Democracy of Sound (47 page)

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Authors: Alex Sayf Cummings

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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.

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