From: MH1406@student.law.duke.edu
Newsgroups: rec.music.phish
Subject: Variousity
Date: 13 Nov 92 15:40:05 GMT
Article-I.D.: uvaarpa.1992Nov13.154005.25252
Reply-To: MH1406@student.law.duke.edu
Organization: The Internet

Hey kids and campers,
    About the long box/packaging concern - I have a sneaking
suspicion that the reason Junta is packaged both in a shrink wrap and
a long box is the aforementioned (elsewhere on the .net) imminent
phasing out of the longbox.  Sometime within the next year or so, CDs
should be released ONLY in the shrinkwrap, and it seems logical to me
that Elektra would do both packaging steps now, and merely stop the
longbox step later, as opposed to having to actually switch packaging
methods at a later date.  Doesn't cut back on the plastic used, but
at least provides an economic/efficiency rationale for doing so.
    As to Icculus, and the song it seems to be going in to, the only
version of Icculus I have on tape puts it at the end of the
Gamehendge monologue that occurs between Col Forbin's Ascent and
Famous Mockingbird - maybe it is Mockingbird that you hear as
emminent (I'll need to go listen to that myself).
    Sanity has a fast version?  Wow, now there's a gap in my tape
collection - I only have slow versions, and have yet to hear a fast
version live.  What -  ever!!!
    Was this a Phish thread?  Someone, either here or on r.m.gdead,
asked about licensing, merchandise, copyrights, et al.  Just a quick
few notes: logos and the like are protected by trademark laws, not
copyright laws.  One way a logo (or trade name, for that matter) can
lose its trademark protection is under a theory of dilution -
basically, meaning that the once original/unique/attributable to the
tm holder only logo/name is now so much in the public without mental
attachment to the tm holder that it can't be considered unique - thus
it goes into the public domain (so that, for example, anyone could
use the Phish logo at their fish market, were the logo to be
diluted).  This would be why the band (well, any band) would be
concerned with unofficial uses of their tm's. I would venture to say
that the Grateful Dead bears are damn close to losing any tm
protection they had, just from the amount of totally non-gd related
shirts I've seen them on.
    As for copyrights, this is what protects a band's music.  There
are now two levels of protection for recorded music - one copyright
protects the actual written notation of a song, and one protects the
actual recorded sound of the song.  The latter provision, an
extention of previous copyright law, didn't come into existence
until the passage of the Copyright Act of 1976 (implemented in 1978)
in response to the large amount of pirating going on (pirating -
making unauthorized copies of recorded releases and selling them as
the original; as opposed to bootlegging, which is the unofficial
recording and selling of live performances).
    There is a compulsory licensing section of the Copyright act that
basically mandates a percentage fee you must pay to the holder of a
sound recording copyright if you are to play their music in public or
record it - but this doesn't free you from the obligation to get a
release from the holder of the songwriting copyright.  This is where
BMI/ASCAP comes into play (if I'm still getting all this right - it
came from a law class last year, not the real world of the music
business - disclaimer).  Those organizations serve as clearinghouses
for song copyrights, so that one can go to/through them to attempt to
get permission (for a fee, of course) to play/record someone else's
copyrighted music.
    Just some legal babble from a babbling mind - if anyone wants to
get me to nail down specifics, let me know.  Hell, if there are any
bands of netters out there looking for an entertainment lawyer, I'm
looking for a job!!  Hey Shelly, do you think the band would take on
a legal intern/gofer/slave?  Have briefs, will travel!!
Peace, love and flowers,
Matt Heller