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Another day, another story of copyright suppressing, rather than elevating, content. Today the @SYSKPodcast has a fun "short stuff" episode on "Pig Latin." 13 minutes is really about all you need to learn everything you need to know about Pig Latin. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff-you-should-know-26940277/episode/short-stuff-ig-pay-atin-lay-sorry-75694122/
In the middle of the podcast they mention times when Pig Latin appears in popular culture, including in a 1919 song by Arthur Fields called "Pig Latin Love." You can hear it here:
However, you cannot hear it in the SYSK podcast, because as @josh_um_clark notes, he couldn't figure out whether or not it was in the public domain. Some people may note that all works released prior to 1925 are public domain...
... and works from 1925 are going into the public domain in 2 days (side note: please check out our 1925 public domain game jam: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20201223/17285845942/gaming-like-1925-third-annual-public-domain-game-jam-starts-january-1st.shtml). However, ridiculously, music copyright is different.
This surprises people, but for most of the 20th century, recorded music *was not subject* to federal copyright. Indeed, there were debates in Congress over whether or not you could even consider recorded music as subject matter available for copyright.
You *could* copyright compositions (the sheet music), but *not* the recordings. Unfortunately, many states stepped in to create state copyright laws to cover musical recordings (and in some cases, there was no official regulation, but courts created common law doctrine for it)
In 1972, Congress made recorded music subject to copyright law, and by the 1976 Copyright Act, the US had federalized all copyright law, and pre-empted states from creating their own copyright laws. However, that left a ton of pre-1972 works in the lurch...
Or, rather, it left them subject to extremely complex, confusing and outdated state copyright laws, some of which would keep those recordings under copyright's lock and key for centuries. Even after all other works from those eras were public domain.
This created huge problems, and indeed, many old musical recordings were flat out disappearing, because the old records were disappearing, and copyright prevented anyone from doing anything about it.
In 2018, Congress passed the Music Modernization Act, which (among other things) finally dealt with the issue of pre-1972 works and... somewhat gradually putting them under federal copyright. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Modernization_Act#:~:text=This%20had%20created%20a%20complex,domain%20at%20an%20earlier%20time.
For somewhat stupid reasons, this did not automatically put all pre-1923 works into the public domain. Instead, there's a weird fade-in period. As if the copyright holders for 1919 works needed time to "prepare" their century old music to be more widely available.
And that means that works recorded prior to 1923, they remain... locked away from the public domain until... December 31, 2021.
And that explains why in the SYSK podcast, they don't actually play the clip of the Pig Latin song. @josh_um_clark says that he searched high and low to see if it was public domain, and he wasn't sure, but if it was, they would include a clip. But there's no clip...
... either because they couldn't figure it out (because this is all stupidly confusing) or someone on the legal team there also figured out that the recording is not public domain and won't be for another year (and 2 days).
But, because of this insane bit of random copyright trivia, it makes the SYSK podcast less interesting, since they can't even include a clip of that fascinating bit of historical music that enhances their own work and many people would appreciate.
Indeed, if SYSK had included the clip, on the off-chance whoever holds the copyright decided to sue, SYSK's parent company ( @iHeartRadio) would face pretty massive liability. All for including a tiny clip that would have likely made many more people aware of the song.
Anyway, that's my Stuff You Should Know About The Oddities Of Music Copyright Law & The Public Domain. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail...
Also, you really should check out and participate in our public domain game jam next month... So many fascinating works were released in 1925 and are now (FINALLY) going into the public domain.
Even if you don't think you're a game designer, we point to a bunch of interesting and easy to use tools to help you create your own games. Check it out. https://itch.io/jam/gaming-like-its-1925
