Bruce Pier and Robbie Rhodes have it wrong in today's MMD about
the nature of Play-Rite's copying and the basis of their claim to
copyright.  Most Play-Rite recuts are direct copies of original
Wurlitzer rolls, which were usually 10-tuners in the case of band organ
rolls.  And Play-Rite claim exclusive rights to those direct copies.

The only cases in which they composited tunes from various rolls to
make up a new combination -- and that re-combination is *not* the basis
for their copyright claim -- is when they composited two post-1932
six-tune rolls to make a 12-tune roll or when they made up their
program rolls, containing 10 tunes, taken from many rolls, centering on
a theme or type of music (e.g., an Irving Berlin roll, a "girls" roll,
or a march roll).  With APP rolls, they did a lot of compositing of two
short 4-tune rolls to make one long roll.  But again that was
irrelevant to their copyright claims.

Matthew Caulfield

 [ Thanks for setting the record straight, Matthew.  -- Robbie