Library of Congress National Jukebox Unveiled
The U.S. Library of Congress has opened the National Jukebox, a Web site that offers Flash-based streaming access to over 10,000 78 rpm discs issued by the Victor Talking Machine Company between 1900 and 1925. (The discs have been made available thanks to blanket permission from the rights-holder, Sony Music.) Thousands more are slated to be added soon. This is one of the great promises of the Internet, though it’s worth noting that these recordings can’t be downloaded because sound recordings published before 1972 are subject to state and/or common law protection, not Federal copyright law, and thus won’t fully enter the public domain until 2067.
Plays ONLY via Flash, so incompatible with all IOS devices.
Bah, Humbug!
For anyone looking for details on copyright stuff, my buddy Peter Hirtle at Cornell has this excellent page:
http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm
Thanks for pointing me to this. I enjoyed listening to Enrico Caruso this morning and am looking forward to more discoveries.
This highlights a huge problem with our copyright laws. Why are recordings that are 110 years old not in the public domain? Sony (or Universal or EMI) could have as easily decided that it wasn't in their interest to grant that blanket license. It's time to scale back copyright.
This highlights a huge problem with our copyright laws. Why are recordings that are 110 years old not in the public domain? Sony (or Universal or EMI) could have as easily decided that it wasn't in their interest to grant that blanket license. It's time to scale back copyright.