Daidalos
Μέλος
Conventionally (spoken from a legal point of view) the copyright belongs to those who made the recordings. We are right now working on a more ethical understanding, so that a field, especially after it was recognised as intangible cultural heritage according to the definition of the UNESCO, should be rather announced as the copyright holder (which would be rather a definition, how the money you can earn by selling a re-publication of historical recordings should be used). I had a similar case, that my linguistic partner was asked by someone of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences to do a translation of a recording that a Hungarian ethnologist made in an Arbëresh community in Southern Italy. I said that is fine, we will not charge you any money for doing the job, but we insist on the right that any user of the University library of Cosenza interested in the topic has access to it. At the end, they did not send us the recording, but in my opinion there was the wrong person at the wrong place who did the wrong decision...
In any case, since members of the Academy did officially these recordings of Ivan Kaikov in 1956, it is usually rather a diplomatic and an organisational than a legal matter to arrange an official publication, so that everybody interested can learn from the material and study it for a deeper understanding of the tradition. If they are asked for permission and they do agree, it is according to a common experience always better for the subject and a public discussion of the material, because there are plenty of problems caused by scholars who claim rights (they probably do not have), because they think it might be their personal adavantage if only they have access to it. Usually these are thoughts of colleagues who are the more territorial the more they lack knowledge in many respects, and who usually will not do any publication anyway...
Nevertheless, it is always better to go the official way and to ask the Academy for a publication.
In any case, since members of the Academy did officially these recordings of Ivan Kaikov in 1956, it is usually rather a diplomatic and an organisational than a legal matter to arrange an official publication, so that everybody interested can learn from the material and study it for a deeper understanding of the tradition. If they are asked for permission and they do agree, it is according to a common experience always better for the subject and a public discussion of the material, because there are plenty of problems caused by scholars who claim rights (they probably do not have), because they think it might be their personal adavantage if only they have access to it. Usually these are thoughts of colleagues who are the more territorial the more they lack knowledge in many respects, and who usually will not do any publication anyway...
Nevertheless, it is always better to go the official way and to ask the Academy for a publication.
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