New York Clipper (Feb 1923)

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18 THE NEW YORK CLIPPER February 14, 1923 MUSIC MEN LOSE MONEY THROUGH FAILURE T O COPYRIG HT ABROAD England's Laws Often Misunderstood and Result is Loss of Saks and Mechanical Royalties—London Firm in Free Offer to Take Care of American Copyrights Music publishers, newcomers in the field, and others who have not made a careful study of the foreign copyright situ- ation, are losing a good sized revenue from England and other countries through failore to secure legal copyright protec- tion. Through this failure, music men are not only' losing royalties from the sale of the published copies hut mechanical repro- dnction records as well. John 'Abbot, of the EngUsh music house of Francis, Day & Hnnter, is now in New York and discussing the situation made the matter dear. "Many American music men," he said, "believe that by depositing copies of a cop^ghted United States musical coin- position in the British Museum within fourteen days after its publication in the United States, English copyright is secured. That is not true, for while it is necessary to deposit these copies, a display of them for sale in ^blic must also be made at the time." This he stated, is absolutely necessaiy and the matter is closely watched by a number of mechanical reproducing companies, and if conrolete protection is not received^., they .after obtaining an American nl^c^''^ecord proceed to make and sell .records of the number, for which they do not have to pay a penny of royal^ to publisher or writer. The record busi- ness in England and other foreign coun- tries is a big one and the sale of the repro- ductions of success is large. A number of American muiic publishers are under the impression that a copyright in Canada also protects in England and have neglected the English end entirely. This is incorrect, as while a Canadi^ copyright gives the American publisher protection on the printed copy it does not do anything in the way of providing for the mechanical rights as there is no clause of this nature in Canada's law and in con- sequence thereof, if an American publica- tion is copyrighted there without the Eng- lish rules being followed no mechanical royalties can be collected. Francis, Day & Hunter, in connection with their London office have for years been taking care of the copyright matters for American publishers and will continue to do so. In connection with their publish- ing business they have a retail store and in addition to filing copies for American pub- lishers in the Museum as provided by law also make the public display required. In the professional papers weekly, they also publish the names of the numbers received and comply with all the legal formalities for the protection of American composi- tions. This according to Mr. Abbot is done free of charge, no fee is charged and no title or claim of any sort on the composi- tion is made. The entire matter is handled by the big English house simply with the idea of keeping informed regarding the American music publishers, their various publications and activities. The service is a very valuable one for- .American publishers, many of which will doubtless be pleased to learn of - plan of the English house. DELLON-STANLEY INC. STARTS Harold Dellon and Jack Stanley have formed a new mn^c publishing coni{any 'known as Delloa-Stanley, Inc., organized nnder the laws of the State of Mew York and incorporated for $5,000. Abner Greenberg, of the Knickerbocker Building, is counsel for the new music house and at present the headquarters will be located in Greoiberg's offices. Offices are expected to be opened early next week in the Broadway district. Dellon was for several years profes- sional manager of Harms, Ina, and Stan- ley is well known as a song writer. The Dellon-Stanley catalogue at present com- prises nine numbers, some of which are going into productions. HANDLES OLYMFIC RECORDS The Richmond Supply Corporation is now handling the Olympic phonograph rec- ords in addition to its line of sheet music and phonograph accessories. The disk is manufactured by the Fletch- er Company of I>ong Island City,_ which pays royalties on the product, which re- tails at 50 cents. Most of the nambers on the monthly catalogue of the Olympic rec- ords win be popular dance hits, with some standard vocal and instrumental numbers. The lobbing house is sole distributor of the Olympic records. WALTER EASnmAN IN NEW YORK Walter Eastman, English music xnaa, who for a nnmber of years lived in New York and was manajter of the local office of Cbappell & Co.. the bic London musk firm, is bade in the United States on a short visit. Eastman now holds on important posi- tion in the home office of Chappdl & Co. CHECKING UP RADIO STATIONS ' Preparatory to bringing wholesale suits for infringement of copyright, the Ameri- can Sodetjr of Composers. Authors and 'Publishers is gathering evidence daily, and is checking^ np on the radio broadcastmg stations which are sending out the society's music without a license to do so. Up to date most of the radio stations have been putting forward the plea that they did not know what the govemment was going to do since control was placed in the hands of the Secretary of Com- merce, and they did not know their exact status. For the type of radio stations that have been scndinR out popular music, the White radio bill which was recently passed made no provision and therefore subject to spe- cial classification, in regard to their being licensed by the govemment. DENIES DESERTING HUSBAND Mrs. Paul Barnes, widow of Paul Barnes, song writer, arrived from abroad last week and was deeply concerned over published reports that she had deserted her husband after he became blind. Barnes died in an insane asylum. Mrs. Barnes said she had cared for him in the a5>'lum and before he went there, and that he was buried with her two sons in New Hampshire, not in potter's field, as had been reported. BERT GRANT PLACES SONGS Bert Grant, who recently joined the staff of Jack Mills, Inc. has contribnted two new songs to the house's catalogue, one of then entitled "Russian-Ova," a piano solo, and the other "Twilight on the Nile," written in collaboration with Jack Frost Grant who was ill, has completely re- covered. SONGWRITERS TRY FILM GAME With the slump in the sales of the popu- lar lyric