Project Gramophone

[elektro80]

http://www.teleread.org/blog/2003_10_26_archive.html#106768614604144566


Introduction: What Is the Issue?

Commercial sound recordings have been made in the U.S. since 1889. If we examine the first half of this 114-year era, up to early World War II (specifically up to the July 31, 1942 American Federation of Musicians recording ban, which radically changed the landscape of the recording industry), we come to a startling conclusion. The vast majority of these recordings are effectively "locked away in the vaults," essentially unavailable to the public-at-large as legally authorized reissues.

Only a tiny fraction, several thousand out of the many hundreds of thousands (and maybe even over a million when one counts alternate takes) of the commercial pre-World War II U.S. sound recordings ever "waxed" have been authorized for reissue on CD by their current owners.

The remaining recordings, the vast majority, are not available to the general U.S. public (and, by extension, the world-at-large) as "legal," authorized reissues, with little hope they ever will be, at least until 2067, as will later be explained. Only a small community of dedicated private collectors of commercial pressings have access to most of the original recordings. In addition, libraries and archives that have collections of 78 rpm records and cylinders are few and far between, and their collections are essentially unavailable for just anyone to walk in off-the-street for a "casual audition." The original records are quite fragile and, in many cases, extraordinarily rare. Very few people have the needed equipment to play these recordings.

Nearly all of the pre-WW2 commercial U.S. sound recordings are now owned by subsidiaries within three international media conglomerates: Sony, BMG, and Vivendi. These international companies (based in Japan, Germany, and France, respectively) inherited the rights and existing masters to these recordings after a long-series of corporate takeovers and mergers in the recording, movie and publishing industries, starting in the 1920's and which continue today.

Why Should We Be Concerned?

First and foremost, we must understand that the corpus of these older U.S. sound recordings is culturally very important to the world community and its heritage. Much of today's music worldwide has been profoundly influenced by early U.S. recorded music and the genres it represents: jazz, swing, ragtime, blues, dance, personality, country, gospel, ethnic, and classical, to name the major ones. In turn, U.S. music from a century ago is an amalgam of European, African, Asian and other influences. In its essence, U.S. music is inseparable from the music of the world, both in origin and in contemporary influence.

Thus, these early recordings transcend simple corporate and legal interests--they are an important part of humanity's common cultural heritage, and must be treated with the seriousness, respect and importance they deserve. They must all be carefully preserved for posterity and be made conveniently and readily available to all. Doing so will inspire new musicians and song writers (which, in turn, will bring enjoyment to the music-listening public as well as benefit the present-day recording industry), will aid in cultural and historical research, and will promote international understanding and, ultimately, world peace. These benefits are impossible so long as these recordings are effectively locked away from the world as they are now.