Now I'm not any kind of expert on this, but I do know that these European Import box sets are really cool. They put out old country, rockabilly, hillbilly, bluegrass, western swing, and jazz recording that haven't been available for years.
I have several from Bear Family, Proper, JSP and others.

Some of the Proper Records box sets offer over 100 songs for $24.
They can do this over there (I think Proper is in England) because, with their copyright laws, if a recording is over 50 years old it's considered public domain, and they don't have to pay royalties to anyone.

We, in America, have completely different copyright laws. If someone over here tried to put out a box set, like Proper does with 100 songs on it, the royalties they would have to pay would be outrageous. If BMG/EMI/SONY were to put out a box set of 100 songs they would have to charge over $100 for it, just to break even.

So my 3 question.
1) When I buy one of these $24 box sets, with every Ernest Tubb song from 1932 till 1950, is there any difference from downloading songs from P2P on the Internet?

2) The FBI is still going after people who trade songs on the Internet without paying royalties, so what makes buying a CD from a company that doesn't pay royalties any better?

3)Or should I not even worry about things like this, and just look the other way like the rest of the world seems to be doing?

[This message was edited by Alvin Blaine on 19 July 2006 at 12:46 AM.]

and this:- http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum15/HTML/011671.html

------------------

quote:

---

Steel players do it without fretting

---

quote:

---

The FBI is still going after people who trade songs on the Internet without paying royalties, so what makes buying a CD from a company that doesn't pay royalties any better?

---

The F.B.I. has jurisdiction on things going on in the U.S.A. and it's territories. They have no jurisdiction over matters (sales) in foreign countries, and that's as it should be. Were a big corporation like Bear choose to import their products for sale in the U.S., then they'd have to abide by current laws, and pay appropriate license fees. Royalties paid to steel guitarists for instrumental albums would still be pretty insignificant, owing to the very small numbers of sales in such a niche genre. I doubt any steelman in the world could make even a meager living on instrumental CD's, unless he produces and sells them himself.

quote:

---

You must remember that when you sign a contract with a major label, the vast amount of profit goes to that label. That's why so many artists are "self-producing" their stuff now, and that trend will only continue to grow as the ripoffs in the industry become more and more exposed.

---

quote:

---

If BMG/EMI/SONY were to put out a box set of 100 songs they would have to charge over $100 for it, just to break even.

---

quote:

---

Or should I not even worry about things like this, and just look the other way like the rest of the world seems to be doing?

---

Ron

------------------

Click here to E-mail us.

Karen Kaylee Records
KRS D-10 10x9, KRS SD10 4x6 EMMONS P/P S10 3x5 Peavey Session 400 LTD, Peavey Ultra 15" Peavey All Tube 15"
Fender Twin Reverb Hilton Volumepedal

[This message was edited by Ronald Steenwijk on 23 July 2006 at 02:52 PM.]