Democracy of Sound (47 page)

Read Democracy of Sound Online

Authors: Alex Sayf Cummings

Tags: #Music, #Recording & Reproduction, #History, #Social History

BOOK: Democracy of Sound
12.74Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
44
. “Records—How Experts Rate Them,”
H.R.S. Society Rag
no. 4 (August 1940): 30–1.
45
. “Hot Society,”
Time
, May 17, 1937, 50.
46
. Porter,
What Is This Thing Called Jazz
, 51.
47
. Paul Starr,
The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications
(New York: Basic Books, 2004), 336.
48
.
Herbert v. Shanley Co
., 242 U.S. 591 (1917); Starr,
Creation of the Media
, 339.
49
. Susan J. Douglas,
Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination
(New York: Times Books, 1999), 85–6.
50
. Ibid., 90–2.
51
. Melville B. Nimmer, “Copyright Publication,”
Columbia Law Review
56 (1956): 185–202.
52
. “Piracy on Records,”
Stanford Law Review
5 (1953): 446.
53
.
RCA v. Whiteman
, 114 F.2d 86 (U.S. App. 1940), at 4.
54
.
RCA v. Whiteman
, 28 F. Supp. 787 (U.S. Dist. 1939), at 6–7.
55
.
RCA
, 28 F. Supp. 787, at 15.
56
. Ibid ., at 12.
57
. Ibid., at 11.
58
. Melvin Garner, “The Future of Record Piracy,”
Brooklyn Law Review
38 (1971): 409–10.
59
.
RCA v. Whiteman
, 114 F.2d 86, at 5.
60
. Ibid ., at 6.
61
. Ibid., at 5.
62
. Ibid., at 13.
63
. Ibid., at 7–8.
64
. Learned Hand,
The Spirit of Liberty: Papers and Addresses of Learned Hand
(New York: Knopf, 1952), 189–90.
65
.
Metropolitan Opera Association v. Wagner-Nichols Recorder Corporation
, 199 Misc. 786, 101 N.Y.S.2d 483 (Sup. Ct. 1950).
66
. Ibid ., at 796.
67
. Ibid ., at 796–7.
68
. Ibid ., at 791.
69
. Ibid ., at 793.
70
. Vaidhyanathan,
Copyrights and Copywrongs
, 19.
71
.
Metropolitan v. Wagner-Nichols
, at 797–8, 800.
72
. Ibid ., at 796.
73
.
Jacobellis v. Ohio
, 378 US 184 (1964).
74
. Frederic Ramsey Jr., “Contraband Jelly Roll,”
Saturday Review
, September 30, 1950, 64; as for the baker, Ramsey observed, “Jelly Roll, who once split a vaudeville bill with an entertainer who boasted he was Sweet Papa Cream Puff, would be happy.”
75
. Ramsey, “Contraband Jelly Roll,” 64.
76
. Thom Holmes, ed.,
The Routledge Guide to Music Technology
(New York: Routledge, 2006), 172, 277.
77
. Wilder Hobson, “Le Jazz Jubilant,”
Saturday Review
, August 25, 1951, 41.
78
. “LP Jazz Reissues Squeeze Bootleg Diskers on Old Collector Items,”
Variety
, May 9, 1951, 42.
79
. Alan Lomax,
Mister Jelly Roll: The Fortunes of Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans Creole and “Inventor of Jazz”
(New York: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1950), 298.
80
. Smith, “Background to Bootlegging,” 3.
81
.
Shapiro, Bernstein and Co. v. Miracle Record
, 91 F. Supp. 473 (N.D. Ill. 1950).
82
. Ibid ., at 474.
83
. Ibid ., at 475.
84
.
RCA v. Whiteman
, 114 F.2d at 89.
85
. Russell, “Boogie Woogie,” in Ramsey and Smith,
Jazzmen
, 194.
86
. “Chi Court Ruling on Copyright Status of Recorded Music Stuns Industry,”
Variety
, June 14, 1950, 57; “Music Biz Maps Midwest Action Vs. Diskleggers,”
Variety
, June 18, 1952, 41.
87
. “Victor Presses Bootlegs!”
Record Changer
, November 1951, 6. As evidence, the magazine published an RCA invoice that showed 466 copies of a Jolly Roger record composed entirely of performances originally released by Columbia.
88
. “Victor Presses Bootlegs!” front cover.
89
. Ibid ., 6.
90
. “Fox Called in on Disk-legging,”
Variety
, August 15, 1951, 43.
91
