Episode: 2583
Title: HPR2583: Random Rant
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2583/hpr2583.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 06:07:44

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This is HPR Episode 2583 entitled Random Runt, it is posted by the dude and in about 15 minutes
long and carries an explicit flag.
The summary is, rant on how you sound recordings copyright law my weird and how I misuse penguin.
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Hey listeners of HPR Public Radio, this is the dude here back again, just on like a somewhat
bit of a rant but yeah sorry no open source gaming right now I'll get back to that some other
time when I actually have some time to go out and find open source games and to look
at them and see if they're good but anyway this is really what I kind of want to talk
about back in the day there was this augcast and to those that aren't familiar with the
term an augcast is a podcast that's in like the .og file format or other non patented formats
but pretty much essentially not mp3 or .wave but more specifically aug but anyway there's
this augcast that was called a juice penguin I really really liked it it was a music podcast
it was like a radio show which you would pretty much listen to music that you haven't
really you know heard was really popular but it was really cool to go down like the rabbit
hole and listen to like all like these obscure musicians and it's a shame that it's gone I don't
know why it's gone I don't know if the person like running it just didn't really have the time
or he got um a cease and desist letter because of how copyright is and this is what gets me into
my rant because I was thinking you know since juice penguin is like is dead maybe someone could
try to fill in that boy and uh really you got up get like a thing of like music and uh look at like
the copyright status of like um each song luckily I like I know quite a few musicians that they would
probably let me do like a juice penguin thing and showcase their music like I did with like a
radio show that I had when I was in college but um that's gonna take a little bit so I pair maybe
to get this started off I could probably you know look it to the public domain and see if I can
find any sound recordings then yeah the uh copyright things for uh sound recordings the United
States is freaking stupid like everything else it's like before 1923 is automatically in the
public domain except for sound recordings like really and there's a reason why it's turns because
they didn't have uh copyright on sound recordings until like sometime in like the 70s and uh before
that it was just it was just state laws and um it's still that way with um I still say that it is
kind of BS because um let's face it like the people in like the late 1800s early 1900s you know
pretty much everything before 1923 and in 2019 everything before 1924
like our big music companies still making money off of like those specific recordings
I really rather doubt it especially since the sound quality on like wax cylinders and
like the old shellac records or wherever the heck they had back in the early 1920s uh the 1910s
19os and 1890s like it's not like they really had the best sound quality then and to be honest like
the sheet music is in the public domain why isn't the original recordings in the public domain it
would make total sense but right now all right you can really find less on specifically
records something from like the sheet music or something on their cells and specifically puts
in the public domain you're gonna have a hell of a time trying to find something with the exception of
uh the john philips susan marches that are done by the uh marine corbian in the united states because
if uh the government makes a recording it's in the public domain at least the recording is
song might not be but since john philips susan marches or marches are you know made in the 1800s
they're in the public domain so unless someone's to like have a internet radio show or like a podcast
like juice penguin with public domain songs it's literally gonna be nothing but john philips susan
marches by the marine corbian and there's really much variety and it kind of stunts a lot of
creativity especially like and i'll honestly like with uh nowadays where you have um
electronic music which they do like a lot of samples a lot of remixes like
how cool would it be if someone like took like old ragtime tunes LN like made EDM out of it
like i know some people have done it for like with like a lecture swing which is EDM but
like something like really really like crazy like modern EDM with like you know scott joplin or
criss-scott joplin a lot of his stuff wasn't really quarter back in the day it was super
quarter on piano rolls and that's maybe public domain i'm not sure but like shall we say
someone like in the uh 1900s actually recorded themselves playing you know maple leaf rag that's
not in the public domain unfortunately unless like copyright ran out but of course they didn't
really have a copyright back then so it's under the umbrella thing on you know the state rules and
different states are like have various uh measurements of strictness and what i'm basically trying
to say is that all copyright laws should be the same across the board like people shouldn't have to
hire a damn lawyer to figure out what they can and cannot do what's in the copyright
people should be allowed to create and uh also
take inspiration from the past i mean forget the six like look at Disney
like most of their like cartoons like snow white Cinderella
robin hood all that stuff is public domain
Disney would not be where it's at without the public domain
it's just really ridiculous i mean look at and also like uh different popular songs like uh
pre-sure in the yeah in the pines which is also known where do you sleep let uh where did you
sleep last night popularized by wedbelly uh and also recently uh in the nineties by nirvana
that song's in the public domain house the rising sun is an old folk song
from the public domain the animals that's their biggest hit
now grant those recordings i don't think should be really in the public domain
because uh robin ledbelly probably should but that's my opinion but like in all honestly i'm not
saying like any recordings of uh public domain songs should be in the public domain but i do believe
that if the artist like passed away uh that recorded it passed away like i don't know
like 50 years ago or like you know um
very much like if the recordings like almost a hundred years old you know like
190 80 years old like it should be in the public domain we shouldn't have to wait till like
20 60 something for pre-1970s stuff to be in the public domain now
grant uh i could see that with like you know stuff in the 60s and the 50s
40s but like 20s and 30s like really it's very very ridiculous and our copyright laws are
super super strict and completely ridiculous and this is coming from an artist here which
copyright laws are supposed to be made to uh protect us artists but that all honestly like
a lot of cases it just stunts a lot of things because
who's to say like uh if you're making a riff that you say that you made yourself
it's too similar to like another riff that's uh copyrighted when you get sued
you know and it's really easy to do in rock music because there's only so many riffs
out there like pretty much if like the kinks really wanted to like they could sue every artist out
there because they've wrote every single riff out there and people shouldn't really have
that much power to do that and that being said um hopefully uh somebody could write somebody in
like congress or something to really really uh um lacks those laws but it's probably not
going to happen because you know a lot of corporations have a lot of money and they'll probably uh
do what they can to fight the lack some copyright laws for the sheer fact that um
they want every bit of money that they can get and squeeze any penny out at anything but
uh that's really all I got to say um hopefully uh
despite all this stuff uh I'm hoping that maybe something can uh build a void of uh juice penguin
or better yet maybe juice penguin can probably revive but I highly doubt it
because I'm pretty sure it's been like four or five years
maybe shorter but uh I don't know remember the exact day I know it's been at least
2014 the last time juice penguin has done something
no at least this far back is 2014 I do know they could have uh
done something um a little bit afterwards not quite sure but I remember
vividly then 2014 there was still uh
uh shows being produced by uh juice penguin but um
um anyway that's the end of my rant sorry for like the many pauses but
that's what happens when you kind of do this stuff on the fly so uh hopefully uh next time I can
go back to uh regularly doing podcasts and hopefully i'll have some open source games for you
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