STATEMENT OF JOHN O'CONNOR, ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF PERFORMING ARTISTS Mr. O'CONNOR. My name is John O'Connor. I reside in New York. I am assistant to the president of the National Association of Performing Artists. This committee has probably heard plenty about music during its hearings here, about the man who composed it, the man who published it, the men who buy it and sell it, and the men who steal it. The organization in which we are interested represents the men who interpret it. As Mr. Waring has just said, one of the important factors in a composition is the song and the singer or the song and the musician. All the others are incidental. During the hearings one witness has stated: The small right is a nondramatic rendition of a musical piece, a single piece, which goes over the air and is lost forever. We make a wholesale use of those small rights. It is only fair and proper that composers and authors should be paid an adequate and proper amount for those performing rights. If that gentleman's testimony was correct when he stated the rendition was lost forever, we certainly would not be down here in Washington asking for legislative protection. On the contrary, science has perfected machinery that captures that rendition in its very minutest detail and transfers it to that composition in the form of a record or a transcription, and it is produced at a ridiculously low figure for continuous reproduction everywhere. That is why we are here. In the hearings before this committee there has been considerable stress laid on the question of the $250 minimum damage clause that is now mandatory in the current Copyright Act. The proponents of another bill, who will obviously be opponents of Mr. Daly's measure, have endeavored to convince you gentlemen that this provision for a minimum damage is unnecessary, un-American, unwise, unsound, and everything else but unconstitutional. They point with pride, and justly so, to their past performances and the records of their business methods, while operating under this current Copyright Act. They would have you believe that with the minimum-damage fee removed they would continue that practice. One witness, according to the records, in discussing the question of a broadcasters' use of nonprotected material, gave it as his opinion that the broadcasters have shown magnificent self-restraint in making no unfair use of their legal rights. I think you gentlemen ought to look at these facts. I think it has been testified before you that there are approximately 600 radio stations licensed in the United States, and of that 600 approximately 90 percent depend wholly on music, and that of that 90 percent I would dare say that 90 percent use records either part time or wholly. These records are played as interludes between news reports on the teleflash, race reports, and they are operated simultaneously while live concerts are on on competing chains. I would like to give you a brief illustration of this magnificent self-restraint as it is applied to the record business. You can tune in on any number of stations throughout the country and you will hear the announcer give a spiel something like this: "Good evening. This is station so-and-so." Then, "Here we are, and the place is crowded. On stage 4, that is the big stage, gentlemen, we have Paul Whiteman. We had to have a big stage for Paul because of his big organization. On stage 3 we have Guy Lombardo. On stage 2 we have Fred Waring. The boys are going to take their turns with this big entertainment this evening. And here comes Guy in now, and he has a Feldstein hat on. Guy, I see you wear the Feldstein hat.' Well, boys, you want to all buy those Feldstein hats because you can get them now at that special sale for $1.40 at the corner of Market Street." "Now, Guy, what are you going to play? Oh, you are going to play so-and-so?" And "buzz", on goes a record. Then the next thing he does, he introduces a mythical Whiteman with a little conversation, and strange enough Whiteman has a Feldstein hat on, too. Finally he brings Waring in with a Feldstein hat-strictly a commercial plug. Somewhere during this program the genuine illustration of magnificent self-restraint is put in evidence, when he says, "This is a phono-rararara; this is a mechanarararara." Nobody can understand it. I believe, according to law, they are supposed to say that it is an electrical transcription, but they might as well say it is an optical illusion, because, as far as the average listener is concerned, he is convinced he has heard Lombardo, Waring, and Whiteman on one program. That is where the magnificent self-restraint is shown. I have never yet heard of any of those various diction awards being presented to the gentlemen of that one sentence, "This is an electrical transcription. They very neatly garble that word. While that program is on, Mr. Whiteman, Mr. Waring, and Mr. Lombardo may be giving live concerts for a sponsor, who is paying them for their exclusive services. As I understand it, the copyright committee is here to protect the public. I do not think the broadcasters have given any consideration to the public. You hear a great deal about the public welfare and the public weal, but