[atlantaprog] Re: Z-Axis last Sunday (10/31)

Adrian Belew did something similar with an old preacher called "The Prophet 
Omega" on one of his albums years ago.  If you started a thread on his message 
board you might be able to dig up some more info.
 
Brian


Allen Welty-Green <agmedia@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Good questions. I have talked to several lawyers about it! In the 80's 
I used to tape all sorts of things off of the radio while I was at work 
to use in various sound-art projects. When I discovered this bit and 
realized I wanted to use it as a "found vocal" ala Byrne/Eno, I made a 
concerted effort to find out who she was. I wasn't able too. I don't 
even know which AM radio station she was on. Copyright law is a bit 
vague on this sort of thing - if she was reading from a script, or if 
her "sermon" was being played from a tape, then there is indeed a 
copyright in place for this bit, but if she was just conversing over 
the radio, there is NOT a copyright (copyright law deals with material 
that is "fixed" into a permanent form - written, taped, etc.). 
Incidentally, "copyright" doesn't specifically mean "registered with 
the copyright office". Copyright is a automatic whenever you "fix" 
something to a distributable media. If you wrote a poem and made 
xeroxes for your friends, there is a "copyright" on that poem.

Assuming it is copyrighted, I would be expected to obtain permission 
and pay a royalty for commercial use of the recording, but since I have 
no way of determining whether such a copyright exists (and I have made 
a "good faith" effort), there is no way for me to do that. The 
consensus amongst everyone I have talked to is that, yes, there is a 
risk by using her voice like this... but the risk in negligible. The 
woman said these things back in the early 80s in a different city. The 
chances that she, or someone who knows her, would ever even hear this 
song are infinitesimally slim. How many evangelical female ministers do 
YOU know who are also prog fans??? The only way she might ever hear the 
tune is if it was to somehow garner some mainstream attention, in which 
case I would be glad to pay a royalty.

There's also the fact that her words are used in a straight-forward, 
unaltered way. We are not mocking, or satirizing her. We simply provide 
an underscore for her words and a wider distribution of her message. 
It's likely she would have no problem with our use of her words anyway.

We've talked about these issues in depth as a band and decided the 
artistic integrity of the composition is worth the slight risk.

So... there you have it!


On Nov 4, 2004, at 8:54 AM, 
wrote:

> Hey Allen,
>
> I'm curious about this, how do you use a recording like that? Do you 
> have to find the person and get permission? Sounds interesting.
>
> PEACE
> Beth
>
>
>
>
>> The last song was Out of Hand, from our upcoming CD. The woman is an 
>> AM
>> radio preacher I recorded in the 80s talking all about lust and
>> temptation... pretty rich stuff. Wait 'til you hear her on a studio
>> recording where you can really listen to her story!
>> AWG
>
>
> "Challenges are what makes this life interesting. Overcoming them is 
> what makes life meaningful."~Unknown
>
>



                        
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