Comments on: Jay-Z and Alan Lomax

By: Sources « African American Folk Music vs. Korean Folk Music

Sources « African American Folk Music vs. Korean Folk Music — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 13:34:32 +0000

[...] http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2011/jay-z-and-alan-lomax/ [...]

By: John Culpepper

John Culpepper — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 02:59:00 +0000

The book is written by a professor of communication and a professor of law and economics (whether he is a practicing entertainment lawyer is not clear). Why this book even mentions Alan Lomax is a mystery since his copyrights date from the 1950s and both laws and practices have changed considerably since them. The writers seem to be just trading on Lomax’s name, since what they do to have to say about him is completely speculative (“we assume” and so forth). Apparently they never bothered to interview anyone connected to him. Nor, in a book dedicated to sampling, do they even bother to mention the most famous and successful sampling of Lomax’s recordings by Moby!!!! Due diligence anyone??

Nevertheless, chapter 3 mentions (in passing) that ”musical copyright” is distinct from other kinds of copyright. It also acknowledges that all kinds of people are put down contractually as “authors” besides those who actually wrote or performed the songs. The book also mentions that copyrights can be bought and sold and most often it is large corporations (music publishers) who end up getting all of the money, while the artists, band members and arrangers see very little. Needless to say, to find out about a particular copyright you would have to look at the specific contract for each song.

By: John Culpepper

John Culpepper — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 22:55:00 +0000

Pete Seeger did not copyright Wimoweh, this was done by his publisher, who assigned Seeger a share of ”author’s” rights. When Pete found out there was a known author, Solomon Linda, he immediately directed his publisher (Folkways/AKA Harry Richmond, Harold Leventhal, and Pete Cameron) to send his share of the (artists’ half) of the royalties to Linda. However, the publishers did not bother to do this and Seeger had no way of checking up on them. In fact although Seeger “renounced” his royalties, he continued to receive them, Rian Malan discovered. Pete was not very business like and was chagrined. No doubt he had let other people handle his finances. See the wikipedia article for this. Richmond continued to take a share of authors’ royalties (using a pseudonym) for the Tokens hit version (a rearrangement), which was copyrighted by Abilene music.

By: John Culpepper

John Culpepper — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 22:46:00 +0000

You should familiarize yourself with entertainment law before spouting off.

By: John Culpepper

John Culpepper — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 22:08:00 +0000

This is not correct. There is widespread public ignorance of the fact that the rules for music publishing copyright are not the same at all as those for print publishing, but are sui generis, and date back to the sheet music era. Under music publishing laws both publisher and author receive royalty income, split 50 / 50. These percentages can be and frequently are further subdivided in various ways among producers and arrangers. (Today recording artists normally form their own publishing companies to avoid having to give half their royalty income away.) After World War 2, when the sheet music publishers realized that they were losing income to the recording industry, they figured out they could make up the loss through publishing copyright income; and they began to raid the field of traditional music and copyright everything they could get their hands on, usually using pseudonyms and spinoff companies. They raided the entire Lomax catalog, claiming that the songs in the Lomax books, which had been edited and arranged by the Lomaxes, were public domain. The fact that the publishers agreed to a settlement demonstrate their awareness of the weakness in their case. However, Lomax would have preferred to have been offered a share from the publisher’s half rather than the artists’ half of the publishing right, as was not infrequently done. Lomax was advised by his lawyers, however, that the pockets of the music publishers were too deep for him to fight against. It may be argued that the attacks on the Lomaxes that persisted over the years were calculated to distract the public from the publisher’s role and to make him a scapegoat. Redbaiting may have also played a convenient role in this.

By: How did a folk song collector end up with a song credit on a Jay-Z album? Copyright law. [via] Here’ | Pop Loser

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 21:51:02 +0000

[...] did a folk song collector end up with a song credit on a Jay-Z album? Copyright law. [...]

By: Blogging: What's the science behind writing a hugely popular blog post? - Quora

Blogging: What's the science behind writing a hugely popular blog post? - Quora — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 18:29:32 +0000

[...] and emotions — http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2010… — 147,321 viewsJay-Z and Alan Lomax — http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2011… — 13,984 viewsLearning music theory with Auto-tune — http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2009… — 8,696 [...]

By: 2011 BIG FEED: A Series Of Links | Austin Art Blogs

2011 BIG FEED: A Series Of Links | Austin Art Blogs — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 08:01:25 +0000

[...] Jay-Z and Alan Lomax: Ethan Hein’s Music, Technology, Evolution blog [...]

By: John Culpepper

John Culpepper — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 14:31:00 +0000

Absolutely not. See above posts.

By: John Culpepper

John Culpepper — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 23:21:00 +0000

Copyright law allows and indeed encourages people to copyright versions or arrangements of traditional (i.e., folk) songs. The publisher would take fifty percent and the author (frequently also the publisher using a false name) would take the other half, giving some to the performers, as they saw fit. It was a longstanding practice of tin pan alley and of performers to copyright traditional songs in a fictitious name. This was the case with The Richmond co and other music publishers. See Rian Mallan’s fascinating article on this in Rolling Stone, later made into a documentary film: reprinted here:
http://www.3rdearmusic.com/forum/mbube2.html Also the wikipedia article on Wimoweh.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_lion_sleeps_tonight