# Historical Labels, sources and ethics



## Granate

Seeing the excellent discussion topic in "New Releases" about the Ars Nova boxes of historical mono recordings of String Quarters. I open this thread to ask everything we want to know about labels of historical recordings we love, like Archipel (Archipel/Andromeda/Walhall/Myto), Pristine, Divina, Ars Vocalis, Naxos Historical, Opera Depot, and some deceased like Opera d, Golden Melodram or Arkadia.

"Retweeting" posts:


















shadowdancer said:


> I do wonder the same about Archipel.
> https://naxosdirect.com/items/mozart-requiem-in-d-minor-k.-626-232194
> 
> What a great recording. It would be great to know that every intellectual property is being respected.





Ras said:


> Wkasimir and other fellow cd-shoppers who wants to have a clear conscience while buying good music:
> The Schneider Quartet's Haydn recordings are probably in the public domain - that means the copyright has expired and it's free for ALL and ANYONE to release them on cd.
> 
> I think re-releasing old recordings of classical music is a "con amore"-project - The people involved would probably be lucky to break even on a release like that...
> 
> If you look at the amazon sale's rank for what I think must be an earlier release of the same recordings??? on amazon - here is the link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Haydn-Stri...=1518616700&sr=8-3&keywords=schneider+quartet ?
> you will notice that it is number 508,192 in the category: "albums" on the amazon sales rank - SO: what that tells me is that the sales are very limited. We are just lucky that anyone cares enough about this music to keep these old recordings in print. + edited to add: and if the people involved in making that sort of releases earn a few "peanuts" from it - may God bless them!





wkasimer said:


> They may be in the public domain, but my question was more about what "Ars Nova" is using as its source. Did they do their own transfers from LP, as M&A did, or did they simply "borrow" those M&A transfers for their own issue? M&A, a company that consistently produces excellent products, has been victimized by this sort of behavior before (IIRC, another label lifted their transfer of the 1950 La Scala RING).
> 
> Unfortunately, there are a number of labels that engage in this sort of behavior, as well as some online vendors. It's not hard to tell who's doing it, because their products don't indicate their sources. Legitimate labels of historic material, like M&A, Marston, Orfeo, Audite, Naxos Historical, and a few others, always credit their sources, as well as their transfer engineers. Other labels - Archipel, Andromeda, Documents, Opera d'Oro spring to mind, but there are plenty of others - never provide this information, which suggests to me that they're engaging in some form of theft. I suspect that Pristine is also sometimes guilty as well. Andrew Rose usually indicates his sources, but there are occasions when it's hard to imagine that he didn't simply steal someone else's transfer, tart it up, and issue it as his own. On his website, for example, he does not reveal his source for the 1953 Bayreuth Ring, and when queried (several times), he has not provided an answer.


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## bigshot

Public Domain means it is everyone's property and no one can ever own or control it again. I find it ironic that companies that exploit the public domain by releasing something derived from someone else's product would complain when someone else does the same thing to them. The whole point of the public domain is so that there are no limitations on distributing a work. If they want to own something, they can do what everyone else does... they can go out and compose something original, or hire a band to play and record it. Just playing a record and cleaning it up a bit and slapping it on a CD isn't a creative act worthy of legal protection.

I used to have a PD CD company. I'm sure my transfers are being used by a bunch of different companies now. I don't care. I made enough money on it to cover my time, and I produced transfers that were cleaner than any other label. The music deserved it. That's all I wanted out of it.


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## shadowdancer

This is a great thread idea, Granate.
Few months ago I spent some reading about it and found that there as still very "cloudy" stuff about copyright laws.
One the most important thing that I found is the clear distinction (in law terms about PD) between:
Musical Work, Song, Composition vs Sound recording

There is this nice and direct explanation here (I suppose valid only in the US):
https://www.pdinfo.com/copyright-law/copyright-and-public-domain.php


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## SixFootScowl

Public domain music is one thing, but a specific performance of that public domain music can be copyrighted as I understand it.


