Nigel Hanley wrote:
Cecil, in many ways I agree with you. Full stop. I 'm equally not trying to pick a fight, but am merely attempting to understand why the original owners of such monumental works of popular music such as the Beatles' library are forced to undergo legal proceedings to retain their work , or archival works of genius such as Coltrane are up for grabs by Hal Leonard, ex-drummer.
Point of order -- there never was a person named Hal Leonard, drummer or otherwise. It was a made-up name for the "front man" of a dance band.
But the legal wrangling happens because despite all the arguments to the contrary, at least in the U.S. and I suspect also in the U.K. and other European countries and all signatories to the Uruguay round of GATT, intellectual property shares many of the same characteristics as physical property, and copyrights can be sold, traded and given away. And once the ownership of those copyrights changes hands, they are like any other piece of physical property and if the original creators want them back, they have to negotiate with the current owners.
It's all part of the copyright law, and that's how such things are forced to come about.
-- David H. Bailey dhbai...@davidbaileymusicstudio.com _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
