Follow the lead QUESTIONS

One of the things I learned as a librarian and as a citizen is that, much as it pains me, I can’t know everything. So it’s good to know people who you know and trust to vet things for you.

For instance, if I were suddenly to develop an interest in Doctor Who and wanted to know what book to read first, I wouldn’t bother researching it,; I’d just ask Gordon.

So it is with local politics. There’s coterie of people whose opinion I trust who I can usually count on for selecting candidates to support. In the last Democratic primary, most of them were supporting one particular candidate. But then another person, who is also a guidepost, not only backed another candidate, but noted some rather uncomplimentary things about the candidate my other friends backed.

Well, I’ve come to the same conundrum regarding some federal legislation concerning the copyright of “orphan works”. On one side of the issue is Paul Rapp, an intellectual property lawyer around here, who supports the idea of the bill. In fact, I wrote about it, and Paul, a/k/a F. Lee Harvey Blotto, drummer of the legendary band Blotto, here. I’ve known Paul since the early 1980s and trust his judgment. Also on this side is the Special Libraries association, of which I am a member, which supported these modifications to the original legislation.

But on the other side is Steve Bissette, artist extraordinaire, who has a much more negative view, to say the least, as noted here and here. I knew Steve from the mid-1980s, when he produced work that was published by my publisher, FantaCo. We have re-bonded recently in our attempt to get the FantaCo Wikipedia spost corrected. He fears the artists being ripped off.

The topic came up at work when one client of the SBDC had a piece of artwork produced by a street artist and wanted to use the art as part of a logo for her new store. Whole the art belonged to the entrepreneur, the image was copyrighted by the creator. But who is he? Where is he? Is he still alive? Based on precedent established in the library community, our librarian recommended that the business make a “good faith effort” to find the copyright holder, through paid ads in the newspaper and art newsweekly in the city where the artist had been working, describing in detail the situation.

I looked at the material Steve provided, and while I understand that the creative community fears that the legislation will create a license to steal and that people will just pretend to look for an owner before using the image, it seems to me is that this is how it’s currently working without legislation.

The bill appears to be dead this year – apparently some economic bailout seems to have been more important – but the issue will come up again.

So, my questions:

1. What topics, if any, do you tend to look to others to help inform you? Who are these information leaders?

2. What is your understanding of orphan works copyright legislation?

I’m so confused…

ROG

RM-Special Music Edition

While my ukulele gently weeps with audio/video. Actually quite good, I think, despite the web address. (Thanks, BG.)
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The great thing about Albany is FREE music in the summertime. So far, we’ve had, among others, Ruben Blades, Mary Wilson and Sam Bush at Alive at Five with Little Feat, Leon Russell, and Terrence Simien still to come. At The Plaza had a two-day BluesFest with Buddy Guy, Shemekia Copeland and many others; and Black 47; Forthcoming: the Lovin’ Spoonful and Grand Funk Railroad with the Edgar Winter Band. I’ve seen NONE of the musicians that have performed so far, and I am not sure if I’ll get the chance to see the artists that are still to come. Nuts.
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I got this e-mail from Amazon touting their “10th Anniversary Hall of Fame musicians, whose CDs have sold the largest number of copies at Amazon.com in the seven years since Amazon began selling music in 1998”. The list is pretty obvious, you’d think:
The Beatles,U2, Norah Jones, Diana Krall are the top 4. 6-10 are Frank Sinatra, Santana, Enya, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. The rest of the top 25 you’d all know. But who is it at #5? Eva Cassidy. Eva Cassidy?
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I was having lunch with my friend Mary and we were talking about Van Morrison. I noted that “Jackie Wilson Says” was on St. Dominic’s Preview. She contended otherwise and bet me $5. People, PLEASE don’t bet with me. I can be/have been wrong about a LOT of things in my life, but when I put money up, it just doesn’t happen.
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I received this link with audio of an Itzhak Perlman performance on three strings.
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Rapp on This: Lawyer Paul Rapp, a/k/a Lee Harvey Blotto, the drummer from the legendary Albany band Blotto, always has something sage to say about intellectual property and the arts.
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“Les Paul Celebrating 90th Birthday With New Album”
90 years on this planet and still jammin !
Les Paul is the Inventor of the solid body guitar and muiltitrack recording as well as a master of his instrument. Happy Birthday Les !

Guitar legend Les Paul will celebrate his 90th birthday with his first new studio album since 1978’s “Guitar Monsters,” a collaboration with Chet Atkins. Les Paul & Friends’ “American Made, World Played” is due Aug. 30 via Capitol/EMI.

The album will boast such collaborations as “Love Sneakin’ Up on You” with Sting and Joss Stone, “Fly Like an Eagle” with Steve Miller, Eric Clapton on “Somebody Ease My Troublin’ Mind,” Jeff Beck on “Good News,” ZZ Top’s Billy F. Gibbons on “Bad Case of Lovin’ You” and Buddy Guy, Keith Richards and Rick Derringer on “Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl.”

I only do such blatant commercial plugs when the artist is at least 88.

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