what we hear is an awful lot about the public wail, when they write in the next day and tell us what a rotten program they heard the night before, never realizing that they heard records that are probably 10 or 15 years old. Those records do not represent the true status of these units as they exist today. Since those records were made, these musical units have undoubtedly brought themselves up to date. They possibly changed their style. They have enlarged their personnel, they have brought everything up to the minute, and when they give a live recital you hear their best. When you hear a record you hear something that they may have made as they were coming up the hill. There is no protection for their interpretation, whatever, under the present law, and that is what we are pleading for. There has been considerable discussion about the word "racketeer" which I understand has been jerked in here by the neck before the committee. I believe some of the witnesses took exception to it. As a matter of fact, I think the word "racketeer" belongs on the record on a very conspicuous spot. But let us put it in its right place. A Throughout the country, there are a number of so-called laboratories who for a small fee will take your performance right off the air, delete the legitimate sponsor who is paying for that performance, delete his advertising copy, and substitute others. If that is not "racketeering", I do not know what you could call it. We have not protection against it. For a matter of anywhere from 10 to 30 dollars, I can have Lombardo's entire program taken off the air tonight, have the Standard Oil advertising deleted from it, and put in a fish market ad, and tomorrow send it out to Idaho or Boston or anywhere else and have it played. We cannot stop it. The reputations of the interpreters, men like Waring, Whiteman, Lombardo, and the other members of our organization, are just as fragile as a crate of oranges. They can go up or they can go down like that [snapping fingers]. Repetition is the worst enemy of an interpreter's reputation and professional status. You can assume that Roquefort cheese makes a tasty dish, but if you get it several times a day it might bring indigestion, and you certainly will take a dislike to it. Consequently, the constant repetition of playing records is found in the long run to hurt these men professionally, commercially, and financially. We seek your attention to Mr. Daly's measure because of those facts. Mr. LANHAM. Thank you very much, Mr. O'Connor. Mr. SPEISER. I would like to introduce, at this time, Mr. Samuel Tabak, who is the representative of local 802, of New York City, of the American Federation of Musicians. Mr. LANHAM. Mr. Tabak. STATEMENT OF SAMUEL TABAK, REPRESENTING LOCAL 802, NEW Mr. TABAK. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am a member of the executive board of Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, which is affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. In the city of New York, which is the spot where most of the recording is done and where a great deal of our broadcasting in this country is done, we have found that these abuses complained of here have brought about unemployment of our musicians that is absolutely shocking. Our federation has approximately 150,000 professional musicians. Of that number we can safely say that more than 50 percent are unemployed and on the verge of destitution, mainly because of mechanization and piracy. Of course, the first element of mechanization was the sound effects. We have prices for various services performed by musicians. We have a price for making an ordinary phonograph record. We have a higher price for making recordings for electrical transcriptions. We also have a higher price for the making of moving-picture recordings. It has always been our idea when we recorded, and it always was in the past, that the ordinary phonograph record was to be used for home consumption-when, low and behold, this mechanical octopus spread out and many records that were made for home consumption were dubbed into moving pictures, thereby destroying the opportunity to do that work. We go out and play broadcasts or make electrical transcriptions, which by law are to be used once, for one play, in each respective station, and find their play over and over again in violation of law. This, gentlemen, has brought about a definite threat not only to the economic welfare of the living musician, but it constitutes a great menace to the cultural and artistic future of this country. This mechanization has spread and is spreading to such an extent that the opportunity for the musician of the future to make a living as a musician will have been so minimized that the desire to study music or to play it with a view to making a living therefrom will no longer exist. Recording laboratories have recorded tremendous libraries of music of all standard compositions and have furnished them to the broadcasting stations, who in turn play them over and over again, rearranging them by picking different selections, building the programs with the same recordings but rearranging the make-up of the program, using, say, nos. 1, 3, and 5 today; 2, 4, and 6 tomorrow; and then 1, 6, and 7, and