Tom Lehrer, Culture And Copyright After Death
from the different-attitudes dept
If you don't know who Tom Lehrer is, well, you've missed out for a long, long time. Still, it's never too late to catch up, and there are plenty of great sources, including the The Tom Lehrer Wisdom Channel on YouTube (though, hardly a "rare cut" this remains my favorite). Of course there's much more to the lore of Lehrer than just his music, and Ben Smith at Buzzfeed has an has an excellent long discussion of Lehrer's life, including his very brief, but massive, music career, and his life for the past half a century in which he more or less tries to hide from or live down that whole episode of his life. It's a great read.But what caught my attention was some discussion that Lehrer has had with certain fans concerning the copyright on his works, whether or not it's okay to put them online and what happens to them after his death. The simple answer seems to be that Lehrer couldn't care any less about all of it.
While Lehrer has made startlingly little effort to ensure a future for his work, a handful of superfans have filled in the gap. One is Erik Meyn, a Norwegian who manages the Tom Lehrer Wisdom Channel on YouTube, a feed of performance videos and playlists that has received more than 10 million views since 2007. Meyn originally posted content to the channel without Lehrer’s permission and called him from overseas in December 2008 to apologize, a conversation he later posted on the “Tom Lehrer!” Facebook page. An excerpt:There's also the discussion with a fan who has been in contact here and there with Lehrer for the past 20 years or so, who stopped by his house once, found Lehrer's master tapes, and Lehrer just gave them to him:TL: Well, you see, I’m fine with that channel.
EM: You’re very kind. But my question is: Who in your family will take care of your copyright and your songs in the distant future?
TL: I don’t have a family.
EM: OK, but what do you think will happen to the channel and your songs? And if you have someone who will act on your behalf, could you give them my name in case they’d want the channel taken down?
TL: Yes, but there’s no need to remove that channel.
EM: I was just wondering what will happen in the future, because you’re certainly going to continue to sell records.
TL: Well, I don’t need to make money after I’m dead. These things will be taken care of.
EM: I feel like I gave away some of your songs to public domain without even asking you, and that wasn’t very nice of me.
TL: But I’m fine with that, you know.
EM: Will you establish any kind of foundation or charity or something like that?
TL: No, I won’t. They’re mostly rip-offs.
In 2011, Morris was rummaging through the Sparks Street basement, and alongside the collection of books and records Lehrer referred to as his “Noel Coward shrine” were two boxes marked “masters.” They were, to Morris, “the holy grail.” These were the original recordings of the 1959 album More Songs by Tom Lehrer: the orchestral session and outtakes and Lehrer’s recordings. Morris offered to help Lehrer remix them from half-inch tapes into stereo recordings.None of this is to suggest that any other artists should necessarily follow down the same path. But I always find it interesting to see artists who decide that the traditional concepts of copyright don't make any sense to them, and just choose not to have anything to do with them. Given that Lehrer is so influential on so many people in so many different fields today, it seemed worth sharing this little tidbit.
“Well, why don’t you just take them with you?” Lehrer said.
“I was like, ‘Are you kidding?! These are the master copies!’” Morris recalled. “I was just trying to reassure him, I’ll be very careful with them, I won’t let them fall in the wrong hands, I’m not going to distribute copies to anyone without your permission.”
“I don’t care!” Lehrer told him. “They’re not worth anything to me.”
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: copyright, culture, music, tom lehrer
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: No, Mr. Lehrer was the first to make his OWN label
The other issues are real about extended family etc.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: No, Mr. Lehrer was the first to make his OWN label
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: No, Mr. Lehrer was the first to make his OWN label
Not to begin with, but from what I can see he sold rights to Reprise among other RIAA affiliated labels later on.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Just off the top of my head, he's good but he's no Gilbert & Sullivan...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
But, I hope he has some of his wishes in writing. If he hasn't specifically released his work under a different licence, he could find his work co-opted or blocked from release because certain corporations have made sure those rules apply after his death whether he wants them or not. Especially since a quick glance at his Wikipedia page lists work with several major labels.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
He may realize that money won't do him much good when he's dead, but depending on who ends up with the copyrights to his stuff, they might not be so magnanimous about the matter.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Doing The Vatican Rag
Time to get down on your knees.
Fiddle with your rosaries.
Bow your head with great respect,
And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect.
We're doing the Vatican rag!
Besides a great songwriter and performer, he is also a mathematician and teacher.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Doing The Vatican Rag
Tom wasn't worried who's toes he stepped on. There was a rumor that former Nazi rocket scientist Wernher von Braun who was working for our space program sued him over the song about him.
"Some have harsh words for this man of renown. But I say our attitude should be one of gratitude. Like the widows and cripples in old London Town. Who owe their large pensions to Wernher von Braun."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Doing The Vatican Rag
They say all the Germans are warlike and mean,
But that couldn't happen again.
We taught them a lesson in 1919,
And they've hardly bothered us since then!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Doing The Vatican Rag
Poisoning Pigeons in the Park has always been one of my favorites, but I think it would be easier to list the songs I don't like by Tom Lehrer; the other list is too long.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
/me just got a book of his piano sheet music
/me so glad he's no IP bully
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
protection from those that might poison pigeons in the park
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I love Tom Lehrer even more now.
I've purchased 3 of his albums and the book "Too Many Songs by Tom Lehrer with Not Enough Drawings By Ronald Searle" http://www.amazon.com/Lehrer-Enough-Drawings-Ronald-Searle/dp/0394749308
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
One of the Greats
Some of the rarities I grabbed as soon as I could find them on Napster.
He really did not care that much for his musical career. I believe in one of his live recordings in some huge theatre, he points out, "I don't need to do this. I have a perfectly good job as a matehmatician making, oh, about $7,000 a year."
Just as a point, if he gave permission to use his songs, I doubt his heirs could retract that. the trick would be to prove the permision exists if it was verabl - although I suspect a sequence of testimony like the stories in the article should go a long way to establishing that.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: One of the Greats
I was involved in a similar issue were the author died before we finished the project. The copyright passed to the author's brother who knew about the project and give his written permission to continue as we originally planned. There were some documents from the author which a lawyer said would stand up in court as showing intent.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Realistic Attitude
In Tom's case, much of his satire was topical to events happening in the late 50's and early 60's. So unless you understand the reference, the humor will be missed.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Realistic Attitude
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Realistic Attitude
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Tom Lehrer is alive? In that case...
(Last year I downloaded a couple of Lehrer torrents.
But I thought he was dead, and my recent experience trying to buy a Lily Tomlin album had led me to assume (erroneously, I now see) that I simply wouldn't be able to acquire "legitimate" CDs -- and of course, Amazon still won't "ship" a digital track across the US/Canadian border.
I wonder if Mr. Lehrer could be persuaded to come out of retirement long enough to craft a couple of songs on DRM and Intellectual Property?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
clearing for use in broadcast
If we wanted to use a fragment of one of his songs in a radio show, would we still be safest to get permission? And if so, how would we go about that?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]