Proper Box Set collectors

The 50 year copyright ruling only covers the mechanical copyright on the recordings, and the likes of Proper and JSP will still pay composer's royalties, if applicable.

Usually these labels will attempt to prevent sale of their titles in the US. Naxos are another label who regularly issue old recordings, both in their historical Classical series and also single CD compilations of jazz and nostalgia recordings. Their monthly newsletter of new releases always carries wording like 'Not Available in the United States due to possible copyright restrictions' if the recordings are problematic under US copyright law. Some of the Naxos releases are of recordings so old that it's even legal to issue them in the US.

 

I own "Cool Cole: The King Cole Trio Story," and I think it's a terrific overview of the trio's work. I can also say, with a fair amount of certainty, that the set does NOT steal from Mosaic's mastering for "The Complete Capitol Recordings." The differences in source material are pretty obvious in all the tracks I've compared, and while Mosaic's set is clearly better, the difference isn't night and day. The Proper box sounds fine to me, but it does seem to be sourced from slightly inferior source material.

That said, I would never have really been interested in the trio if the Mosaic box -- with its current average price of $400 to $600 -- was my only option. I bought the 4-CD Proper box for just $20 and that got me interested in hearing more. Since then, I've purchased dozens of Nat King Cole CDs from Capitol, Bear Family and other "official" labels.

It's worth noting, again, that Proper doesn't really cut corners when it comes to packaging. The 4-CD "Proper Boxes," and the 2-CD "Proper Pairs" compilations, almost always have detailed session notes, lots of photos and extensive liner notes. If the company was out to just make a fast buck, there would be easier ways to do it.

I'm looking forward to reading some reviews of Proper's new Woody Guthrie box. It looks interesting...

Clark

 

I don't believe Proper has ever engaged in the same practices as JSP.

 

But "Andorran" labels such as Definitive, Lone Hill, and whatever they're called have. Strangely enough they are hardly mentioned when practices like JSP's are discussed.

 

Of course, it is not ok to "steal" mastering efforts, especially from companies like Bear Family, which offer high quality products and go to great lenghts to ensure that their customers are satisfied. So it is not ok, when Bear Family issues a Carter Family Set and 3 month later JSP puts one out that is basically a multidisc best of.

(Note to Bear Family: You might want to consider two editions of your sets in the future: a complete set and a set that just contains the "master takes").

But as other people pointed out, often there is nothing else available that offers an overview of a certain artist. I do not think that record companies consider it to be their business to put out a multi-label Fats Navarro set (just to give one example). So Proper and other companies come in and fill the gap. Charlie Parker is a really bad example, because in his case you NOW (not when the Definitive Sets originally came out) have a variety of sets that cover everything. But where is a decent Art Tatum retrospective that covers the years before the Pablo recordings? Where is one for Bix Beiderbecke? Or Sarah Vaughn? This is stuff that major labels have scant interest in, so without Proper (again: which are a much different company from Definitive or JSP) this music would just sit in the vaults.

Sidenote on LoneHill: This company puts out mostly obscure records, which major lables would hardly reissue today. So, if I have the choice of searching for obscure vinyl, obscure Japan CDs or easy to find LoneHill releases, you can take a guess, which I prefer. And I have absolutely no moral issues with that.

 

the "bix restored" series covers everything bix played on, with excellent mastering by john r.t. davies and others. 12 cds in 4 3 cd sets.

http://originjazz.com/buy_online1.cfm

 

Can someone post a picture of a "Proper" Box set? I have no idea what they look like and am curious now.

 

http://www.propermusic.com/search.asp?searchtext=Box Set

 

Just to make sure there is no ambiguity, these box sets are illegal to sell in the US.

It's not a gray area. The US copyright is in place and only the copyright holder can legally sell the music in the US. Any unlicensed sale is illegal under US law.

Just because it's being sold in big chains doesn't make it legal. It usually means that the US copyright holder doesn't have the financial wherewithal to mount a legal defense of that copyright. Nobody gets in trouble for selling something illegal unless the lawyers get involved. Lawyers are expensive. Is it worth paying a legal team $100-200K or more to stop the sale of an item that may make the company $25K over the next 10 years? These kinds of conversations go on all the time.

I once worked for an electronics company that had several patents that were the root of the company's financial success. Another company copied the technology and we looked into suing. We brought in the lawyers - that cost >$2K - and they told us it would cost around $40-80K to defend the patent and all it would do was stop their sales. We would likely get no financial benefit ourselves. We let the violation slide.

 

A lot of UK PD labels even sign distribution deals with legit US distributors including KOCH signing distribution deals with ASV Living Era and many other labels of this nature but that is definitely not legal.

 

I'd like to make one thing clear: my main problem with European labels like JSP and Definitive is that they "borrow" other labels' masterings. I find the fact that they're issuing stuff that's owned by others without any licence to do so not sympathetic, but it's legal as long as the stuff is in the public domain in Europe. Having the sets distributed in the United States, where the recordings are not (yet) in the public domain, is a different matter (see Kevin Bresnahan's post above) that I wasn't discussing.

