EDLIS Café 1985 copyright law landmark courtcase Billboard tapes vinyl Great White Wonder
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Kazuhiko Kato
1985 seems so long ago in copyright law. Do coffee drinkers recall what then seemed a landmark courtcase?
Billboard
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In its 114th year, Billboard remains the world's premier weekly music publication and a diverse digital, events, brand, content and data licensing platform. Billboard publishes the most trusted charts and offers unrivaled reporting about the latest music, video, gaming, media, digital and mobile ent...
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Hank Wellman Back then, nobody was able to foresee an era in which such recordings could circulate for free.
29 April at 15:08 · Like
Mary Kelly
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Bob Dylan recordings circulated for free in the early 1960s! On reel to reel tapes. And various ways ever since...
Back then, nobody was able to foresee an era in which such recordings could circulate as freely and as easily as they do now.
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29 April at 22:53 · Edited · Unlike · 4 · Remove Preview
Hank Wellman Some recordings may have circulated for free, but not in such volume that the bootleg labels were put out of business.
29 April at 20:02 · Like
Eduardo Ricardo There was never a time anyone I knew had to buy a bootleg. People chose to, but the community of free traders began a decade earlier than vinyl bootleggers and was always a stronger community, not for profit. Commercial bootlegs are still doing fine...
After the 1960s, when commercial bootleggers were selling vinyl their sources were often the tape trading community and many in it were none too happy.
30 April at 14:19 · Edited · Like · 4
Bill White I dont know about that. At least i could find no other way of getting the Great White wonder outside of paying somebody for a copy.
29 April at 22:02 · Like
Eduardo Ricardo
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You knew no one with a reel to reel tape recorder who would make you a copy? I am frankly astonished. If you wanted the vinyl object you had to pay, but listening was free to anyone as was having a tape copy.
Now if you needed it the day it came out then you might have had to pay. But after a day or so tapes were circulating pretty widely of any commercial bootleg. And of course many vinyl bootlegs were made from circulating tapes!
Not everyone had a tape recorder, but I knew no one with a serious interest in music who did not. They were cheap second hand if money was an issue. If you had nothing to record in exchange, if your trading partner already had everything, usually an old tape could be found for you and recorded over, if you could not afford to buy tape.
Once you had something the pump was primed, the modern term "leech" was not then used, but taking and never giving was a dead end. There were people who were elitist and held on to treasures with greed and malice. And people who liberated such recordings. And everything in between.
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30 April at 14:27 · Edited · Like · 4 · Remove Preview
Bill White i had a reel to reel that i used to record albums off the radio, but great white wonder was not played on the radio when it first came out, and nobody i knew had a copy. i bought all all those early bootlegs, vd waltz, troubled troubador, seems like a freeze out, etc. it wasnt until 1993 and the internet that i discovered the world of tape trading.
29 April at 22:23 · Like
Hank Wellman I have to agree with Bill White here--I've known quite a few Deadhead tape traders over the years, but in the pre-Napster era, I never crossed paths with so much as a single person who traded Dylan tapes. It doesn't mean that there weren't any Dylan tape traders, of course, but it certainly makes me skeptical of the claim that those in the community of Dylan tape-traders were ever able to circulate unauthorized Dylan music at a volume even approaching what the bootleg labels have managed to market and sell over the years.
29 April at 22:40 · Like
Eduardo Ricardo If no one had a vinyl boot and it was new to all then someone had to buy it. And those with means bought vinyl in preference to a tape copy, tape copies were often several generations from a decent source. I did purchase all those you mention.
Before 1969 reel to reel traded tapes were the most common way to hear unreleased Dylan.
>Bill White but great white wonder was not played on the radio
Great White Wonder was indeed played on radio when it first came out. This was covered in the press at the time and in later books.