. “RCA Cracks Down on Disk-legging in Policy Switch,”
Variety
, September 26, 1951, 131.
92
. “Victor Presses Bootlegs!” 6.
93
. Cripple Clarence Lofton,
Boogie Woogie and Blues
(Pax, 195-?), New York Performing Arts Library, Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives (RHA-NYPAL).
94
. For example, see notes by Charles Edward Smith of Hot Record Society on Eureka Brass Band,
New Orleans Parade
(Pax, 195-?), and Hoefer’s notes on Jimmy Yancey,
Yancey’s Mixture
(Pax, 195-?), RHA-NYPAL.
95
. “Pax Productions: Complete Jazz Record Catalog,” Pax Records Research File, Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University at Newark (RUN-IJS).
96
. “Art and the Dollar,”
Record Changer
, November 1951, 7.
97
. “Jolly Roger: Records for the Connoisseur,” RUN-IJS.
98
. For contrast with Pax records, see
Jelly Roll Morton Vol. 1
(Jolly Roger, 195-?), Sound Recordings Archive, Bowling Green State University (BGSU-SRA).
99
.
Metropolitan v. Wagner-Nichols
.
100
. “Recorders vs. Bootleggers,”
Business Week
, February 9, 1952; “Platter Pilfering,”
Newsweek
, February 11, 1952, 71.
101
. William Livingstone, “Piracy in the Record Industry,”
Stereo Review
, February 1970, 62.
102
. “LP Jazz Reissues Squeeze Bootleg Diskers on Old Collector Items,”
Variety
, May 9, 1951, 42.
103
. “Platter Pilfering,” 71.
104
. “Bootlegging: The Battle Rages,”
Record Changer
, December 1951, 3–4.
105
. “Art and the Dollar,”
Record Changer
, November 1951, 7.
106
. “Our Position,”
Record Changer
, December 1951, 5.
107
. “2 Dealers Charged in Disk Bootlegging,”
New York Times
June 11, 1960, 21; Robert E. Allison, Peter Korelich (a record presser), Larry F. Lee, Carl John Marts, Charles Richards, and William Thompson (a commercial artist) were also arrested.
108
. “Fake Record Ring Broken; 7 Men Held,”
Los Angeles Times
, October 3, 1950, 2; see also “New Jersey Bootlegging Crackdown Dramatizes ARMADA Convention,”
The Cash Box
, June 18, 1960.
109
. “Pirate Records,” Brad McCuen Collection—Piracy 1969, 97–023, box 18, folder 9, Center for Popular Music, Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU-CPM).
110
. “Swaggie Records Catalogue,” Brad McCuen Collection—Piracy 1969, 97–023, box 18, folder 9, MTSU-CPM; Nevill L. Sherburn to W.T. Ed Kirkeby, May 13, 1966, Brad McCuen Collection—Piracy 1969, 97–023, box 18, folder 9, MTSU-CPM.
111
. Ed Kirkeby to Stephen H. Sholes, May 9, 1966, Brad McCuen Collection—Piracy 1969, 97–023, box 18, folder 9, MTSU-CPM.
112
. Peter Welding to Brad McCuen, February 5, 1964, Brad McCuen Collection—Piracy 1969, 97–023, box 18, folder 9, MTSU-CPM.
113
. Brad McCuen to Stephen H. Sholes, April 6, 1966, Brad McCuen Collection—Piracy 1969, 97–023, box 18, folder 9, MTSU-CPM.
114
. Yochai Benkler,
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), 31–2.
115
. With the fragmentation and diversification of the industry that accompanied the boom of rock and roll music in the late 1950s, more independent labels and record-pressing factories emerged, but in the period of the Hot Record Society and Jolly Roger few options were available for people to press small runs of records; see Robert Burnett,
The Global Jukebox: The International Music Industry
(New York: Routledge, 1996), 106; and Pekka Gronow, “The Recording Industry: The Growth of a Mass Medium,”
Popular Music
:
Producers and Markets
3 (1983): 70.
116
. James Boyle,
The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 224.