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## shadowdancer

Fritz Kobus said:


> Public domain music is one thing, but a specific performance of that public domain music can be copyrighted as I understand it.


That is also my understanding. Quoting from the link:
"If you can prove that a composition is in the public domain, you can use the work any way you can imagine. You can arrange, reproduce, perform, record, publish it, and use or sell it commercially any way you like."


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## Granate

*RECORDINGS; In Opera, 'Live' Is Livelier, but Also Riskier*



Will Crutchfield said:


> When I first started buying them, they were called ''pirate'' recordings, and most came in unmarked sleeves, with mimeographed typewritten notes (or none). One bought them by mail or went to a store like Rose Records in Chicago, where they were sold from a back room to which only employees and regular customers were admitted. Some ''pirate'' producers eventually upgraded their packaging and had booklets printed to go with the records.
> 
> But things changed significantly in the 1970's, when *Italy passed a law putting any performance tape into the public domain 20 years after its first broadcast. Several Italian-based labels began packaging live opera for mainstream distribution;* the emphasis was on Maria Callas above all, but also Bayreuth, certain famous conductors, rare operas in general, major singers in roles they did not record commercially, and what might be called ''hot nights'' - performances that, for whatever combination of reasons, caught fire and remain in the memory as something special.


About the copyright laws issue. Isn't Italy the common denominator?

Myto, Opera d'Oro, Arkadia, Golden Melodram (Italy-Croatia)...


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## Ras

Granate said:


> About the copyright laws issue. Isn't Italy the common denominator?..


Well... maybe China and Russia are lower? I think they still haven't signed the international copyright agreements...


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## wkasimer

bigshot said:


> Public Domain means it is everyone's property and no one can ever own or control it again.


That's true of the music, the performance, and the original recording. But someone's recent transfer of that recording isn't public domain.


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## bigshot

wkasimer said:


> That's true of the music, the performance, and the original recording. But someone's recent transfer of that recording isn't public domain.


In order to claim protection under copyright (or performance right), you need to be creating a new creative work out of it. Simply transferring a record and applying noise reduction filters to eliminate noise isn't creating a new creative work. Some PD labels try to claim copyright on their restorations, but there's never been a court case that found in favor of a restoration being copyrightable. You can create a derivative work that contains new creative elements and the original public domain work together and copyright the new material. They do that sometimes by adding new title sequences to films or putting lyrics to a PD melody, etc. But only the new elements are protected. Not the PD material.


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## KenOC

A slight digression, but too good to pass up. 'The phrase "haters gonna hate" is too "banal" to be copyrighted, a US judge has declared. Judge Michael W Fitzgerald made the comments while dismissing a copyright case against Taylor Swift.'

I suppose this "banality principle" could invalidate the copyrights on any number of classical works! :lol:

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-43056814


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## bigshot

That could put most of modern culture at risk!


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## Granate

This is not meant for attack or harsh criticism. No matter how careful and well-packaged are the Archipel Ltd Labels (Arch, Andro, Walhall, Myto), the company certainly lacks transparency. I don't even know a mail where to do requests (reissue Knappertsbuch Parsifal 1954). I made some revisions in the market like this one:


































I don't know if these are the same transfers. But one release was certainly first. I want to believe that the Archipel labels own old LPs where they do the transfers and remasters and they hold responsible for the package and distribution. The worst thing is that I have no proof of this or otherwise.


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## premont

bigshot said:


> In order to claim protection under copyright (or performance right), you need to be creating a new creative work out of it. Simply transferring a record and applying noise reduction filters to eliminate noise isn't creating a new creative work. Some PD labels try to claim copyright on their restorations, but there's never been a court case that found in favor of a restoration being copyrightable.


As far as I understand, this means, that any given labels new remasterings of their older recordings do not "renew" the copyright, which remains the copyright of the original recording.


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## wkasimer

bigshot said:


> In order to claim protection under copyright (or performance right), you need to be creating a new creative work out of it. Simply transferring a record and applying noise reduction filters to eliminate noise isn't creating a new creative work.