For example:
"KCBS in Santa Barbara, KNAC in Long Beach, KRLA in Pasadena and KMET-FM and KPPC-FM in Los Angeles—immediately began playing the album. KRLA was the first. Unconcerned with legal niceties, these LA radio stations were quite willing to fuel demand for both Great White Wonder and the spate of bootlegs that soon followed its metal-stamped heels." (Heylin, Clinton (1996). Bootleg: The Secret History of the Other Recording Industry. New York: St. Martin's Griffin. p. 46. ISBN 0-312-14289-7.)
and in the press:
"Effect of the album's "release" on the local record scene has been phenomenal. Five radio stations – KCBS in Santa Barbara, KNAC in Long Beach, KRLA in Pasadena and KMET-FM and KPPC-FM in Los Angeles – immediately began playing the LP, thereby creating a demand that often far exceeded a shop's limited supply."
"According to amused and displeased spokesmen at Columbia (it depended who you talked to), this was hardly true; although they were aware copies of the basement type were in circulation, had even been played on the air, they did not have any warning that an LP like this would be marketed."
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/new-bob-dylan-album-bootlegged-in-l-a-19690920
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John Smith >but it certainly makes me skeptical of the claim that those in the community of Dylan tape-traders were ever able to circulate unauthorized Dylan music at a volume even approaching what the bootleg labels have managed to market and sell over the years.
Who made this claim?
The commercial bootleg industry obviously moved more volume of product, it was for profit, marketed, and used a network of record shops as well as dealers. You are very fond of Straw Men...
30 April at 14:35 · Edited · Like · 3
Bill White what unreleased material was circulated in any manner prior to great white wonder in 1969?
29 April at 23:38 · Like
Kazuhiko Kato I guess the really significant question is did you make tape copies for others, Bill, if you had a reel to reel tape recorder and the vinyl of "great white wonder ... vd waltz, troubled troubador, seems like a freeze out, etc."?
30 April at 00:46 · Edited · Like · 3
Bill White i made cassette copies, since none of my friends had a reel to reel, but they were taped from the air , and so the loss in quality was significant, especially when the quality was bad to begin with...and there werent many people interested in having one, when they could come over to my house and listen to the vinyl. what i finally started to do was find a few people who wanted the bootleg,then we would all pitch in and buy the vinyl, then make cassette copies for ourselves.
29 April at 23:47 · Like · 2
Eduardo Ricardo Much the same thing. We wired tape recorders together, and wired tape recorders to the radio and the television! And we never got electrocuted. We were slow to be won over to cassette tapes. I think the sound quality possible with them improved in the 1970s. I know in trading circles once cassettes started to be used widely by some for Dylan most insisted on Dolby type B noise reduction and chromium dioxide (CrO2), which takes us into the 1970s.
By 1969 the amount circulating was significant. Has anyone listed it all? A few pre-Columbians will tax my brain enough for now:
The Karen Wallace tape was first known as the St Paul tape. The Cleve Pettersen tape was circulating as the Minnesota Party Tape or The Red Rosey Bush Tape. The East Orange Tape. The Minnesota Party Tape 1961. The Riverside Church tape (probably the first from radio, broadcast by WRVR-FN Radio in the programme Saturday Of Folk Music a 12-hour Hootenanny Saturday Special 29 July 1961). The First Gaslight Tape (a second and third came later). Gerde's Folk City (broadcast on the WBAI radio station in New York City). Oscar Brand’s Folk Song Festival (broadcast by WNYC). Carnegie Chapter Hall. The First McKenzie's Tape (now known to be two events in different months). The Minnesota Hotel Tape. Leeds Music Demos.
Off the top of my head that takes us up to March 1962 when Bob Dylan had his own first commercial record (Columbia CL–1779, CS–8579). Someone else can list the next seven years!
Folk musicians especially were keen to have recordings of up and coming performers, people traded much more widely than Bob Dylan alone. And people working in venues recorded every act, often re-using the tape if they thought no one would ever listen to a particular act. There was a very significant sense of community which is not without its echoes in this Café.
The person who let me use his tape recorder first, had been trading reel to reel music tapes since the 1940s. He had an interest in Polynesian music. He would not have known who Bob Dylan was but he was supportive of local folk musicians and their tape trading. And he traded up to the best equipment available regularly.
30 April at 21:10 · Edited · Like · 4
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