NAB reports (Mar-Dec 1933)

Record Details:

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to the same advertiser with a script, which happens. It was tried before. I know of one particular script that was put around, it was done on transcriptions and it was also put out to the National Association and was also put out through personal contact by the station man who wrote it. We called on the client and he had received solicitation on the same script from fifteen different sources. I think that those of you who have ideas to exchange ought to do it personally and not burden the Association with the printing of them or any of the work involved. MANAGING DIRECTOR LOUCKS: I want to make clear just what is embodied in this thought. There is no intentio. at the present time to print any continuities or get them on' in mimeographed form. As a matter of fact, we don’t care if we don’t see them in headquarters. There are today in the files of various broadcasting stations literally thousands o scripts, old and new, that have been used and have been successful, and so forth and so on, which might be adapted to present-day conditions. A script that has been successful in Boston in 1929 might be a swell idea out in Portland, Oregon, today. It is in your file, it is not working. The only service that is proposed at this time is to create the avenue through which those of you who care to exchange scripts may do so. If you don’t want to do it, there are certainly going to be no ill feelings as far as headquarters is concerned. But we just want to create here the avenue through which those of you who want to make available old scripts or new scripts or ideas or whatnot can send them to headquarters and we will simply list them and say, “Write to Mr. Harlow in Boston for this,” and “Write to Mr. Henry in Council Bluffs for this,” and so forth and so on, or do it direct. MR. HETTINGER : I think, merely summing up, we are laboring under the illusion that one thing is another here : we are talking about two different things. One is an exchange, the other is a clearing house. It seems to me the exchange is everything Mr. Harlow said. It seems to me the clearing house, on the other hand, is a practical proposition. You keep the ownership in the hands of the author. The author has the right to refuse or to accept any one who wants to buy. You have the right to sell your property to whom you want, and merely by providing an avenue through which stations and authors can circularize the industry, you are getting scripts into the hands of people who can use them. In addi¬ tion to that, you are accomplishing that even more important aspect, of stimulating ideas. MR. HENRY : The outstanding virtue it has in it, as I see it, is the fact it will tell us broadcasters where the scripts are available. That is the point. MANAGING DIRECTOR LOUCKS: I might say, while it has no bearing on this particular subject, you may be in¬ terested in one practical problem that arises with respect to the rights of the authors in such exchange of scripts. At the present time, of course, he has nothing but his common law copyright. Common law copyright isn’t a very practical thing in actual business negotiations. We thought at sometime, and perhaps in the radio program foundation provision has been made there for it, we may set up a system of registration' of scripts very similar to that now in use by the Authors’ League of America, under which the writer, by merely filing a copy, which would be sealed and stamped as to date, would have evidence to prove the originality of his continuity in case any theft of that continuity should occur afterward. MR. TRAVERS: Variety is doing that now. MANAGING DIRECTOR LOUCKS: I am not satisfied with having an outside agency do it. We ought to do it our¬ selves. MR. TRAVERS (Interrupting) : I would rather have the Association do it. I didn’t know whether or not you knew that was functioning. MANAGING DIRECTOR LOUCKS: I might say in my budget which was approved by the Board, I included an item which would take care of the type of thing I have in mind for the present. Of course, there is not a great deal of cost involved; so really the Board has approved the general scope of the idea. MR. HOWLETT : Mr. Chairman, before we make any reso¬ lution or present anything for vote, I think possibly I may be a little thick-headed, but I would like to have Mr. Loucks . Page tell us what he wants to do. I objected in the beginning of this to something that has totally changed its character now. So I am withdrawing that objection. Now I am heartily in favor of an exchange of ideas and the general discussion. I have found during the discussion the idea is Mr. Loucks’. I think then he should give us a brief summary of what the idea is so intelligently we can say whether we are in favor of it. MANAGING DIRECTOR LOUCKS: I don’t know whether there is much more to add to the statement I made previ¬ ously. I tried to outline to you what I had in mind. It is simply providing an avenue through which such information relative to scripts and ideas as we received from time to time can be distributed through the medium of our bulletin. Sup¬ pose in the files of WHK, for example, there are numerous continuities, program material of all kinds, that has been successful in the past and you believe it might help some other broadcaster in some other locality and you are willing to make it available, you simply list what you have and what you are willing to do, send it to us and we call it to the attention of other members. If you have a staff plan or if you have a continuity you want to sell to other stations, you list it just the same as you would a free idea and put a price tag on it and if station KOIN in Portland is inter¬ ested in a series of 13 or 26 or 52 scripts that you have in Boston, they will get in touch with you and you make your own deal. At the present time, he has no way of knowing whether you have anything that is of value to him or not. We are simply trying to pull out of the files and publicize such material as we may have available and perhaps provide a sale for some of the material that is now musty in your old files. You can turn it into cash. MR. HOWLETT : Conversely, it will be the privilege of the station to write you and see if you have a certain type of script they' desire. MR. HARLOW : Mr. Chairman, would this cover it, that it is the sense of this meeting that the pages of the bulletin, the N. A. B. official organ, be made available for the ex¬ change of scripts if, and when in the judgment of the Man¬ aging Director, such is possible, and on such terms as the station or writers submitting the scripts should determine? MANAGING DIRECTOR LOUCKS: I might say in solici¬ tation for votes for Mr. Harlow’s motion that if it proves impractical, it is going to be abandoned pretty quickly. MR. PATT: May I hear about the copyrights you are issuing ? CHAIRMAN CARPENTER: Just a moment until we dis¬ pose of Mr. Harlow’s motion. * * * The motion was seconded by Mr. J. O. Maland, of WHO, put to a vote and carried. * * * MR. GEDGE: Do I understand, Mr. Chairman, this Is a recommendation for the Board to act on? CHAIRMAN CARPENTER: It is really not necessary for the Board to act on it, because the Board has already au¬ thorized it. MR. GEDGE: As long as the appropriation is made, I don’t see why we can’t go ahead with it. MANAGING DIRECTOR LOUCKS : Can we defer the dis¬ cussion of copyright? That will take four or five hours if we start on it. MR. PATT : I wanted to know simply whether or not if I have a script and I send it into the bureau of copy¬ right, that script is protected from copying. MANAGING DIRECTOR LOUCKS: It is not. Let me say, first, that the Copyright Act of 1909 simply manufac¬ tures evidence of copyright. When you see “Copyright 1933,” it simply means the publisher of that article claims copyright. I can take to the Library of Congress the Holy Bible and write on the front page, “Copyright, Philip G. Loucks, 1933,” and the copyright office has to accept it and file it. We have no discretion to refuse or reject. Only such material such as movable type, as they char¬ acterize it, will they accept and register in the Library of Congress. The man who produces an original work, simply pounding it out on the typewriter, has a copyright which is called common law copyright, which the courts have been try¬ ing to define for 300 years and haven’t yet defined; but it is 145 .