alt Hacker NewsIt's interesting that out of the 400k+ recordings they digitized, only 4142 are claimed as infringements. And it makes sense if everything they digitized is in an old format that went out of favor by the 50s. I think you could argue that NO recording this old should still be under copyright, it should all be in the public domain, or at least subject to archival even if you can't stream it online in one or two clicks.
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freejazz • 10/01/2024
> I think you could argue that NO recording this old should still be under copyright
In a court of law? Not seriously nor credibly. The term of a copyright is provided for by statute.
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It's illustrative of the fact that the RIAA would rather throw away 99% of its history than give up whatever little bit of juice is left today in the remaining 1%. It's not like they care to archive this stuff themselves; like the article says, they already needed to rely on collectors to give them recordings for a Robert Johnson re-release, and that was in the 1961.
Maybe it's their legal prerogative, but I'm of the mindset that if they are doing no good, at least do no harm.