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I have a warts-and-all vinyl rip of the AVA and a warts-and-all vinyl rip of the Citadel, and the Citadel does sound bad in comparison. Nice to hear that confirmed by Dana.
Hey Jon, drop me an email if you would. (Email address on my profile.)
Thanks!
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Posted: |
Aug 8, 2012 - 4:50 PM
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By: |
.
(Member)
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When's the last time the descendants of the dead artists who did the original film poster art that gets reproduced on our soundtrack CDs get a royalty payment? Unless it's a Norman Rockwell or a Saul Bass, they don't even get a credit in the booklet their art adorns.
I have no idea- I don't really know anything about art/design credits and royalties (if there even is such a thing) and the typical agreements under which graphic art (especially album art) is produced/licensed. If royalty payments are not happening, I'd say it's either because A) the original artist assigned away the work without also ensuring future royalties (which may be the way it's always done between graphic artists and album producers, for all I know) or B) the CD producers aren't paying the royalties (either intentionally or [more likely] because things have simply become confusing as time has gone on and the involved artists/owners/licensors have died).
What I would guess (and it's only a guess) is that graphic art design for movies is typically done as work-for-hire, and the graphic art itself is then owned/published/controlled by the film studio. The studio then in turn licenses the artwork when the soundtrack CD is made (just as they do with the score). The graphic artist would only get royalties or other backend payments from such use if the artist included that in their original work-for-hire agreement with the studio in the first place. This is the way it is for composers and music (screen credit, publishing royalties, album credits, album royalties, performing rights, etc. are all covered in the composer's initial contract to do a score) - I just don't know if graphic artists usually build similar "back-end" earnings into their agreements.
Interesting question.
The point being, copyright is not there to protect the artists, but rather the record producers. The fact that one union might be stronger than another and get more concessions from the industry has nothing to do with copyright laws being there to protect them. Those laws are only there for the people who own the copyright and that is usually NOT the artist. If I do a design or photographic job for a client via a design or advertising agency, the agency will hold the copyright of my work, and if the agency then sells the work to their advertising client, the copyright will usually pass to the client.
So it is always the person paying the money, rather than providing the creativity who gets protected by copyright. Talk of copyright being there to protect artists is an illusion unless the artist owns his own copyright which is rarely the case, or has some kind of union working on his/her behalf to prevent the industry copyright holders pocketing every penny.
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Posted: |
Aug 8, 2012 - 6:02 PM
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By: |
MusicMaker
(Member)
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The point being, copyright is not there to protect the artists, but rather the record producers. The fact that one union might be stronger than another and get more concessions from the industry has nothing to do with copyright laws being there to protect them. Those laws are only there for the people who own the copyright and that is usually NOT the artist. If I do a design or photographic job for a client via a design or advertising agency, the agency will hold the copyright of my work, and if the agency then sells the work to their advertising client, the copyright will usually pass to the client.
So it is always the person paying the money, rather than providing the creativity who gets protected by copyright. Talk of copyright being there to protect artists is an illusion unless the artist owns his own copyright which is rarely the case.
With all due respect, it IS there to protect artists. By definition, copyright, at the moment of a work's creation, is ALWAYS owned/held by the artist, and ONLY the artist. No one else is protected when it comes to that particular work. The only way a copyright can later ever become someone else's (be it a company or individual or whatever) is for either A) the artist to assign it away (which they quite often do for money and/or other compensation and terms, but either way it's always consensual and voluntary), or B) the artist dies and the copyright is inherited by someone else (be it an individual or a company or whatever, according to the artist's wishes and/or law). With (B), the copyright expiration clock also starts ticking.
So yeah- artists must agree to give away copyright ownership. And usually (poor decisions notwithstanding, but that's life) this happens only when the artist in question feels it is beneficial to do so. That's where the protection lies.
As for companies holding copyrights, keep in mind that if we kill copyrights that are held by companies (and say that they can only be held by the original artists), companies will no longer have any interest in buying works (and paying artists) in the first place. Licensing could still exist, but that A) puts a lot more business/legal/administrative burden on artists, B) limits the work's potential exposure (companies like record labels specialize at getting works mass produced and distributed for the rest of the world) and C) makes the amount of money for which an artist can sell their works less in the first place (as companies will no longer be willing to pay them such high amounts for works they cannot own and control).
