In part three of the series, we began to discuss the evidence that the physical masters are a significant asset to the owner by looking at the concept of remastering to keep up with current technology, and the future uses of the masters that may not be contemplated at the time of the recording. In this article, we consider the final considerations of this evidence by exploring the intrinsic value of the masters and the efforts undertaken to archive masters.
Intrinsic value of the masters
Evidence of the value in the physical master could come from an appraisal or what a collector would pay to acquire an out of copyright master.
For example, a fire destroyed a 22,320-square-foot warehouse containing a repository of some of the most historically significant material owned by
The value in a physical master could come from an appraisal or what a collector would pay to acquire an out of copyright master, similar to other unique items like manuscripts, sports memorabilia, and artwork. Or, the master may have value as the only known copy of a work in existence. A master should retain value the day after the copyright expires.
Archiving masters to preserve value
As we have outlined in this series, it is understood that a poor quality master would have a correspondingly lower worth. Therefore, the proper storage of masters is an important part of ownership to maintain both the intrinsic value and the value in the associated copyright.
Unidisc provided evidence it has thousands of master tapes kept in large, secure, temperature controlled vaults to preserve the integrity of the magnetic tapes. Given the age of the tapes, they bake their masters before making a master copy, and the master copy is the only thing that leaves Unidisc's place of business for the reproduction studio.
Unidisc is not the only company that archives their masters.
Therefore, the major efforts undertaken to archive masters and to prevent a catastrophic loss suggests the masters have value aside from the rights.
Innovative techniques to salvage old tapes
Nevertheless, even when kept protected in archival storage, the quality of a tape can deteriorate over time because the physical medium itself may have degraded. As mentioned above, some tapes can get brittle and shrink.
Another issue with magnetic audio tape is that the binder used to make the tape gets sticky over time and can shed during playback, a phenomenon called "sticky shed syndrome". This phenomenon was the subject of
The inventors describe raising the temperature of the tape to at least 50°C for at least 3 hours with low humidity, but the best results are seen after 12-16 hours. This heat treatment is not said to be permanent because the tape will revert, but it permits a single transfer of the recording to a new, unimpaired media.
The time and money spent to archive, store and recover the physical masters and the research done to improve on those methods suggests that the originals have significant value.
Series takeaways
This article series considered the
Therefore, it should not be automatically assumed that there is only value in the copyright. A future court may consider evidence like what has been described in this series to apportion a value and the
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