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Author Topic: Phonocopyright (P) -- is this still applicable? Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 08-29-2019 03:23 PM                        Perhaps Mark Ogden might shed some light here, but I was just wondering if the Phonocopyright section of the Copyright law is still used on CDs. Evidently radio stations could play records any pay some paultry fee per "needle drop." Was Phonocopyright created to address that? Anyway, I was just curious if it still applied to the CD medium as well. I don't see that circled P on CDs.  |  IP: Logged Mark Ogden Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 943 From: Little Falls, N.J. Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-29-2019 04:03 PM                     As far as I know, it's still in effect. What radio stations do is pay a fee to ASCAP and BMI to play songs, and this in turn out is paid to the song's composer and publisher. I honestly don't know if this has anything to do with phonocopyright, but I doubt it. It's just more a matter of getting artists paid for their work as opposed to paying for the right to air the music. Actually, theaters used to have to do the same thing, to cover non-sync music. A few of the theaters I worked at back in the day had an ASCAP decal displayed in the window to indicate that had coughed up .  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 08-30-2019 04:42 AM                        Yes, we pay ASCAP and BMI and the other one -- you know the one that only has music that no one has ever heard of or much less would ever want to listen to (I exaggerate, but not by much), but as you say, those orgs represent the artist -- song writers and composers and performers of the music. I think the ℗ phonocopyright protects the actual sound on a record. Now what I am wondering did that stop with vinyl or is it still applicable to other media like CDs or even MP3s?  |  IP: Logged Mark Ogden Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 943 From: Little Falls, N.J. Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-30-2019 08:40 AM                     The "needle drop" concept still applies, the song copyright and the performance copyright being separate things. This is why you hear a lot of cover versions in movie and TV shows, as opposed to original recordings, the original artist or composer cannot stop you from making your own recording of a published song and using it, as long as they pay the publishing company. This is why there are so many tiresome versions of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" all over everything. Anybody can record and use a cover of the song for a small fee, but Cohen's performance is a separate copyright that his estate controls. I don't know why the "P" no longer appears on CDs. I haven't actually bought one in years.  |  IP: Logged Marcel Birgelen Film God Posts: 3357 From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands Registered: Feb 2012 posted 08-30-2019 09:31 AM                     The ℗ symbol is actually still present on some music CDs. I guess it depends on the publisher if they put it on there or not. The Circled P symbol still refers, AFAIK, to the copyright of that particular rendition on that specific recording. If it's not on there in the form of that symbol, it's probably on there in some form of writing.  |  IP: Logged Bill Brandenstein Master Film Handler Posts: 413 From: Santa Clarita, CA Registered: Jul 2013 posted 08-30-2019 04:24 PM                     Since I work a bit in this area, definitely want to affirm that the Phonorecord copyright is valid as well as what my colleagues have already chimed in. The form of the media is irrelevant. The (P) covers the performance, and of course the (C) covers the source material. And again, I agree - why a CD wouldn't display both is beyond me. Probably young, inexperienced staff created the label copy.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 08-30-2019 08:06 PM                        Thanks guys for the clarity. I started going thru my CD collection and yes indeed, a lot more discs have the ℗ than I would have imagined. Yah, it must be the youngins who design the graphics for the CDs or those who write copy and design the graphics for DVD and BluRay packaging and label any pre-1950's sound film as having an aspect ratio of 1.33:1.  |  IP: Logged Martin Brooks Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 900 From: Forest Hills, NY, USA Registered: May 2002 posted 09-25-2019 11:50 PM                        If the recording is published after March 1, 1989, I don't believe the P is necessary under the latest copyright law revision. For sound recordings published in the U.S., this is the current law (this is just the recording, not the underlying composition, which has its own rules): Published before 1923: in the pubic domain (PD) as of 1/1/2022 1923-1946: in PD 100 years from publication 1947-1956: in PD 110 years from publication 1957-2/14/72: in PD 2/15/2067 2/15/72-1978: published without notice: in the public domain published with notice: 95 years from publication 1978-3/1/89: published without notice and without subsequent registration: in public domain published w/ notice: 70 years after death of author, or if work of corporate authorship, the shorter of 95 years from publication, or 120 years from creation. 2049 at the earliest After 3/1/89: 70 years after death of author, or if work of corporate authorship, the shorter of 95 years from publication, or 120 years from creation. 2049 at the earliest  |  IP: Logged Bill Brandenstein Master Film Handler Posts: 413 From: Santa Clarita, CA Registered: Jul 2013 posted 09-26-2019 06:45 PM                     Martin, a lot of those details are new to me. Would you be so kind as to direct us to a source? That's a really great summary.  |  IP: Logged Martin Brooks Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 900 From: Forest Hills, NY, USA Registered: May 2002 posted 09-29-2019 07:31 PM                        Copyright Law info from Cornell University  |  IP: Logged Bill Brandenstein Master Film Handler Posts: 413 From: Santa Clarita, CA Registered: Jul 2013 posted 10-02-2019 05:17 PM                     More than most people will ever want to know. However, for those of us who have to, that is AMAZING. Thank you, Martin.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 10-02-2019 08:10 PM                        Wow...kind of obliterates the original idea that copyright was for a LIMITED time so as to encourage artists and writers and composers to create more works and art and generate ideas which were seen as good for the citizenry. The intent was focused on the public good -- the enlightenment and edification for the citizens. , enrichment for the populous. Edification and enlightenment of the citizens is pretty much out the window the artist or composer or writer has been dead for 120 years.  |  IP: Logged Martin Brooks Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 900 From: Forest Hills, NY, USA Registered: May 2002 posted 10-04-2019 11:09 PM                        You can largely thank Sonny Bono and Disney for these continual copyright extensions. Disney used scare tactics and kept telling Congress that if Steamboat Willie went into the public domain, there could be porn movies with Mickey Mouse, which was nonsense because they still had copyright and possibly trademarks on the character. Having said that, being in the public domain isn't always great for content. In the publishing industry for example, aside from popular PD authors like Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, much of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, etc., PD books don't get published because publishers know that if they put it out and it's successful, another publisher can come along and do the same book and charge a little bit less and take all the sales away. So outside of the most popular authors, most PD material is long out-of-print precisely because it's PD. There's a lot of PD titles available as e-books and they're always pretty horribly formatted. During the VHS era, there were a number of films in which the copyrights weren't renewed properly (or at all) and they fell into PD. I think "It's A Wonderful Life" was one of them. So they were issued on VHS, but in really crappy, unrestored versions from bad prints. There's also an argument that says why should Paul McCartney lose his ability to make money from his early songs so that anyone else could come along and make money from them? Although I suppose one can argue the opposite: that he's earned enough and now the songs should be public. So IMO, it's a mixed bag, although the latest copyright law does seem like the terms are way too long.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 10-05-2019 05:55 AM                        The late, great Pete Seeger spoke before a congressional committee at the time of one of the moves by Time-Warner et al to extend the copyright monopolistic protection beyond the life of the author -- the argument the conglomerates made saying the estate should be able to profit from the author's work. Pete countered with (paraphrasing), I think the best thing for my offspring would be for them to learn the nobility of work by earning an honest living on their own. Where have all the flowers gone....Ah Pete, we miss you.  |  IP: Logged

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