It doesn't work out perfectly in all scenarios (what system in life does?), but copyright protection (and the protection of other ownership/distribution/control rights) does indeed benefit artists, and also the public at large. It helps lay the groundwork for any sort of commercial art market to exist at all. Which encourages the further development and creation of more art for everyone to learn from and enjoy.
Edited to add an additional thought:
You realize that composers are not unionized, right? Yet they (mostly) manage to cover all these sorts of things (credits, publishing royalties, performing royalties, licensing, acceptable use, etc.) in their working agreements. The "industry" has its good things and its bad things, to be sure, but how things have reached the point they're at is mostly just the free market at work. And despite the blemishes, I'd argue that the way things work overall is pretty good. Film music fans have access to far more than consumers did 100, 50, 20... even 10 years ago.
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The point being, copyright is not there to protect the artists, but rather the record producers. The fact that one union might be stronger than another and get more concessions from the industry has nothing to do with copyright laws being there to protect them. Those laws are only there for the people who own the copyright and that is usually NOT the artist. If I do a design or photographic job for a client via a design or advertising agency, the agency will hold the copyright of my work, and if the agency then sells the work to their advertising client, the copyright will usually pass to the client.
So it is always the person paying the money, rather than providing the creativity who gets protected by copyright. Talk of copyright being there to protect artists is an illusion unless the artist owns his own copyright which is rarely the case.
With all due respect, it IS there to protect artists. By definition, copyright, at the moment of a work's creation, is ALWAYS owned/held by the artist, and ONLY the artist. No one else is protected when it comes to that particular work. The only way a copyright can later ever become someone else's (be it a company or individual or whatever) is for either A) the artist to assign it away (which they quite often do for money and/or other compensation and terms, but either way it's always consensual and voluntary), or B) the artist dies and the copyright is inherited by someone else (be it an individual or a company or whatever, according to the artist's wishes and/or law). With (B), the copyright expiration clock also starts ticking.
So yeah- artists must agree to give away copyright ownership. And usually (poor decisions notwithstanding, but that's life) this happens only when the artist in question feels it is beneficial to do so. That's where the protection lies.
As for companies holding copyrights, keep in mind that if we kill copyrights that are held by companies (and say that they can only be held by the original artists), companies will no longer have any interest in buying works (and paying artists) in the first place. Licensing could still exist, but that A) puts a lot more business/legal/administrative burden on artists, B) limits the work's potential exposure (companies like record labels specialize at getting works mass produced and distributed for the rest of the world) and C) makes the amount of money for which an artist can sell their works less in the first place (as companies will no longer be willing to pay them such high amounts for works they cannot own and control).
It doesn't work out perfectly in all scenarios (what system in life does?), but copyright protection (and the protection of other ownership/distribution/control rights) does indeed benefit artists, and also the public at large. It helps lay the groundwork for any sort of commercial art market to exist at all. Which encourages the further development and creation of more art for everyone to learn from and enjoy.
Edited to add an additional thought:
You realize that composers are not unionized, right? Yet they (mostly) manage to cover all these sorts of things (credits, publishing royalties, performing royalties, licensing, acceptable use, etc.) in their working agreements. The "industry" has its good things and its bad things, to be sure, but how things have reached the point they're at is mostly just the free market at work. And despite the blemishes, I'd argue that the way things work overall is pretty good. Film music fans have access to far more than consumers did 100, 50, 20... even 10 years ago.
First of all, I am a creator of many things. And I think seventy years is ridiculous. So, there you are. I don't want some grandchild or great grandchild controlling any work of mine, sorry. Also, you are completely incorrect that at a moment of a work's creation the copyright is owned by the creator. It obviously is in many cases, but in many cases it most assuredly is not - when a film composer is HIRED to write a score for someone, that film composer's work is owned by the person or company doing the hiring from the moment the composer puts pen to paper. It is the RARE exception that any film composer has any rights to anything in his/her works - those copyrights are owned by the studios and THAT is what is under discussion here.
