--- In LPFM_Radio@..., "Richard Phelps"
<retrohitradio@p...> wrote:
> Interesting topic. This would have little to do with copyright law =
> You can broadcast any programme be it 5 days or 50 years old, as long
> as you've paid for the right to do so.
>
> Breaking Copyright law is altering the material by way of repackaging,
> re-recording or sampling, right?
>
> ...
Well, yes and no. Copyright is broken if you reproduce (either by
copoying or broadcasting) something you didn't create yourself or
don't have the rights to unbless it is out of copyright.

Anything that is 'out of copyright', said to be in the "public domain'
can be broadcast free of charge, without payment.

In NZ, the copyright on broadcast programmes and sound recordings runs
out fifty years after the end of the year the programme or recording
was first published.

We need only consider NZ law here, because the copyright laws of other
countries do not apply here, any more than any of their other laws. NZ
gives the same copyright protection to material produced abroad as it
would have if it had been produced here.

That means that some of the popular recordings of the 1950s -
Presley, Bill Haley etc - are now starting to move into the public
domain, and that some classic radio shows like Dad & Dave, the early
Goon Shows before 1955, American serials like Dragnet and Box 13, are
all Public Domain as far as NZ copyright goes. And that should mean
that they can be freely broadcast without payment of royalties by
small or large radio stations here.

BBC threatened the Australian Goon show site by claiming that BBC
owned the trademark The Goon Show, though it is not listed in the UK
Patent Office list of registered tradmarks, in which Goons are the
trademark of a kind of chocolate biscuit. Nor is it clear what
difference their ownership of such a trademark would make unless one
were presenting something that wasn't the Goon Show but claimed it was.

They also maintained that the scripts were subject to a different
copyright regime. The issue then is whether that separate copyright in
the scripts - and in the music heard during the show - requires
separate payment or not.

I believe I'm entitled to broadcast 50 year old recordings by Bill
Haley & Elvis Presley without additional payment. But I'm not entitled
to re-record the songs with other performers without paying the
appropriate royalties for the words and music.

And on that analogy I should be free to re-broadcast the Goon Shows or
any other 50-year-old programme.

I'm still thinking about it.

All advice and opinion welcomed,

Philip

Primetime Radio 1ZZ