Re: Legal rights to airchecks (Was Re: job question)

["'A. Joseph Ross'" <lawyer@world.std.com>]

On Tue, 23 Jun 1998, Martin J. Waters wrote:

>         What is the legal situation on radio airchecks? Does the company
> that owned the station when the broadcast was made retain rights
> indefinitely? Let's say you wanted to do a radio program about the history
> of Boston radio and use a whole range of clips. Is there any "fair use"
> provision for use of a bona fide historic broadcast, for example, the
> aircheck of WBZ (AM) at the moment when the WBZ-TV tower fell and hit their
> building during the hurricane in the early 1950s? Or would you have to
> track down every company / successor company and get permission?

Federal copyright for sound recordings was first authorized in 1972.  Any
recording made before 1972 is covered, if at all, by a common law
copyright under state law.  I am not aware of any court decisions which
define the parameters of such a copyright, but it is possible that "fair
use"  may apply. 

>         Vast amounts of this material is given away and sold on cassettes
> and is available now on the internet. How does that work? What about all
> the internet sites dedicated to 1960s' top 40 stations (such as the WRKO
> site), which have many airchecks?

It's entirely possible that this use is illegal, but the status of
pre-1972 sound recordings is murky.  As interest has grown in otr, some
companies have asserted their rights to important broadcasts, but I am not
aware of any litigation which has settled the many open questions.  I
could research the question, of course, but thus far, in the absence of
anyone offering to pay me to do so, I have not been motivated to expend
the time and effort.

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 A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                                         617.367.0468
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