so forth. They have gone so far now as to sign agreements with hotels and cafes, where we hope to see living music and where we have had living music, and are having living music in many cases to furnish them with musical programs for their guests-places that used to employ small concert orchestras of seven or eight people, which cost them approximately $1,000 a week, are today presenting recordings played by orchestras of a hundred for a mere pittance. In the city of New York an outfit known as Wired Radio, Muzak, has signed up some 30 hotels for this service. It has even gone so far that they are now advertising the rental of their ballrooms for single individual parties, such as dances, that always in the past employed living musicians, and they advertise that they can furnish them with music. They have amplifiers. They put these recordings on. They tell you, "You are going to hear Guy Lombardo", "You are going to hear Ozzie Nelson", "You are going to hear Paul Whiteman"-the world's greatest names. They issue brochures to the public to rent their ballrooms, and then through this amplification system hundreds of people dance to the music of these orchestras. It is a commercial enterprise thoroughly and strictly, and not 1 cent of remuneration for the artists who performed those records is made. The viciousness of that competition is tremendous in its scope. Many of these orchestras in addition to their broadcasts used to make a great deal of extra money by being engaged because of their popularity to play at these private functions, at fees that ran into quite a good deal of money. The pressure today is to do away with the use of the human. being as an instrumentalist and to substitute mechanization. Unless we can get some realistic understanding of the fact that labor is worthy of its hire and should be paid for work done in view of a certain purpose, and for any extra work done or for any extra service rendered, should be paid additional compensation, we will come upon the time when music in this country will be nothing but a robot, when culture in this country as far as music is concerned, will have reached its lower depths. I, representing a labor organization of thousands upon thousands of men who are being engulfed in this maelstrom that is destroying them and destroying those who might logically succeed them, plead for the enactment of this Daly bill for the cultural benefit of this country of ours as well as for the present benefit and the future benefit of those of us who are inspired enough to take up music as Your life's work. Thank you. Mr. LANHAM. I thank you very much. Mr. SPEISER. Mr. Chairman, I would like to have the pleasure of introducing to the committee Mr. Frank Crumit, who is a member of our board, and certainly a very well-known actor. Mr. LANHAM. We will be glad to hear you, Mr. Crumit. STATEMENT OF FRANK CRUMIT, SINGER Mr. CRUMIT. Mr. Chairman, I believe I represent a little different side, as far as the recording in the recording field goes, as I have made vocal records since 1920, continuing up to the last year. I have also been on the radio for a little over 7 years straight. When I was with the Columbia and the Victor Cos.; joining Victor in 1923, back in those days they used the radio, such as it was at that time, for publicity purposes. There was very little live broadcasting, as we call it. So in order to take up their time, they used a great many records put out by the Victor, Columbia, and Brunswick Cos. at the time, as I say, in an advertising way, because the people would hear these records over the air and they would want to go out and buy them. A great majority of us were paid a royalty at the time, and the money was very, very interesting coming in. Mr. Waring made a statement about the way the record business had decreased in this country since the day the radio has come in to such a large extent. Several records I made for the Victor Co. sold as high as 2,000,000 records of one song. I had a contract last year with a smaller concern called Decca, and the biggest one that sold on that time was somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000, and they are mostly between 5,000 and 10,000, which will give you some idea of the decrease in record sales. Luckily, from the training I had had singing over the microphone, I was able to break into the radio business in 1928. But the trouble with these people now, these broadcasting stations who are putting on the records now, they are interfering with us who used to make and do try to make vocal records, because as they said, if they hear your voice all the time coming over the air on a record, why would they want to pay you any money to do a live broadcast? An instance of that happened the last two summers in Boston, and it is a practice against which we have no protection. One of the golf professionals at the Brookline Country Club had a golf program that went on, I think it was once a week, Saturday nights. It so happened that I made a golfing record of a song called, "The Dirty Little Pill", which fitted into his scheme of things very well. So instead of paying me a fee to open and close his program, he merely went out and bought one of my records and used it. There was no |