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I guess I'm just not understanding this at all. Universal owns the rights to the film To Kill a Mockingbird. They just released it on Blu-ray. Why would another party be involved at this stage of the game and why weren't they causing problems with the Blu-ray release? Something's off somewhere.
I've never understood the copyright status of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Is it, or was it, a public domain title? The film has been issued in the past on DVD by various public domain labels - especially in the UK. I wonder if it's a case where the production company Pakula-Mulligan, Brentwwood Productions omitted to properly copyright the film (as happened with Marlon Brando's production company). Maybe Universal or the production company subsequently managed to renew copyright of the film? But how all this would affect music rights I have no idea.
I've never seen it on anything but MCA and later Universal Home Video products here in the USA. It's never been considered a public domain film in the USA nor has it shown up on PD video here.
The American Film Institute shows the film as being copyrighted as follows:
Copyright Claimant / Copyright Date / Copyright Number
Pakula-Mulligan Productions, Inc. / 16/3/1963 dd/mm/yyyy / LP35477
Brentwood Productions, Inc. / 16/3/1963 dd/mm/yyyy / LP35477
There is no copyright in the name of Universal Pictures.
Perhaps someone can prevail upon Sony to allow a remastering of the original Mainstream album, which they now control.
Mainstream's only entry into the MOCKINGBIRD discography is the afore-mentioned dreadful sounding and woefully incomplete CD release from the original Ava LP release. During the period when Varese owned Citadel (back in the LP days still), Citadel reissued the Ava album. Surprisingly (and very disappointingly) there were serious sound issues with this release, including unacceptably high levels of tape hiss and muffled sound quality. That fact, and the state of the Mainstream CD release of the same Ava LP, lead me to suspect that the original tapes from which the Ava LP was produced are either severely damaged or missing, in which case only some sort of seventh-generation copy still exists. Bottom line, Bob, evidence seems to suggest that pursuing this particular recording for a clean up would be a futile effort. While the snafu continues in getting the original tricks released, my advice would be to buy the Bernstein box and cherish the Filmmusic Collection recording. If this becomes ultimately the best that we can get, we could do worse.
Of course, I am happy to shed some light on this: At the time Varese/Citadel issued the Ava To Kill a Mockingbird LP they had no tapes. Their only choices were to do an LP transfer, which, in those days, was very hard to do as there were no tools to clean up pops and ticks - that was not going to be a viable plan. The ONLY other choice they had came from me - I had a reel-to-reel of the Ava soundtrack - it was a weird reel-to-reel in that it wasn't called To Kill a Mockingbird - it had two or three things on it (all Ava) and had some other title. This was the only reel-to-reel release for the Ava Mockingbird. Unfortunately, because it contained several things the speed was 3 3/4 and that is why the sound quality sucks and there's so much tape hiss. They obviously thought that was the best they could do and so they did it.
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Of course, I am happy to shed some light on this: At the time Varese/Citadel issued the Ava To Kill a Mockingbird LP they had no tapes. Their only choices were to do an LP transfer, which, in those days, was very hard to do as there were no tools to clean up pops and ticks - that was not going to be a viable plan. The ONLY other choice they had came from me - I had a reel-to-reel of the Ava soundtrack... Unfortunately, because it contained several things the speed was 3 3/4 and that is why the sound quality sucks and there's so much tape hiss. They obviously thought that was the best they could do and so they did it.
Very interesting. Thanks for that inside info, Mr. K. Do you know if master tapes still exist for the rest of the Ava/Choreo/Mainstream releases?
We tried and tried at Bay Cities to license that catalog from Tammy Shad. They didn't know what they had - some of the CDs they ultimately released in very shoddy packages sounded okay and many sounded horrible. It would be interesting to look through that inventory, but in licensing from Sony these days (someone can correct me if I'm wrong) I believe they have to do the mastering, and that would not be of interest to me.
