Collectors, Con Men, and the Struggle for Property Rights

• Published in: Democracy of Sound
• Main Author: Cummings, Alex Sayf
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: New York Oxford University Press 25.04.2013
• Subjects: composers; copyright; collectors; property rights; Eli Oberstein; recording industry; sound recordings; record companies; bootlegging; popular music

This chapter examines how collectors, listeners, and entrepreneurs took advantage of a legal gray zone—that composers deserved to benefit from recordings of their work but that record companies did not enjoy a copyright for their recordings—to rerelease old and out-of-print recordings, beginning in...