Can one sell old session and master tapes on Ebay

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A friend is liquidating the assets of a studio. Among those assets are many
session and master tapes of known artists, where the label/producer/artist
has large outstanding unpaid balances for legitimate and uncontested studio
charges. Can those tapes be sold to the highest bidder? Obviously, no
assurance of rights to content would be conveyed in the sale.

Steve King

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"Arny Krueger" <arnyk@hotpop.com> wrote in message
news:xOSdnWkCR5NyLHrfRVn-iQ@comcast.com...
> "Steve King" <steveSPAMBLOCK@stevekingSPAMBLOCK.net> wrote
> in message newsMadnfv0voq5N3rfRVn-qA@comcast.com
>
>> A friend is liquidating the assets of a studio. Among
>> those assets are many session and master tapes of known
>> artists, where the label/producer/artist has large
>> outstanding unpaid balances for legitimate and
>> uncontested studio charges.
>
> I'm not a lawyer but I'm guessing that there's a big enough
> difference between being owed money and artist's rights to
> his work that a court case would be required. IOW your
> friend would have to sue for the unpaid balances, win the
> suit, and get an official legal settlement transferring the
> rights to the music to him.
>
> The tapes could probably be erased and sold as used media.
>
> Selling non-erased tapes could be risky because the
> purchaser of the tapes might try take advantage of their
> content. A suit against the new owner of the tapes could
> easily include your friend since he's liable for the use of
> his property.


I'm hoping PTravel will chime in. I suspect you are right.

Steve King

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In article <OMadnfv0voq5N3rfRVn-qA@comcast.com> steveSPAMBLOCK@stevekingSPAMBLOCK.net writes:

> A friend is liquidating the assets of a studio. Among those assets are many
> session and master tapes of known artists, where the label/producer/artist
> has large outstanding unpaid balances for legitimate and uncontested studio
> charges. Can those tapes be sold to the highest bidder? Obviously, no
> assurance of rights to content would be conveyed in the sale.

Anything can be sold to the highest bidder, but he'd better consult a
lawyer first. The artist might have stiffed him, but he might decide
to sue him for illegally distributing his material.

I'd suggest bulk-erasing the tapes and selling them as tape stock.
Until tape manufacturing gets into high gear again, that's still a
viable market.



--
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In article <42E8FE1A.80697966@cybercom.net> dale@cybercom.net writes:

> If the artist still has an outstanding balance and deliverables, a
> certified letter to them notifying them of the impending destruction
> would, I think, largely protect you from lawsuit.

I think that any studio with a conscience would have already tried
that. After all, they really want their money, not the recordings. But
there have been cases where a studio closes on very short notice and
the artist doesn't get notified. And if the tapes are really old, it
may be difficult or impossible to track down the artist. A certified
letter to the last address you had for them doesn't do you any good
other than to show good faith.

The best thing is to have a written policy that any tapes not removed
within 30 days (with the appropriate language specifying within 30
days of what) will be destroyed, and then actually do it. There's no
reason for a studio to provide long term storage of a client's tapes,
particularly for free.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

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In article <PNmdnQ6zBI-pzHTfRVn-3Q@comcast.com> steveSPAMBLOCK@stevekingSPAMBLOCK.net writes:

> I suppose it would be nice if a studio could easily operate that way. I've
> worked in several and owned a couple more, and none of them could enforce
> their own written policies effectively.

It probalby doens't make many friends, but all you need to do to
enforce your policy is to tell the client "sorry, your tapes are no
longer here. Didn't you read the agreement you signed? We haven't
heard from you in six months and you still owe us $500 from your
sessions." He may never come back, but you don't need customers like
that.

> In the case of my friend, with a 30
> year history and repeat customers whose activities surge and retreat from
> time to time, it is easy to get caught up in the "storage dilemma".

If you have regular customers, you can make arrangements with them
however you see fit. But if you have the policy on paper, you have a
right to enforce it when not enforcing it gets to be a pain. Wouldn't
you rather have space to store tapes for a client you know will be
back than to store tape for a client who stiffed you?

> After
> all, there is an element of control, when the studio possesses all elements
> of various projects for successful artists except the 1/4" stereo masters
> that went to the duplicator/pressing plant.

Did those leave the studio without being paid for? If so, that's bad
business. Again, you can do favors for good customers, but people have
to earn that favor, not expect it. You're in the business of selling
your time, not giving away your time and storage space.

> Sometimes, presence of the
> archive keeps a client who, otherwise, might hop down to the latest-greatest
> thing to do his overdub, copies, compilation, etc. Thus do studio owners
> get trapped into long term storage, until, one day --- usually years after
> the event really happened --- they finally accept that these folks are never
> coming back, tape library or no.

