Authors and Apparatus: A Media History of Copyright -- Monika Dommann

Full Citation Dommann, Monika. Authors and Apparatus: A Media History of
Copyright. Trans. Sarah Pybus. Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 2019.


Chapter Notes

Introduction: A Media History of Legal Norms


PART I: Writing and Recording

1. Sheet Music

2. Images of Books

3. Voice Recorders

4. Canned Music


PART II: Collecting Agencies and Research Materials

5. Collecting Collectives

6. Celluloid Circulations

7. Performing Artists


PART III Private Copies and Universal Standards

8. Fees for Devices
 - Radio, since the beginning how listeners were interested in what could be
   done with radio than simply listening to content; radio listeners recording
   off the radio (pp. 133)
   - Distinction between private and commercial as framework for practices of
     recording the radio (pp. 134)
 - This chapter is on fees for devices and how that came with a legal
   "paradigm shift" changing copyright theory and practice; use of a new
   medium "interacts with legal norms in flux" (pp. 134)
 - Narration of Max Grundig's story, described popularly as a "self made man",
   face of "German economic miracle", got his start supplying the Nazis with
   transformers and fire control circuitry (pp. 134), distant enough from the
   party to come out of the war "politically unscathed", moved from radio to
   producing tape recorders in the 50s (pp. 135)
   - Magnetic tape recording emerges out of Nazi research (see Kittler
     Gramaphone, Film, Typewriter); Kittler stresses the manipulability of
     tape recordings as important to their use in propaganda: "allowing the
     unmanipulable to be manipulated.", this is also what made it attractive top
     radio stations and recording industry, aiding production and censorship (pp.
     135)
 - Manipulability of previously unmanipulable is the practice domestic users
   hooked onto as well (pp. 135), increasing popularity and cheapness of tape
   recorders, made Grundig lots of spondulicks (pp. 136-137)
 - Grundig as target of GEMA (Society for Musical Performing Rights and
   Mechanical Reproduction Rights), the German collecting society, for
   lawsuits concerning tape recorder royalties (pp. 137)
   - GEMA as successor to Nazi STAGMA organization, set up by occupying forces
     in 1950; based rules on those set by Cooperative of German Composers in
     1898; positioned itself as a non-profit; membership only open to those who were
     already musically established (pp. 137); criticized for simultaneous collection
     of fees and recording of royalties, monopolistic/bureaucratic, "cultural
     decline" (pp. 138)
   - Attempts at synonymizing IP piracy and theft: sending official letters
     signed by composers, calling for copyright revisions, demanding royalties
     on tape recordings to protect rights of composers, record manufacturers, and
     radio stations, attempts to enforce position through legal action (pp. 138)
   - New alliances which pitted records (old medium) against tapes (new
     medium); successfully "problematized" (see Michel Callon) (pp. 139)
   - Proposal of device fees to cover royalties; arguments: 1) loss of
     collecting society control, 2) potential for recordings to be deleted and
     danger for creators brought by manipulability; all use without permission as
     misuse (pp. 139)
       - Alternatives to fees proposed in precursors to DRM or playback only
         machines (pp. 140)
 - Tape producing modes of music consumption which bypassed record producers,
   importance of 1949 and the founding of French tape recording amateur group;
   emergence of manuals and magazines; the importance of deletion and overwriting
   as a means of experimentation (pp. 141)
    - consumer dynamics: tape recorder brought pleasure beyond "comfort";
      gateway to further consumption since it didn't come "ready to use" (pp.
      142); form of creativity, an art, and a hobby of cutting, dubbing, etc. for
      older men who could afford to buy them (at first), standardized devices were
      seen to fend off standardization of everyday life through personal choice;
      interpassive, ie. deferring enjoyment by having a technology listen for you now
      so you can come back later (pp. 143), culture of memory around preserving
      sounds (pp. 145)
 - The battle between GEMA and Grundig (pp. 145); defeat of GEMA when it
   requested contact info from Grundig to bill every consumer individually for
   royalties in the mid 50s; introduction of device fees in 1965 for tape
   recorders (pp. 146)
 - Magnetic tape brought a kind of consumer who no longer cared about
   copyright, with arguments that hinged on rights to use recording technology
   rather than rights over specific works (pp. 148)

9. Flow of Information
 - Use of the term "information", its explosion in the 1940s in re state
   backed science research, the dubious connotations of "information" (pp.
   149)
 - This section covers copyright between 1950 and 1980 around books and new
   library technologies of Xerox copying and computers that allowed librarians
   to meed demand for information (pp. 149)
 - 1941 as first time when US defined copyrights over science and tech;
   revisiting of that in 1967 over legitimacy of library copies and licensing
   in a period when "information society" became description rather than just a
   cipher (pp. 150)
 - US science and the official story of US support for "peaceful basic
   research" in Europe and decolonized world to "create safer world"; how
   librarians saw themselves as key components of this (pp. 150)
 - View of split in interests between authors and scientists in re copyright:
   authors motives in monetary return and scientist motives in professional
   reputation (pp. 151)
   - Arguments over relaxation of copyright for scientific research, need to
     share studies as widely as possible (pp. 151)
   - 1955 US library of congress studies on the revision of copyright law; new
     mode of legal proposal process: not closed door drafting in consultation
     with old stakeholders but "research and analysis" as basis of legal draft;
     these studies identified major conflicts: 1) need for exceptions in making
     library copies, 2) whether agreement could be reached over fair use (pp. 152)
 - Development of "xerography" (pp. 152); how early xerox machines were by
   rented and sold to large libraries, universities; that this meant
   individual copies could be made for cheap (pp. 153)
   - the choice by Xerox to rent machines as a strategy of bringing in more
     customers since they were so expensive (pp. 153)


10. Authors of Tradition


Conclusion: Legal Histories of Media Transformation

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