“The Injustice of the Thing”: Negotiating the Song Market in the U. S. Copyright Debates of 1906-1910

ABSTRACT

This article explores and contextualizes the disputes between the music publishing and recording industries during the U. S. copyright debates of 1906–1910. While seemingly antagonistic, a deeper look at the relationships between these two components of the commercial music industry reveals the ways in which both benefited from defining recordings and enshrining financial interests in law.

KEY WORDS:

• Copyright
• Phonograph
• Tin Pan Alley

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. There is some debate as to whether or not they were even invited to do so.

2. Before the start of the public Congressional hearings in June, the representatives of the MPA met with Congressional staff members to draft the new copyright law. The exact dates of these meetings are unknown, but the attendance was published in a statement by Librarian of Congress Herbert Putnam delivered at the beginning of the first day of the June hearings. The goal and result of the pre-conference meetings were the first draft of the bill that would eventually become the Copyright Act of 1909.

3. As part of the June hearings, Furniss submitted a letter (Arguments…June 154) to the committee explaining that he and the remainder of the pre-hearing conference participants had, indeed, consulted with the record industry through Victor Talking Machine representative Thomae. Furniss explained that Thomae had written his own bill seeking to protect under copyright the performances of highly paid Victor artists. Thomae then dropped his bill in order to support the one ultimately drafted, with assurances that his interests would also be protected.

4. It is likely that Webb was using the term air as meaning melody, as the two were commonly interchangeable during parts of the hearing.

5. Furniss also reiterates many of the other MPA arguments as to the intellectual production rather than the material products deserving protection.

6. While I have not been able to locate any completed compilation of Stern compositions, several searches of online repositories of sheet music failed to turn up any Stern works after 1902.

7. E-mail from Jerry Fabris, Museum Curator, Thomas Edison National Historical Park, 22 October 2013.

8. Marks implies that copies were also sold domestically, probably only within New York. It is more likely, however, that the company mostly provided their records to penny arcades and Automatic Vaudeville Company parlors, which would offer them for their customers to listen to on-site. This practice promoted songs to wide audiences and, as Cromelin also discussed in his December testimony, drove sales for sheet music.

9. The last name on the report is difficult to read and could possibly be interpreted as “McDay.” Neither name was able to be confirmed by examination of other internal Edison documents.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jane K. Mathieu

Jane K. Mathieu is an Assistant Professor of Music at Tulane University in New Orleans. Her research focuses on the sounds, stages, and singing of Tin Pan Alley in the United States during the twentieth century. She is currently working on a monograph that explores the diverse spaces, configurations, processes, and people involved in the creation, circulation, and performance of commercial popular song in the United States between 1904-1920.