There's no reason why the client can't take his tape with him, and
just bring it back in when he wants to work on it. By storing his
tapes, you're putting yourself in a position of liability that may be
uncomfortable. Suppose a pipe broke or you had a fire in the store
room and a tape in "long term unpaid storage" was damaged. What do you
say to the client when he comes back two years later and asks to work
on that old project?

> And, another factor that cannot be
> disregarded is the personal relationships that build over time. You just
> can't bring yourself to tell Willy, or Chaka, or whomever to take his tapes
> or else.

No, not until it becomes a problem for you. But you can tell Joe
Songwriter who came in for his first session to pay his bill for the
day before he leaves. And when you finish the mixes, you can hand him
his tape boxes and say "here, you paid for these, you'd better take
care of them." He'll appreciate the care.

> Until, finally, the burden is overwhelming and one has to do
> something as an alternative to moving a ton or two of tapes to yet another
> empty room with a rent attached.

Like (as I recall in the case of the post that started this
discussion) the studio closes?

> I'm not talking about what makes sense
> business wise, just what seems to happen frequently with many studio owners.

This is yet another reason why the studio business isn't a very good
place to make money, and is only sometimes a good place to make
friends. The most succesful studios are those who work as a business,
and their clients understand it, because they're in business
themselves.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

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In article <eOmdnfCxpNOZ0nffRVn-pA@comcast.com> steveSPAMBLOCK@stevekingSPAMBLOCK.net writes:

> The problem is not with the low dollar client. For them, the process you
> suggest works well.

That's where most of the troubles are, with abandoned, unpaid-for
projects.

> However, the temptation is great to treat high dollar
> customers who have brought multiple six-figure album projects to the studio
> differently. A $5,000 balance with a customer who has already written
> checks for ten or twenty times that amount doesn't seem so serious --- until
> time passes and things change.

And well you should. For 6-figure projects, you could afford to rent
them a storage shed. But a deadbeat is still a deadbeat. If enough
time passes and he hasn't paid up, you can be reasonably sure that he
doesn't intend to return to your studio. Sorry if that's happened to
you. Like you say, time passes and things change.

> So, share your list of those studios who have not made exceptions to their
> policies for major clients ;-)

I think every client, major or not, has had a favor or two from a
studio - extended credit, some fee time, the use of some old tape at
no cost . . . But at some point you just have to decide if you really
want that client or not. If you have a pile of recorded tapes and an
unpaid bill and the client doesn't come back, the only money it's
costing you is the storage for the tape. You've already lost the fee
for your time and it's not likely that you'll recover it. The client
has lost interest in the project, or he's already put out the CD, it
didn't sell worth a hoot, and he's back to his day job.

> We're just trying to see if there might be a way to recoup from those
> exceptions (bad judgement or not) made in the past resulting in outstanding
> balances that seem difficult or impossible to collect through normal
> business processes.

Consult an intellectual property lawyer. But unless you can guarantee
to the buyer that he has the rights to the material, you really have
nothing of value to sell other than the tape stock. Remember, a work
is copyright as soon as it's fixed in a tangible media. If it's the
artist's own song and it's on tape, that's tangible. If he's recording
covers, the arrangement is copyright but of course the material is
owned by someone else.

I suppose that if someone thinks there's a market for Steve Stigma and
the Spinners singing their rockabilly version of "Jey Jude" and that's
what you have on tape, a buyer could pay Michael Jackson for the
royalties to the song and put out the single. When Steve Stigma hears
it on the radio and comes to you, you can tell him that his bill has
been paid in full and that he can talk to the guys as Garage Records
about getting reimbursed for his singing talent.

> Perhaps this discussion will help newer studio owners to examine their own
> policies with regard to what might happen months or years later.

Yup. How to deal with bad debts should be part of the business plan.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

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Unless the engineer was an employee of the artist (the arist was making
FICA and SS payment to the government) or the was a contract speficty
the sound recordings were a work for hire, the neingeer was the author
fo the sound recording and owns those masters. Transfer of ownership is
implied with payment in full. So there should be no problem selling the
reels. The purcharse wold still need to secure the appropriate
licesnses/permissions for use the underlying composition.

Other than as a learning too, I can't see why someone would want the
tape with the audio on them.

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Mike Caffrey wrote:

> Other than as a learning too, I can't see why someone would want the
> tape with the audio on them.

Sacred relics.

