Rarissimus!

[mikehopf]

Biographies of unknown ( not just unsung) composers together with musical downloads . This annual series on the  ReciClassiCat website currently features ultra rare composers over the last 5 centuries.

You can catch up on previous years contributions too. Well worth a look... and a listen.

[Mark Thomas]

www.reciclassicat.com

[adriano]

That looks great, but it contains copyright infringements. Fritz Brun, for example, is still a protected composer - and they just uploaded its Frist Symphony in full - and even without saying who is performing... There are also copyright laws about uploading CDs, no matter if they contain copyrighted music or not; they must be older than 50 years, as far as I remember.
When the great love for music takes such dimensions, it ruins composers and performers. There was a time in which most of my CDs were available (in full!) on YouTube, can you imagine what this means? Everybody could just copy them from the audio output of their computers. We were able to trace the responsibles, admonish and even fine some of them. The Russian Darknet has still a lot of my CDs for free download. No problem of uploading excerpts for promotional purposes or some broadcasts unavailable on CD, but most people have no idea what it needs and costs to play music and to make recordings - and think that everything is duplicable and available for free!

[Alan Howe]

Should we approach the person(s) responsible for running this website and challenge them over the copyright issue?

[Mark Thomas]

Frankly, I don't think it's worth the effort. As Adriano says, if YouTube (owned by Google) is not only prepared to turn a blind eye to the blatant copyright infringement which is rife on the platform until a whistle is blown on each individual case, but can also avoid any sort of legal sanction against itself, what is the point of pursuing such small fry? I don't condone it, but it's a fact of life.

[eschiss1]

depends on the country. I seem to recall reading that all or almost all recordings that have ever been made are still copyright-protected so far as the US is concerned, though they can be released into the creative commons by their copyright-holders. (The 1922/23 US-copyright rules do not apply to music recordings the way they do to books and music scores. IIRC.) Rules are different of course in other copyright jurisdictions (eg Canada, EU...)

[adriano]

Thanks Alan, Mark and eschiss1 :-)
Just let the Spanish do and we will see. In any case I have written to my contacts at SUISA and GEMA to see what they think about this blog. In first line I find it scandalous if copyrighted composers à la Brun are not respected. Since, apparently, even recording companies themselves are still too indolent to take more serious actions about all this it seems that we deal with a legal field which is still not controlled seriously enough - or uncontrollable. Maybe they just rely on their download/streaming sources. Even Switzerland has not been able so far to take a strong position towards all this, but has started, a few years ago, to collaborate with European performing right societies, in order to get their registered artists (the company is SWISSPERFORM) to receive small (I would rather say ridiculous) percentages on music played on radio, TV, DVDs. But one never gets what is really due, since there is now an agreement that the yearly "due" lumpsum has first to be "recouped" beween the countries - and only the left-overs are paid out. The USA still do not join in, but artists can join SOUND EXCHANGE, a company controlling musicians on the internet, which seems to work now properly after many years of confusion. It's already something! I had to fill in a "claim form", a detailed list with all single tracks (and not just single CDs) of my 49 recordings - just imagine the hours this took, considering that some CDs have over 20 tracks. Every "entry" has a about a dozen of information fields (timing, copyright owner etc.). A first payment of two years ago was sent to me of 0.02 US$, since the system did still not work properly. The last two payments (this and last year) were of about 20.00 each. In the USA they generally ignore the bank transfer system and only send cheques. My Swiss Bank charges me 40.00 US$ expenses for each cheque and this procedure take 3-4 weeks...
In other words, the music itself (the work, the recording) is still not protected seriously enough on the internet. I do realize that this is a very difficult thing, but I think that the consumers should take first steps and respect music and its performers - and not just take advantage of all these piracy offers.

[adriano]

The Spanish link to the "unauthorized" Brun upload has just been deleted. Which makes me guess that the culprit must be a member of UC :-)

[Alan Howe]

To be consistent -and honest - all unauthorised links should be deleted.