Here is the tentative playlist schedule for the new Artisan Radio - Nostalgia is our middle name - and some of the copyright issues we've encountered. Our goal is to play only material that is in the public domain in Canada and the U.S.
- Historical Classical Vocal recordings 1924 & earlier. The U.S. Music Modernization Act places all of these in the public domain in the U.S. Virtually all are also in the public domain in Canada (sound recordings 50 years from publication, music compositions life of composer(s) + 50 years, up to 1971)
- Vintage Jazz, plus the roots of jazz including blues, ragtime, etc. 1924 & earlier. The same as #1, but care has to be taken to ensure that the composer rule of Canada (life + 50 years) is met.
- Popular music using the Whitburn 'charts' 1924 and earlier. Although there really were no standardized charts at the time, music historian Joel Whitburn has compiled a list of the most popular records for these years. Copyright issues the same as #2.
- Book readings from works defined as being in the public domain in the U.S. by Project Gutenberg, and created by Librivox, which has placed the vocals in the public domain as well. Care has to be taken that the Canadian rule of life + 50 years applies. That will generally be the case, but a number of literary works in the U.S. have entered the public domain because they either weren't registered, or that registration renewed (Canada has no such requirement). Examples are pulp fiction stories from such defunct titles as Weird Tales. We will be featuring 1-2 hours of readings, one old mysteries (Sherlock Holmes, his French counterpart Arsene Lupin and others), and the other hour perhaps horror & science fiction.
- Old Time Radio. This is a very gray area in the U.S., although it is generally thought that most Old Time Radio without embedded copyrighted musical performances are in the public domain. Simply put, the copyright laws weren't written to take dramatic radio into consideration. You'll find as many legal opinions as you can find lawyers. In Canada, there are definitely some gray areas as well, but from what I can gather, the copyright should reside with the script and its author. So it is necessary to find shows whose writer meets the life + 50 year rule. There are some difficulties here, as the older shows, which would be more likely to be in the public domain, usually didn't credit the writer. There are a number of somewhat later shows which do, and at the very least we will be playing Sherlock Holmes and other early detective old time radio.
Basically, we're going to have either 2 hours of readings and 1 OTR, or 1 hour readings and 2 OTR.
Isn't the music in OTR shows like Suspense created by the producers of the shows? There is no taking music from other sources. So if the OTR shows are public domain why wouldn't the music bits creating the ambience or adding to the impact of an event, that is original to the show all be in the public domain?
All this is so mind boggling to me. How you find all of this information is beyond my imagination. Even why you go to all this trouble. Isn't it easier to just pay Resound and Socan and the third one you told me about but I can't think of, and then just program what you want? I think you told me the cost and it's not prohibitive if I remember. Isn't there streaming platforms that look after this for you and you just pay them a monthly/yearly fee?
Even you told me you stream to have access to your station wherever you are. You are streaming to yourself. I went to your stream and when I did and saw at most 2 listeners, one of which is me. I have more listeners here over the air in my little area. I just think you are going through this mind boggling research and restricting yourself needlessly. You can't even program you own produced shows, Teenage Dreams.
And then figuring out what is what's in Canada vs the United States.....I'm in awe that you can find all this information, and sort it all out. I wouldn't know where to begin!
The simple answer is that I've really developed an interest in the material that I would be playing, particularly historical classical and opera recordings. I also have a great deal of interest in older detective and mystery fiction. This is all in the public domain anyway, so it makes sense to restrict my programming in that regard.
Another, lesser reason, is that I resent the corporate money grabbing behind copyright fees, and feel good about being able to ignore that facet of what I'm doing (while still adhering to the letter of the law).
Case in point. While doing some research, I ran across a report from a copyright advisory body (made up of various corporate music entities) here in Canada, which recommended vast changes to the copyright fee structures. One such change really made my blood boil. It used to be that you could play a radio inside your business, and not pay fees, as it was assumed that the radio station was already paying them. If you generated your own music by playing CD's, you had to pay. That makes sense. This report wanted the government to change that, so that every business playing music, no matter what the source, paid. Even if the fees were being paid twice. I have no idea if that ever went through, but just the fact that they were trying to squeeze every last penny from the poor small business person makes me want to avoid paying these corporations anything. Even the small amount I would pay to stream my station.
For it's the corporations that are getting the bulk of the money, not the individual musicians. I knew someone whose royalty fees had decreased over the years by several orders of magnitude, despite changes in the copyright licensing that was supposed to 'help' music makers.
But as I said, I still want to remain legal. That's why what I described is somewhat fluid, and I'm still a bit leery about playing Old Time Radio. I *know* that if I stick with historical classical, opera and vocal and book readings that everything will be in the public domain in both Canada and the U.S. Even with jazz and popular music there is some uncertainty for Canada, mostly due to lack of information about the composers.
I'm just going to work at creating playlists of the material, see where I end up, and then decide what the end content will be.