--
JP Morris - aka DOUG the Eagle (Dragon) -=UDIC=- jpm@it-he.org
Fun things to do with the Ultima games http://www.it-he.org
Reign of the Just - An Ultima clone http://rotj.it-he.org
d+++ e+ N+ T++ Om U1234!56!7'!S'!8!9!KAW u++ uC+++ uF+++ uG---- uLB----
uA--- nC+ nR---- nH+++ nP++ nI nPT nS nT wM- wC- y a(YEAR - 1976)

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In article <39udndHzJYpva3ffRVn-ow@comcast.com> steveSPAMBLOCK@stevekingSPAMBLOCK.net writes:

> I learned this evening that my friend's estate has had some luck in the past
> few weeks cherry picking the projects to pursue agressively for balances
> and storage charges. Seems, when the label/artist was convinced that the
> studio was truly going to destroy the tapes, in at least three cases, they
> settled.

At least being able to contact the (probable) owner of the music
allows him to make a final decision. If they still care about the
music enough to pay the bill, they'll do it. If they don't, they'd
probably prefer having the tapes destroyed than to worry about the
music getting into the hands of someone with poorer judgment and
morals.

> The Ebay alternative was deemed
> not worth the possible hassle.

That's good.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

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> The recording engineer (or the engineer's employer, the
> studio) is the "author" and "owner" of the *recording*
> until they get paid for it and transfer it to the customer
> (the artist or producer or label, etc.).

Now /that/ makes sense.

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"Mike Rivers" wrote ...
> rcrowley writes:
>> The stenographer (or the stenographer's employer) is the
>> "author" of the *written expression* of the proceedings.
>> That is why they can sell it and put beans on the table.
>
> Isn't that more of a "work for hire?" They don't sell the tape or
> printed page, they sell their time to prepare it for publication.

Yes. But it is the transcription service provider who hires the
stenographers and therefore the transcription service provider
is the owner of the transcript. (The *written expression* not
the *content*.) Exactly as a studio owns the recording made
by a sound engineer in their employ, but not the rights to use
the contents (music) without permission of the IP copyright
owner.

>> The recording engineer (or the engineer's employer, the
>> studio) is the "author" and "owner" of the *recording*
>> until they get paid for it and transfer it to the customer
>> (the artist or producer or label, etc.)
>
> That sounds like a business practice issue, not a copyright
> issue.

Good thing neither of use are IP attorneys. :-)

> You haven't been paid for your time, so you essentially have
> a mechanic's lien on the recording.

Only if the customer brought their own tape (as the driver still
owns the car).

> If you don't pay the mechanic for fixing your breaks, he can
> keep your car until you do.

But that doesn't give him permission to drive it or do anything
with it. It only gives him the responsibility to store and protect
it appropriately. The driver still owns the car.

> If you decide that you don't want the car, once the legal
> definition of 'abandoned' has been satisfied, the mechanic
> is free to sell the car, drive it in a demolition derby, give
> it to his mother-in-law, or whatever.

But there is no similar mechanism for the slightly more complex
issue of the ownership of the physical medium (tape, etc.) vs.
the *contents*.

> However the car, presumably, contains nothing of particular
> value that isn't obvious. If he sells it for $100 and the buyer
> finds the $1,000 in bail money that the former owner kept
> under the seat to pay his bail, I guess that's his good fortune.
> But I suppose if the original owner of the car ever found the
> buyer, he might have a case for getting his cash (which wasn't
> part of the car) back.

Exactly the same as the OP selling the tape stock (which he
owns) vs. the contents of the tape (which he does NOT own).

>> The studio/engineer have no rights to the intellectual
>> property (the music and/or arrangements) contained
>> ON the tape which remains with the composer and/or
>> performers. That is the point of contention of this
>> discussion.
>
> Yup, but suppose he says "I'll sell you this reel of tape for $25" and
> the buyer finds a demo of a hit song released by a now famous artist
> 20 years later. Like the bail money stashed under the seat, the
> original owner (in this case, the songwriter) probably still has
> rights to it. And, unlike the bail money, if the demo gets released,
> the famous artist is likely to be able to track down the one who
> released it.

Right. But no responsible IP attorney is likely to advise their
client to do such a foolish and risky thing.

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"Mike Rivers" <mrivers@d-and-d.com> wrote in message
news:znr1122765672k@trad...
>
> In article <11envfcekp0eu51@corp.supernews.com> rcrowley@xpr7t.net writes:
>
>> Right. But no responsible IP attorney is likely to advise their
>> client to do such a foolish and risky thing.
>
> This is why I initially advised the original poster to bulk erase the
> tapes and sell them as used stock. At least he'll get a few bucks for
> them. Depending on the size of the reels and the amount of wear on the
> tape, the reels might be more valuable than the tape itself.
>
>

An L.A. agent/attorney friend who represents many music artists used the
mechanics lien analogy. He said that it was his opinion that the tapes
could be sold so long as a disclaimer was published indicating that rights
to the content was not included as part of the sale. However, he also said
that he had not had occasion to test that idea either as a seller or on
behalf of a client wanting to reclaim his material. As I said before, my
friends estate has, as of this moment at least, decided to destroy the
tapes.

Steve King