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Posted: |
Aug 9, 2012 - 4:05 PM
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By: |
SchiffyM
(Member)
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the AVA LP was NOT the soundtrack from the film and does not say so, merely music from ...
And yet, as we've seen, though a record company may opt to rerecord a score, they may still retain rights to the original recording. It makes sense -- there are all sorts of reasons to rerecord a score, but if your license allows the studio to then sell the original recording to somebody else, your license wasn't worth much. To cite two examples off the top of my head, Varese retains all rights to "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" despite their LP/CD being a rerecording. (They did make an exception for the Burton/Elfman box.) On the other hand, their rerecording of "The Black Cauldron" didn't keep Intrada from releasing the original (though for all we know, it may have been simply that their exclusivity window had expired).
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Posted: |
Aug 9, 2012 - 4:09 PM
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By: |
MusicMaker
(Member)
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First of all, I am a creator of many things. And I think seventy years is ridiculous. So, there you are. I don't want some grandchild or great grandchild controlling any work of mine, sorry.
OK, I guess? Preference noted? I don't at all see what your point is here. I've already acknowledged that clearly there's a variety of opinions about how long a copyright protection should last. And you are certainly free to do with your copyrights as you wish. That's the whole point. Give it away to someone else, or to a trust, or whatever. But that doesn't give you the right to do likewise with someone else's work, or to make those decisions for another creator.
Also, you are completely incorrect that at a moment of a work's creation the copyright is owned by the creator. It obviously is in many cases, but in many cases it most assuredly is not - when a film composer is HIRED to write a score for someone, that film composer's work is owned by the person or company doing the hiring from the moment the composer puts pen to paper.
No, by default (in the absence of some consensual legal document or transfer) what I wrote is EXACTLY how it works. Obviously, many creators (composers, scientists, authors, whomever) transfer these rights en masse to employers (such as R&D scientists at a biotech firm, or columnists in magazines, or artists in a design studio) upon being hired, or on a case-by-case basis with specific clients (such as a composer beginning a score on a Warner Brothers feature), and so forth. In every such case, there is still always a legal transfer document that spells this out- it may be one's employment agreement, or a work-for-hire agreement, or composing deal, or whatever. The real point is that this copyright ownership by someone other than the creator CAN NOT be done without the consent/agreement of the creator. Like any legal document, the agreement can be made before, during, or after the work's creation. But if the creator hasn't given that consent at some point, they absolutely always own the copyright.
It is the RARE exception that any film composer has any rights to anything in his/her works - those copyrights are owned by the studios and THAT is what is under discussion here.
As to the first bit- I'm afraid that's not at all accurate. Unless the composer is foolish, they virtually always maintain certain rights in their works. The most obvious being performing rights (certainly the author's share, but sometimes the publishing share as well). Surely you've heard of ASCAP and BMI, right? Show me a credited (i.e. non ghost-writing) Hollywood composer that does not maintain those rights in their film scores.
As for studios owning film score copyrights. Sure- it's certainly the norm, with studio features, for the composer to not own their music score copyright. But that is certainly not absolute, and trust me, I am not speaking out of ignorance on this subject. But that's irrelevant to any of the points I've been making (and has anyone in this entire thread debated or argued differently than your assertion?). If a composer doesn't own their works, it's because they've intentionally transferred (hopefully sold!) them.
And lastly, there are MANY things under discussion here in this thread, thank you very much. TKAM. The concept of balancing creator protection versus public cultural value. Graphic artwork. Film scores. Copyright history. Posthumous rights confusion. Public music use at an athletics competition... You can certainly choose to participate (or not) in whichever parts of the discussion you wish, but please don't try and tell the rest of us what we are and are not talking about.
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And yet, as we've seen, though a record company may opt to rerecord a score, they may still retain rights to the original recording.
RCA and the 1960s Mancini scores are the prime example of this.
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Did Williams perform on the film tracks as well as the AVA rerecording?
PS-- Dana, sent you an email.
EXACTLY the question that's been banging around in the back of my brain ever since we heard that JW was the pianist on the film tracks. (I hope somebody knows!)
Replied to your email -- thanks!
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