Chapter 3

1
.
Touch of Evil
, DVD, directed by Orson Welles ([1958]; Los Angeles: Universal Studios, 2000).
2
. John Corbett, “Vinyl Freak,”
Down Beat
, November 2004, 18.
3
. David L. Morton Jr.,
Sound Recording: The Life Story of a Technology
(Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University, 2006), 97.
4
. John Corbett, “Vinyl Freak,”
Down Beat
, November 2004, 18.
5
. Interview with Dan Morgenstern, Institute of Jazz Studies, Newark, NJ, March 14, 2007; Will Friedwald, “Recording Jazz History as It Was Made,”
Wall Street Journal
, December 4, 2010, A30.
6
. David Suisman, “The Sound of Money: Music, Machines, and Markets” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2002), 114.
7
. Brian Winston,
Media Technology and Society: A History: From the Telegraph to the Internet
(London: Routledge, 1998), 4.
8
. Jody Rosen, “Researchers Play Tune Recorded before Edison,”
New York Times
, March 27, 2008, A1.
9
. Winston,
Media Technology and Society
, 6.
10
. William Lafferty, “The Blattnerphone: An Early Attempt to Introduce Magnetic Recording into the Film Industry,”
Cinema Journal
22 (1983): 19.
11
. Oberlin Smith, “Some Possible Forms of Phonograph,”
Electrical World
, September 8, 1888, 117.
12
. Robert Angus, “History of Magnetic Recording,”
Audio
, August 1984, 28.
13
. Lafferty, “Blattnerphone,” 19.
14
. Ibid., 20.
15
. Ibid., 27–8.
16
. Ibid., 30.
17
. On Vail and Alexander Graham Bell’s vision of the telephone system, see Jeremy Bernstein,
Three Degrees Above Zero: Bell Labs in the Information Age
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1984), 1–2.
18
. Mark Clark, “Suppressing Innovation: Bell Laboratories and Magnetic Recording,”
Technology and Culture
34 (1993): 535.
19
. Clark, “Suppressing Innovation,” 534.
20
. Ibid., 535–6.
21
. Millard,
America on Record
, 192.
22
. S. J. Begun,
Magnetic Recording
(New York: Murray Hill Books, 1949), 9.
23
. Millard,
America on Record
, 197.
24
. Hillel Schwartz,
The Culture of the Copy: Striking Likenesses, Unreasonable Facsimiles
(New York: Zone Books, 1996), 234.
25
. For an industrial example, see “Firms Use Tape Recorders to Cut Down Written Work,”
Chemical Week
, April 25, 1964, 104.
26
. Sam Dawson, “Revolution in Office Machinery,”
Los Angeles Times
, February 24, 1953, 19.
27
. R. H. Opperman, “Record Voice on a Hair-Like Wire,”
Journal of the Franklin Institute
237 (1944): 160.
28
. Eric D. Daniel, C. Denis Mee, and Mark H. Clark,
Magnetic Recording: The First 100 Years
(New York: Wiley-IEEE Press, 1998), 87.
29
. “New ‘Soundmirror’ Now Used at Hunter,”
New York Times
, February 25, 1940, 49.
30
. G. Schirmer, “Why Did More People Buy Their Soundmirror at Schirmer’s Than at Any Other Store in the Country? (ad),”
New York Times
, November 30, 1947, 20.

Other books

Altar of Eden by James Rollins
Change of Heart by Norah McClintock
The Rybinsk Deception by Colin D. Peel
The Conqueror by Georgette Heyer
Julia's Daughters by Colleen Faulkner