Good transfer engineers like Marston, Obert-Thorn, and Winner do a great deal more than this.

But if this is true, it means that I can rip one of their CD's, or download one of Pristine's, make copies, and sell them.

It may be legal, but it sure ain't ethical.


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## bigshot

The public domain belongs to everyone. Making works freely available is intended to raise culture and spark creativity. Taking things that are a gift to society and putting them back under lock and key is unethical to me. If someone invests time into preserving and restoring works that are in the public domain, they're performing a service to all of us. I appreciate their work. I've done that kind of work myself and I know my restorations of Walter's Act I of Die Walkure and Busch's Handel Concerto Grosso Op 6 have been copied and released by other labels, but I really don't care. If you would like a copy, I'll give you a copy for free. I think these deserve to be heard in good quality. I don't want to be a gatekeeper for works that should be freely available. I think the real heroes are the people at archive.org though. If you want to distribute public domain material, don't sell it. Give it away.


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## wkasimer

bigshot said:


> I've done that kind of work myself and I know my restorations of Walter's Act I of Die Walkure and Busch's Handel Concerto Grosso Op 6 have been copied and released by other labels, but I really don't care.


Is that you, Steve?



> If you would like a copy, I'll give you a copy for free.


If I'm right about who you are, that's not necessary - I bought a copy of the Walkure Act 1 from you years ago, and the sound is indeed terrific.


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## KenOC

An interesting new court ruling on linking to copyrighted images, something of occasional concern in this forum:
-----------------------------------------
In a court case that could fundamentally change what constitutes copyright infringement online, a New York district judge has ruled that embedding a tweet that contains a copyright protected photo does, in fact, constitute a copyright violation. If the ruling is upheld, its impact across the internet is hard to understate…

…if the ruling is upheld, it could apply to more than just embedding a tweet. As the EFF explains, the wording is broad enough that "the logic of the ruling applies to all in-line linking," which could "threaten millions of ordinary Internet users with infringement liability."
-----------------------------------------

https://www.dpreview.com/news/19256...dding-a-photo-tweet-is-copyright-infringement


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## bigshot

You betcha it's me!


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## SixFootScowl

bigshot said:


> If you want to distribute public domain material, don't sell it. Give it away.


And I think a modest fee to cover expenses is reasonable. For downloads, that would be next to nothing, but for mailing a CD, there are a few costs that add up over multiple mailings.


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## bigshot

I give my downloads away.


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## SixFootScowl

bigshot said:


> I give my downloads away.


Got a list? So long as they are public domain I'm game.


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## bigshot

The search on this site isn't pulling up my posts with the download links. Bummer. Here is a gallery with a bunch of my restorations on Facebook... https://www.facebook.com/swworth/media_set?set=a.10150947453577348.439935.561602347&type=3


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## chill782002

It all depends on the sources the labels get hold of. Some labels will produce terrible sounding junk and then, out of nowhere, come up with something really good. I'm thinking in particular of the Nuova Era set of Schnabel's Beethoven sonatas, my favourite version that I've heard. The Pearl set is just too noisy and others (stand up EMI) are noise-reduced to death.

If we consider the wartime Furtwangler Beethoven recordings, which have been released by many different labels multiple times, the Melodiya CDs that came out about 10 years ago are the best sounding that I've heard as they presumably have access to very low generation sources. The Andromeda set sounds awful by comparison. No-one seems to know where the actual RRG masters looted at the end of the war are though. Maybe they don't exist anymore, I don't know whether magnetic tape can remain in good shape after 70+ years without special care.

There are persistent rumours that at least 30 of the experimental stereo recordings made by RRG near the end of the war still survive, including stereo Furtwangler recordings. I'm not so sure though, someone would have issued them by now if that were true surely...


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## bigshot

Check out my Schnabel Diabellis. It's the best I could do with the noisy British bacon and eggs shellac. That's the problem with the Schnabel recordings.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?...0947453577348.439935.561602347&type=3&theater

Several PD labels used my transfer on this one. The Eroica variations are in the Facebook gallery too.


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