What Intellectual Property Has Wrought

Want to know the cost of bogus intellectual property rights? Read "A Trove of Historic Jazz Recordings has Found a Home in Harlem, But You Can’t Hear Them."

An amazing collection of historic live jazz recordings is in the possession of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, but we might never hear them. Why?

"The potential copyright liability that could attach to redistribution of these recordings is so large—and, more importantly, so uncertain—that there may never be a public distribution of the recordings," wrote David G. Post, a law professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, on the Volokh Conspiracy blog. "Tracking down all the parties who may have a copyright interest in these performances, and therefore an entitlement to royalty payments (or to enjoining their distribution), is a monumental—and quite possibly an impossible—task."