songs, writers of the verses have during the past year been put to their wits' end to find some way in which to keep up their incomes. More than a dozen have slipped out to the Pacific Coast to try their hands at writing comedy captions, and laugh pro- voking scenes for the movies. The success of Jean Havez, former song and vaudeville material writer, with the films, Vincent Bryan, another lyric writer and others has sent the lyric writers out to try to duplicate their success. Ballard MacDonald, ballad lyric writer, is doing well at the business, and others that have recently departed for Los Angeles are, Ben Ryan, Murray Roth, Eddie Moran, and Al PiantadosL The late Harry Williams, lyric writer, gave up the songwriting business for the films a number of years ago, and despite the fact that he died poor made a lot of money from the pictures. Havez, whose last song hit "Everybody Works But Father," was a big success, gave up song- writing a long time ago and is now making lots of money -writing comedy scenes. His income is said to be over $20,000 a year from the films. One of the big producing firms sent a hurry up call for William Jerome to come to the coast to write but owing to a taxi- cab accident in which he was severely in- jured the writer was obliged to refuse. PRISONER WANTS SONG LYRICS Jordan S. Murphy, an inmate of Auburn grison, where according to a letter sent y him to a New York actor recently, he is serving a life sentence, has during the period of his Incarceration written the mdodies of ten songs. He writes that he is confident that they possess genuine merit and would like to hear from some lyric writer who would be willing to send him verses for the melodies. Murphy is a musician and with a piano which the prison officials have allowed in his cell, has writ- ten the melodies and piano arrangements. MORE A. S. C. A. & P. SUITS The American Society of Composers, Authors and - Publishers filed forty-five suits for_ infringement of copyright last week against various motion picture houses in North Carolina. The actions were instituted through the sodety's attorneys. Manning & Manning of Raleigh, N. C, in the Eastern and West- em United States District Courts of North Carolina. REMICK CLOSING STORE Jerome H. Remick & Co. are closing their Qeveland retail sheet music store. Edward C. Adams, who has general charge of the various Remick stores and music departments in the East, is in charge of the Qeveland store, where he is shipping the stock to other stores, etc. .^ Remick music department remains in Cleveland, however, at one of the large department stores. A. J. STASNY BACK FROM ENGLAND A. J. Stasny, who has been spending the past two months in England, is back in New York._ Stasny. in addition to his New York music business, has an important branch in London. DONALDSON GOES TO PALM BEACH Walter Donaldson is leaving this week for Palm Beach, Florida where he will further recuperate from the effects of a recent operation for appendidtis. MILLS BACK FROM CUBA E. C. Mills, chairman of the executive board of the Music Publishers Protective Association, returned from a short trip to Cuba, last Tuesday morning. TICHENER BILL HELD UP Supporters of the Tichcner bill provid- ing for the entrance of the United States into an international copyright alliance, have practically given up all hope of the bill being made a law at the present ses- sion of Congress. The bill was introduced some months ago in the House of Representatives by Congressman Tichener of Kansas, at the request of the Authors' League of Amer- ica, and subsequently referred to the. Com- mittee on Patents. The only drawMck to the bill was the opposition of a printers' union which was recently overcome at a conference. Up to the present time there remains about twelve working days for 4he law- makers, who have a great press of inter- national and other important matters, and it is expected that less important matters will be shdved. RAPEE SIGNS WITH PUBLISHER Emos Rapee, musical director of the Capitol Theatre and William Axt, also of the Capitol staff, have signed three year contracts with Richmond-Robbins, Inc., giving it the exclusive right to publish their compositions. Unusual commercial possibilities are seen in the works of the musical directors by Mr. Robbins who believes that thous- ands of leaders in many theatres in all parts of the coiintry are interested in the cue and incidental music to go with pic- tures, etc., which are scored by Rapcc and Axt for Capitol pictures, etc. Spedal editions' to be known as the "Capitol Photoplay Series," will be pub- lished by Richmond-Robbins and will be composed of various sorts of picture music. EX-MUSIC MAN FACES CONTEST Sol Bloom, former music publisher, who was elected by a plurality of 191 votes in the special dection for Representative held on January 30th in the Nineteenth Con- gressional District, faces a retum to the exdting conditions which used to exist in the days when he was a music man. 'Walter M. Chandler, who was defeated by Bloom in the election, has gone- to Washington to file notice of contest, and charges that fraud and gross irregularities were committed in the district. SONG PROTECTION IN MEXICO Arrangements have been completed for the protection of American music pub- lishers' composidons in Mexico b^ the Mu- sic Publishers' Protective Association and Wagner & Levien, leading music publish- ing house of that country. The cost of copyrighting a composition in Mexico will be $5 and will become in- valuable due to ' the increasing demand there for American jazz music POWERS BACK FROM TRIP Richard J. Powers, Eastern representa- tive of Sherman, Clay & Co., returned last week from a six weeks' selling trip through the Eastern States in the interest of the three new numbers in the Sherman-Clay catalogues. NEW JAMES SONG RELEASED "Carolina Mammy," a new song by Billy James, has just been released by Leo Feist, Inc. It is being featured by a nnmber of vaudeville singers, among them being Allien Stanley who is scoring a big hit. with it HARMS GETS BROADWAY SONG Harms Inc., have taken over from the Broadway Music Corporation a fox-trot ballad entitled "Don't Say Goodbye," by Anatot Fricdtand. MILLS BACK FROM COAST Jack Mills, of Jack Mills, Inc.. returned Monday from his six weeks' sales trip to the Padfic Coast dties and other important centers en-route.