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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=4 face=Arial><span style='font-size:14.0pt'> Greetings.
Regarding the Mozart film: Please, don’t start an e-mail-writing campaign
to the Paley Center and the GG Foundation. That’s pointless, because
neither owns the rights to the film in question. The Paley Center physically possesses
a copy of the film, but that doesn’t mean they “own” it in
terms of copyright, and the GG Foundation is not the GG estate; it doesn’t
control any Gould copyrights. The Mozart film was made for NET (what became
PBS), and so the rights would be controlled by PBS (presumably along with the
estate). I wonder if PBS is “difficult” on matters like this. GG’s
program “The Well-Tempered Listener” was a CBC-NET coproduction,
and you’ll notice that only part of that program (the musical performances,
not the 40 minutes of conversation) appeared in the recent 10-DVD boxed set,
with a note that the interview portion “has not been cleared for release”.
Maybe PBS is a dick in this respect; I’ve actually heard things along
those lines. And there may be another factor here: The woman who rediscovered
the Mozart film at the Paley Center, Lucille Carra, is making a documentary called
“Glenn Gould: Recording Artist,” for Travelfilm; according to their
website (http://www.travelfilmcompany.com/) this is now in post-production. I
don’t know anything about the film, but I remember Lucille saying, long
ago, that the Mozart film will play some kind of important role within her
film; maybe she has some kind of agreement to the effect that the film will not
be released before her own documentary. I don’t know. She has curated
several public showings of the Mozart film in various cities, though, so it
hasn’t been completely hidden. I understand and share everyone’s
frustration about its slow release, however; it really should have been in that
boxed setm that was a wasted opportunity. But don’t besiege the wrong organizations
with e-mails—they’re not going to illegally post the film online no
matter what the demand. And I sympathize with their view, too, being a
copyright owner myself. When you speak about “you all who support the
present system,” you’re talking about the system that protects my
work. (I’ve seen my books on sites that claim to offer them for free
download. My response was not to lean back and say, “Ah, the system works—information
wants to be free.” No, my response was to contact my publisher and say “Have
your lawyers take this down RIGHT NOW.”) The people who think information
should be free are invariably those who have never owned a copyright. I could
circulate DVD dubs of the Mozart film or post it on YouTube myself, but I’m
not going to, no matter how tempting that is. But I really do share in the frustration.
GG has been dead more than 30 years, and it amazes me how much of his work
still languishes unseen. But as long as his work remains copyrighted, those who
own the copyrights will try to monetize it, and that will inevitably slow the
process of its release. (Those of GG’s recordings more than 50 years old
are now in the public domain almost everywhere but the USA, and as a result many
previously unknown recordings from his early years have circulated widely; the
lapsing of the copyrights as been a boon for Gould fans, though of course not
for the people who owned them.) I guess we’ll just have to be patient,
that’s my (not very satisfying) advice, and let’s hope we all live
to be 150 or however long it takes to witness the last Gould copyright expire …
Kevin Bazzana<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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