My post re the availability of the Savoy Parker sets was a reaction to Mike B's post, where he seemed to suggest that no one but the European labels we're talking about here had bothered to reissue Parker's pre-Verve studio recordings. Judging by Mike's follow-up post I misinterpreted/misread what he said.

 

You are probably right, though you forgot to mention that a copyright holder will not only be able to stop the infringement of his rights, he can also claim damages, which can be very high in the US.

A small company may make more money from winning an infringement lawsuit against a large company than it would have made by selling their product without the unfair competition. But only if and when it wins, and that's the tricky part, given the enormous legal fees involved.

 

Damages on a poor-selling title would be minuscule at best. Sure, if someone sold a few hundred-thousand copies, there would be damages. But for a few thousand copies like most of these Proper boxes are probably selling? Nah. Like I said, the legal fees wouldn't even be covered.

I know some people in a large US music firm whose music is being sold illegally here in the US. They sick the lawyers on it when the numbers get too big to ignore or if they know the seller is dirty (especially if there is real physical theft involved). Since they seem to be letting many of these Jazz boxes slide, the numbers must be too small to worry about. I'm not privy to Proper's financials, but I doubt they're getting rich on this stuff.

 

This is not exactly a major label, is it?

 

I understand what you were trying to say. I was trying to say that Charlie Parker is one case, in which you cannot complain that there is not enough stuff available.

The issue of US distribution is unimportant to me as well, because it is the problem of the United States, if it enforces its laws or fails to do so. I am quite surprised however that companies like Wal Mart would ever consider to sell something that is illegal under US law.

By the way: Of course labels that own the recordings can still issue them (and should) and therefore turn its property into profit. It is just that others can do the same.

Question: JSP used to manufacture their own remasterings, like for the first Django Reinhardt (at least), Louis Armstrong Hot Fives and the Jelly Roll Morton 5-CD Box Sets. These sets still sold for little money. How was that possible? Does anyone know?

 

They are not, I am sure. However they are now a "real" label in the sense that they are putting out new recordings (like the new Richard Thompson and Nick Lowe albums). Zweitausendeins had some of these sets for sale for a while (for 13 Euros ) and they were gone within a few weeks. I guess that they sold several thousands of those titels combined in that period alone.

 

I have no idea. All I know is that the Armstrong, Morton and Beiderbecke JSP sets sound great. They were all mastered by the late John R.T. Davies, with the exception of the last disc in the Beiderbecke set.

 

no, but it's readily available, apparently legally, at a reasonable price, and with non-pirated mastering.

so what's the point?

 

As J.A.W. wrote the Beiderbecke JSP-Set is not pirated either and it is legal at least in Europe. The set you mentioned is also from a small company and might be legal or not in the US. My point had nothing to do with it though: I was saying that a great many of the Proper/JSP-Artists lack comparable sets by the major labels that own the recordings.

 

As someone mentioned in this thread, the argument over copyright laws has become a hot topic of Jazz discussion boards, mainly because more of that type of music is entering public domain in the EU. One issue that has been raised by several contributors, mainly those in the music business, is that if the EU copyright laws become standard, what would be the advantage to anyone paying the money to properly care for the original source materials?

To exaggerate - if a company like Proper started issuing every Beatles session and sold them for $1, basically cutting out EMI, the company paying to store all the masters, what financial benefit would there be to continue to pay for that storage? Why not just dump the reels?

Obviously, this is exaggerated for a band like the Beatles but if you apply it to small-run Jazz labels, it isn't so far-fetched. The storage and preservation costs for a large catalog are enormous. Don't ignore the source material in these discussions when you talk about making everything public domain.

Source material could easily start disappearing if the bean counters find out it has no value. Even worse is that as the years go on, this source material becomes even more fragile, making the preservation costs go up. It's a recipe for disaster.

 

Couldn't the labels donate the tapes to a public institution? That would really make them "public domain".

Joachim

 

as far as i know jsp was totally reputable up until a few years ago. i suspect that anything mastered by john r t davies is legit, or maybe anything where the mastering is credited.

i don't know for sure the legality of the origin jazz sets as far as coyright goes, but i'm quite sure the mastering is not pirated.

of course the majors are not interested in the bulk of this material, which is maybe a good thing as it gives them incentive to lease it to someone like mosaic who are likely to do a far better job of it than the majors.

and like i've said before, if the copyright owners refuse to release it themselves or lease it to a reputable reissue company i say get it any way you can.

this is definitely a concern, but if a company is not profiting from either releasing or leasing the material, what is their incentive anyway?

 

They were, until they started pirating other labels' masterings.

 

I just wanted to thank everybody who has contributed to this discussion! I'm glad that the art of civilized discourse is alive and well here on the Steve Hoffman Forum. I appreciate all the different POV's!

 

I agree, Kevin, that that's a problem - and one of the bigger issues, for me, in granting copyright extensions.

But... if we hold to that logic, then material would never revert to the public domain - and I don't think too many people are in favor of that either.