. One such change really made my blood boil. It used to be that you could play a radio inside your business, and not pay fees, as it was assumed that the radio station was already paying them. If you generated your own music by playing CD's, you had to pay. That makes sense. This report wanted the government to change that, so that every business playing music, no matter what the source, paid. Even if the fees were being paid twice. I have no idea if that ever went through, but just the fact that they were trying to squeeze every last penny from the poor small business person makes me want to avoid paying these corporations anything.
Here in the states any business playing copyright music, even if just playing a radio station is supposed to pay royalties. Even a live band in a bar for instance playing for example Stairway to Heaven (or whatever) the bar is required to pay those royalties because it's a public performance. However.. never, not once have I seen any indication of it being done, nor such enforced. Many business play Pandora for background music, Pandoras business plan covers those royalties.. However most small businesses tend to ignore that and just use the free version like e everyone else. It's pretty much an unenforceable law. In general, fact is, only larger businesses chains, and sheep actually adhere to that law.
Really, most copyrights are unenforceable due to the effort involved except for those on the highest moneymaking songs (and films and books etc.).
I understand that. My little efforts at a personal radio station would never attract attention, particularly with the nostalgia angle, even if I did make a mistake in determining the public domain status of something. It's just my little way of sticking it to those that want to line their pockets at the expense of the expansion of culture (which is what the public domain encourages, after all).
I've been going through some digital rips of early cylinder vocal/opera recordings that I've found in various places, and the sound quality, not to mention the performances, are pretty amazing for most, considering the primitive technologies involved in making them (i.e., singing into a large horn). It just goes to show that technology isn't everything when it comes to creativity. Great sounding crap is still crap.
I strongly agree in objecting to what I call parasitical greed by collection agencies which enrich themselves while short-changing artists.
Furthermore I resent the strong-arming of small-businesses playing music on internet radio streams because , even though we can measure the number of 'connections' to our streams, we have no way of knowing whether those are real people actually hearing us, as bots and copyright police are not true listeners but may account for some of the numbers.
It is absurd to consider part 15 radio stations responsible for royalty costs, given the fact that most likely there is no one listening most of the time, and in any event no way of measuring the number of listeners which will be less then five on the best of days.
Artists and their agents should pay us for playing their music because doing so obviously promotes them and serves as veritable commercials for their benefit!
Carl said "Artists and their agents should pay us for playing their music because doing so obviously promotes them and serves as veritable commercials for their benefit!"
I agree. Through radio an artist can get exposure to the public. It used to be that radio playing a song and got the artist known. The way you knew about a new song is radio play and then you went and bought the record. You spent your money to support the artists by buying the record. Records sold was the way to judge success. Personal appearances are where bands/singers make more of their money.
A part 15 station playing an unknown band like the Surfrajettes for example is getting them free exposure to a very limited audience of a few listeners but still.... We shouldn't have to pay music royalties for the promotion that may result in someone going to a show to see them or buying the record. But then there's no more supporting the artist with your money buying the record. Downloading killed that.
In brief, with terrestrial part 15, it's a reasonable decision to ignore music royalties if you pretty much accept the fact that it's unlikely that anyone in your area are bothering to switch to the AM dial to tune you in. Nowdays, Sad as it is, I suspect most of us genuinely doubt that anyone is even listening to our station at all (even though we may hope some curious soul might be). Agreed? Generally it's really just a self-serving hobby and little more.
However, there are exceptions, think Tim in Bovery, Radio Sausalito, Retro Radio in Montana.. Am I missing anyone? Such part 15 stations are known to have listeners - and sponsors - and publicity.
If you know for a fact you have listeners and your airing copyright content, then it's your responsibility to insure your operation is legal and to pay the required royalties.
That's my take on it anyway.
Well, the only thing that never changes is that things change. Including minds.
I've decided to continue on with Artisan Radio generally as it was previously, with a few tweaks in the schedule (primarily to reduce the time load of producing new shows). We will renew our SOCAN license, and continue to stream and run the SDR. The target date is to be up and running by Monday, January 13.
One of the big changes is that we'll be reducing the number of hosted shows, and running them weekends - Beautiful Sounds will run Saturdays and my new show, The Vinyl Jukebox, will run Sundays. The Vinyl Jukebox will focus mainly on 50s & 60s (with some 70s) records, thus effectively incorporating Teenage Dreams.
We'll be running Detective/Mystery Book Readings in the weekday time slots previously allocated to those hosted shows, starting with Sherlock Holmes (by Arthur Conan Doyle), then moving to his French counterpart, Arsene Lupin (by Marcel LeBlanc), and going on from there. Those 2 authors alone will take months to complete, an hour at a time.
We're also getting rid of the Old Time Radio Shows. Initially we'll be expanding Lost Jukebox and The Best Jazz to 2 hours each, but eventually we will be adding Roaring 20s (and teens) and Historical Classical/Vocal hours, and cutting those back. It's going to take a bit of time to gather the material together and do the research, however.
