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Sabicas’s recordings in the Public Domain?
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Paul Magnussen
Posts: 1636
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)
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 Sabicas’s recordings in the Public...
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I’ve been listening to and studying Sabicas’s material all my adult life, so at one time I used to make a point of providing detailed reviews on Amazon for all the available recordings.
In the last couple of years, however, these have proliferated beyond all reasonable expectation. In particular, there are scads of releases on no-name labels with tracks apparently selected at random and wildly inaccurate labelling. The content of The Art of the Guitar seems particularly to be a victim of this.
Sabas’s grasp of legal and financial matters was never the greatest*. And so I’m wondering if some (at least) of recordings have gone into the Public Domain.
Is anyone here qualified to judge, or at least to make an informed speculation?
*For instance, Jac Holzman (of Elektra records) said:
quote:
Sabicas was distrustful of record companies ever paying royalties and insisted on receiving a flat sum, in cash—for his first album on Elektra it was $1000, the largest advance we had ever paid. For the cover we did a photo of his hands in motion, a Gjon Mili time-lapse knockoff. The album sold wondrously well, so we recorded another. Sabicas could sell between fifteen and twenty thousand units, which was a bargain for us. If he had accepted royalties he would have earned four times his cash fee.
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Date Nov. 3 2019 16:00:57
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BarkellWH
Posts: 2944
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Sabicas’s recordings in the Pu... (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
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This will be of little help to you, Paul, but a few years ago there was a Foro member named Giacomo (posted under the monicker GJ Michelob) who was an attorney and very erudite in his explanation of legal issues regarding copyright, public domain, and the like. Unfortunately, he stopped posting several years ago. He was a real resource who could probably answer your question. His comments on everything, from legal issues to flamenco, were always a great read.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Nov. 3 2019 17:52:10
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kitarist
Posts: 794
Joined: Dec. 4 2012
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RE: Sabicas’s recordings in the Pu... (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
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Sabicas died in 1990 so there is no way his recordings would have become public domain recently. Current general copyright law such as it is, the minimum copyright is life+50 years (Berne convention), meaning 1990+50. However both Spain and the USA's laws are life+70 years, so the earliest his recordings would be in the public domain is 2061.
There are some weird scenarios. In the US, the above applies to works created past Jan 1, 1978. For works published or registered before 1978, the maximum copyright duration is 95 years from the date of publication, if copyright was renewed during the 28th year following publication.
But this seems to exclude sound recordings which are slightly different again, in the US, due to the Music Modernization act of 2018. From the wiki: The first sound recordings to enter the public domain will be those fixed before 1923, which will enter the public domain on January 1, 2022. Works fixed 1923–1946 are public after 100 years and works fixed 1947–1956 after 110 years. Works fixed 1 Jan 1957 – 14 Feb 1972 are all public 15 Feb, 2067.
All this to say, there is nothing in general or US-specific law to make these recordings public domain now. But it's one thing what the law is, and another if and when and how it can be enforced in specific cases. For example, how is anything going to be enforced if the company pressing the CDs is in communist China?
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Konstantin
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Date Nov. 3 2019 20:34:24
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Auda
Posts: 144
Joined: Sep. 28 2019
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RE: Sabicas’s recordings in the Pu... (in reply to kitarist)
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quote:
There are some weird scenarios. In the US, the above applies to works created past Jan 1, 1978. For works published or registered before 1978, the maximum copyright duration is 95 years from the date of publication, if copyright was renewed during the 28th year following publication.
But this seems to exclude sound recordings which are slightly different again, in the US, due to the Music Modernization act of 2018. From the wiki: The first sound recordings to enter the public domain will be those fixed before 1923, which will enter the public domain on January 1, 2022. Works fixed 1923–1946 are public after 100 years and works fixed 1947–1956 after 110 years. Works fixed 1 Jan 1957 – 14 Feb 1972 are all public 15 Feb, 2067.
All this to say, there is nothing in general or US-specific law to make these recordings public domain now.
The first 2 paragraphs would suggest works that had been in the public domain are again under copyright.
I would also say a good portion of Sabicas' work was recorded/published prior to 1978. The date of his death might not have an effect on public domain as seen from above (though contradictory) with the 28 year expiration date if not renewed.
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Date Nov. 3 2019 20:53:07
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kitarist
Posts: 794
Joined: Dec. 4 2012
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RE: Sabicas’s recordings in the Pu... (in reply to Ricardo)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
quote:
ORIGINAL: kitarist
quote:
Sabicas name was never on any (p) so he never owned anything.
As the author of any original compositions, he still owns the copyrights to these musical compositions, though likely not to the particular recordings of them that he did, as you point out.
Wrong... the PUBLISHER owns the (c) and (p). The only musicians on earth that own their own music are ones that
A. Never recorded it or wrote it down, or
B. Published it themselves
I am talking about the (a) authorship copyright i.e. rights of the author of a musical composition. I did a quick search (it is likely very incomplete as it only searches US stuff past 1978 and by keyword so if he didn't use sabicas on some they did not show up), and of the 16 copyright records it finds, all of them look like this below; only the title and date particulars change. They are all renewals of (also published/recorded, I am pretty sure) musical compositions copyrights, after an initial term of 28 years, by Sabicas himself as copyright claimant, of stuff he wrote between 1958 and 1961:
P.S. Actually I don't know how many compositions Sabicas has. It is not just 16, right? How many, even as a rough estimate?
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Konstantin
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Date Nov. 6 2019 17:11:31
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