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Q: Is making a copy of a copyright work legal ? - Can I copy my music ?
A: Yes ! - but 2 conditions must be met.
First:
you must own and have legally purchased
the original recording - What you submit to use must be the original - and not a copy
Second: The content will be for
your own personal use.
If the work is in the public domain, is not copyrighted or you are the copyright holder, then there are no restrictions
Note that even under the fair use doctrine it is legal for you to make a copy to a different format or to serve as backup, we will not make any copy of copyrighted movies or CD's that are currently in print and available for sale in the marketplace. We will make a single copy of vintage works or other material no longer being sold or distributed as long as the original master is provided.
The copyright laws as they pertain to this issue, state that a person who has purchased a musical recording, is allowed to make a single copy of the music they purchased on a different medium. For Example: you buy a CD, then make a tape copy of it to listen to in the car. That is perfectly legal. However. it would NOT be legal if you then sell or even give that tape to anyone else.
The copyright laws also allow a person to make a copy of the recording for safekeeping (or archiving). In other words, you are permitted to make ONE CD copy to serve as a backup in case the original master is destroyed.
Because of copyright issues we do not offer additional copies of our transfers or restorations - unless it is in the public domain, non-copyright or you are the copyright holder. The paperwork in trying to keep track of it all and checking for compliance is simply too great for the rates we charge. By placing an order for a transfer / restoration, you are by default, certifying that you are agreeing to and have met the above conditions.
Copyright Law alone, fills many pages of legislation..... Far more so than this brief discourse. Only a copyright lawyer who "eats, sleeps and breathes" copyright law can even begin to understand it. So convoluted and confusing are the laws that rarely will two separate courts themselves ever agree on an exact interpretation. That alone is another reason why that materials you submit for transfer, you by default certify you have the legal rights to make a copy....
Video Interchange had it's roots in high end video production from the late seventies to the late 90's. For years, the "lost child" of video was the relatively poor audio quality, owing in part to the early VTR's not having true high fidelity audio capabilities. With the advent of 2 and 4 FM recording channels, that all changed. Before the advent of the CD, royalty music for soundtracks was distributed solely on LP records. The inevitable clicks, pops & hisses simply could not be tolerated for broadcast. Importing of non broadcast quality material for program inclusion often necessitated audio cleanup as well.
Equipment and techniques available back then were nothing like they are today. All of the filtering was done in hardware back then, whereas today it's done almost entirely in software running on multi gigahertz processors. Everything from parametric equalizers, compressor/limiters, expander/gates, to impulse triggered time gates and delay lines were used in those days, and the patch bay for selecting the different filters looked like an early switchboard or Moog machine. What used to take hours just to set up and configure for the noise problem at hand, is now done with several mouse clicks !
So to answer the question, we were always involved in the restoration of audio - simply out of our own necessity.
One way to minimize the source/track charges is to first transfer your recordings and compile them yourself to the highest quality tape recording you can make.
Compiled CD's from numerous disparate sources make it virtually impossible to employ any single restoration filter that would fit all the different permutations. If there is a single piece that you really desire to have restored, it is recommended this be processed separately.
We are not an assembly line operation geared for high volume mass production. There are plenty of other vendors on the web that specialize in such services. We deal mainly in true vintage and damaged recordings....... the ones that no one else "will touch". As such, we feel we need direct contact with you the customer to find out exactly what is involved, the condition of the media and what the needs are. Additionally, since we support close to 1,000 different formats in various combinations, I wouldn't even have a clue as how to go about designing a simple one page order form !
Yes.....
We can perform restorations from almost any format.
Please note that archiving your Hi Fidelity records in MP3 format is not the best way to go. MP3 is a compressed file format that sadly is not lossless. MP3 is to audio as is Jpeg to images..... Much detail depth brilliance and harmonics are lost in the conversion to MP3 and are thus lost forever. No amount of processing will reclaim the now missing information. In the case of high fidelity recordings, the effects though seemingly slight, are noticeable.
In the case of wire recordings or other non Hi Fi recordings however, the MP3 format is perfectly acceptable and does offer several advantages. First of all, MP3's are standard computer files and can be transferred and perfectly copied with speed and ease on your home computer that has a CD player or burner. Many newer set top CD players will also support MP3 encoded CD's. Also, MP3 files are by comparison, reasonably compact and may be sent as file attachments to family or friends.
Wire recordings are holding up amazingly well - much better than their magnetic tape counterparts. Thus most wire recordings will not require audio filtering/restoration techniques if played back on well maintained equipment.
The Redbook specification for audio CD's calls for a sample rate of 44.1 kHz at 16 bit depth. Any other combination of sample rate/bit depths will not result in a successful burn. Either you will have to re-sample at 16/44.1 or you'll have to down-convert via software to the 16/44.1 Redbook standard before making the burn.
When the Redbook Standard was adopted for audio CD's years ago, it was well before the development of inexpensive high quality sample converters. The standard for CD audio quality and format was adopted by the manufacturers and is known as the Redbook Standard. The term "Redbook" comes literally from the color of the book that contained the document. Alas, the name stuck. Anyways, with the adoption of the Redbook standard, bit depth and sampling rates were set and agreed on, allowing standard audio CD's meeting Redbook standards to be played back on any CD player Irregardless of who manufactured it.
Later developments in sampling technology now allows sampling at 192 kHz with bit depths of up to 32 for even better than "CD quality". However, the Redbook standard is now cast in concrete and the market is now flooded in Redbook standard audio CD players. Though the standard could be expanded to include higher sample rates & bit depths, it's not feasible. Consider that sampling at higher rates and/or bit depths, result in much larger files. Since standard Redbook audio CD's can hold up to a convenient 74 or 80 min depending on the media, sampling at higher rates/bit depths will result in much larger data files...... Thus a CD would not be able to hold anywhere's near 74 minutes of program. The CD medium simply hasn't the storage capacity to accommodate the larger file sizes. Add to those considerations the additional cost of manufacturing a CD player to handle all the different sampling/bit depth combinations. Then also consider that the millions of original Redbook players in the marketplace today would not be able to read the new higher sample rate/bit depth audio CD's. No one in the recording industry would want to commit economic suicide by releasing a CD that only the few folks with the newest hardware could play.
Though the standard could be expanded to include higher sample/bit depths, it's simply not financially feasible.
Aside from anything else, standard CD audio quality for most folks is more than adequate.
Last Modified: July 15, 2007
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Since 1978 - Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 Video Interchange
Made in Maine
Video Interchange
92 George Luce Rd
Waldoboro, ME - Maine 04572
207-832-5064
Northeast Region - New England