So really, this is more a case of Artisan Radio evolving rather than a wholesale change. It makes more sense, particularly since I want to cut back the time involved somewhat. And I'll still be producing one show, the easiest one, which I was going to miss.
@richpowers Yes you are missing me! Up here in Canada on FM I have listeners in my area.
I don't have sponsors, but I advertise in my area that I am there. Posters on the mail boxes.
Making money at this was never in the plan. There is no ongoing operating expense.
@artisan-radio The Vinyl Jukebox....is that going to be your production narrated by you like Teenage Dreams? If so I wouldn't mind running some of those also as I have a bit of space still to accommodate it.
I think that you gave in as the research which is so time consuming to do all this copyright sorting out is not worth the effort when you can pay the affordable fee and just program what you want. You are doing your part, and paying the license fees to the appropriate places like Socan etc. If the money goes to line their pockets and not go to the artists which are dead the majority of them, you are doing your part to be legal and you can't control what goes on behind the scenes. They are supposed to be non profit. Yeah that's after they have paid themselves. But you can't worry about it.
But why are you dropping *all* the OTRs?
@richpowers Yes you are missing me! Up here in Canada on FM I have listeners in my area.
I don't have sponsors, but I advertise in my area that I am there. Posters on the mail boxes.
Making money at this was never in the plan. There is no ongoing operating expense.
OMG! I knew that! Seen a few of your different flyers pretty recently! I'm sorry about that, I felt like I was missing someone.. and still feel like I'm forgetting someone else too. I'm sure theres more out there that have local listeners.
A couple of answers.
I'm dropping the OTRs because I still feel leery about the copyright status of them, and I'm not sure if the SOCAN license will cover them. In Canada, the copyright lies mainly with the author of the script, but there could also be other factors. Just because people generally consider them to be in the public domain doesn't mean that they are, and if money is to be made, things could change. It's so complicated that I decided to give them a pass. There would be no issue if I were just transmitting over the air (as the various licensing bodies don't care about us, at least in Canada), but I also have the Internet stream, which I don't want to give up. So I went the public domain reading route instead.
There are advantages and disadvantages to this. The disadvantage, as Mark has pointed out to me, is the loss of professional voice actors. But Old Time Radio Shows generally suffer from simplistic plots, crammed into less than half an hour. Even adding 15 minutes can make a huge difference; compare a typical BBC drama of about 45 minutes (Rumpole, Agatha Raisin, Father Brown, etc.) with a 1/2 hour show, and you'll immediately see/hear the difference. The book readings typically take 45-75 minutes for a short story, and I've serialized books to run across multiple days (the first will be A Study in Scarlet with Sherlock Holmes). Of course, each day, the reading will be repeated 4 times, giving listeners some flexibility. And I'm filtering the readers as well; listeners will be pleasantly surprised at the quality of the ones I use.
It's actually fairly easy to determine the copyright status of a single music item, at least in Canada, and if you limit yourself to everything released 1924 and earlier, it's dead simple for the U.S. as well. But it takes work, and extend that out to literally thousands of songs in various playlists - well, it would literally take months.
What was taking even more work was the research on the old classical/vocal music. I'm no expert (one of the reasons I'm interested, I always like to learn), but it took me a day to come up with the information necessary to do the appropriate voice overs for 30 songs. Translate that to hundreds and thousands of songs, and it becomes very onerous.
So I decided to approach the public domain thing gradually, building up playlists for Historical Classical and Roaring Twenties & Teens, early jazz, etc. slowly and see where things take me.
@artisan-radio You say Just because people generally consider them to be in the public domain doesn't mean that they are,
That's true, however... Years ago I became enchanted by the 1940s Quiet Please program, not so much the program itself, but the story behind it. It just fascinated me and I delved deep into researching it years before I ever took a deep dive into researching part 15. I wrote about it a long time ago at https://part15lab.blogspot.com/2014/05/quiet-please-and-whats-fourble-board.html but then edited out a out 30% of it because I thought it was too long (I wish I never did that)....
Anyway, to get to the point, Radio Archives, a very reputable source https://www.radioarchives.com had done extensive research trying to find any conformations of copyright of that program, but could not find anything at all... that does not mean there isn't a copyright hidden away somewhere, but what it does mean is that it is extreamly v unlikely that use of the Quiet Please episodes would ever be contested, because their is no one alive to contest it! So Radio Archives added it to their offerings after doing restorations on it (which I never thought were particularly impressive) and sold copies of it.
The same situation applies to many other OTR programs, and there's no record of any of them ever being contested either, which is why OTR have been so predominantly distributed over the last 50 years without issue.
So I don't think its imprudent to make use of these programs at all. If there's been no issue with them in the last 50 years, then you can pretty much rest assured there never will be.