[78-L] ^Questions re airplay of old recordings on radio.

[Steven C. Barr]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Lennick" <dlennick at sympatico.ca>
> Once upon a time, "The Great Gatsby" had to have its entire soundtrack 
> replaced
> with fuzzy echoey not-quite sound-alike music on all television showings. 
> And
> the scoring had won a freaking Oscar.
> dl
> Cary Ginell wrote:
>> Probably the high cost of licensing synch rights from recalcitrant record 
>> companies. In addition to taking forever to grant licenses, they are 
>> fairly inflexible in their quotes. It's much easier to hire musicians 
>> (union or non-union) to do a quick knockoff in the studio, which probably 
>> saves thousands of dollars and is faster.
>>
I actually went through this personally about 25 years ago! Some friends and 
neighbours
of mine wanted to do a twenties-based short film, and wanted to use my 78's 
as the
backing sound. They quickly changed their plans when they found out what the 
synch
rights would cost them (although, as I understand it, they would have owned 
the synch
rights to the records for as long as the US copyrights were in effect?!). 
They wound up
hiring a rather dubious group who THOUGHT they could imitate the sound heard
on my records (but couldn't, as it turned out...?!)

Steven C. Barr