at 537.

  28. Vaidhyanathan, Copyrights and Copywrongs, 19.

  29. Capitol, 2 Cal. App. 3d, at 529.

  30. Interview with Francis Pinckney, Charlotte, NC, 26 July 2007.

  31. House Committee on the Judiciary, Prohibiting Piracy of Sound Recordings, 29.

  32. New York State Legislature, Laws of the State of New York, 1966 (Albany, NY: New York State Legislative Bill Drafting Commission, 1966), 3313.

  33. “Piracy Hearing: Tape Piracy, State of New York before Attorney General Louis J. Lefkowitz,” Performing Arts Review 5, nos. 1–2 (1974): 69–73.

  34. “Record, Tape Pirating Bill Signed,” Nashville Banner, May 11, 1971, n.p.

  35. “Piracy Hearing,” 72–3.

  36. New York State Legislature, Laws of the State of New York, 1966 (Albany: New York State Legislative Bill Drafting Commission, 1966), 3313.

  37. Letter from Henry Brief, April 28, 1966, at 39, Bill Jacket, L. 1966, ch. 982, at Science, Industry and Business Library (SIBL) of New York Public Library, New York, NY.

  38. Report by the Committee on Penal Law and Criminal Procedures, 1966, at 23, Bill Jacket, L. 1966, ch. 982, SIBL.

  39. Letter from Henry Brief, April 28, 1966, at 39, Bill Jacket, L. 1966, ch. 982, SIBL.

  40. Ibid. The text of the bill specified, “The word ‘owner’ shall mean the person who owns the master phonograph record, master disc, master tape, master film or other device used for reproducing recorded sounds on phonograph records, discs, tapes, films or other articles on which sound is recorded, and from which the transferred sounds are directly or indirectly derived.” “An act to amend the penal law, in relation to the unauthorized copying of phonograph records for sale or for use for gain or profit,” February 14, 1966, at 2, Bill Jacket, L. 1966, ch. 982, SIBL.

 

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