How to add sound to amateur films (1954)

to receive a small fraction of the money earned by his brain-child. Now clearly it would be an impossible business for each composer to collect his share in respect of the earnings of each performance of each composition. So usually the composer transfers his copyright to his publishers and they in turn leave the detail work to the Performing Rights Society. Before you can perform or reproduce any copyright work in public, therefore, you must see that the performance is covered by a licence from the Society. Most public halls hold such licences already, however, so you may not need to get one specially. In any case, the licence rates are relatively low and it is no hardship to keep on the right side of the law. Remember that music remains in copyright for 50 years after the death of the composer. It may, therefore, still be protected more than a century after its composition. With gramophone records, there is another copyright to consider. This belongs to the record manufacturers and restricts public performance of the record, or its transcription or dubbing on to disc, film, wire, or tape. You can readily obtain a licence to cover public performance, but in the normal way, permission is not given for commercial records (such as Columbia, Decca, H.M.V., etc.) to be dubbed. Several firms specialise in the manufacture of records especially for dubbing, however, and at a fixed scale of charges, readily grant the necessary permission for re-recording. Procedure There are four occasions on which you may have to obtain licences to meet copyright requirements: 1. If you want to perform ordinary commercial discs in public. 2. If you want to dub on to disc, film, wire or tape one of the records made specially for re-recording. 138