Editing Golden Age of Radio (section)

==Availability of recordings==
The great majority of pre-World War II live radio broadcasts are lost. Many were never recorded; few recordings predate the early 1930s. Beginning then several of the longer-running radio dramas have their archives complete or nearly complete. The earlier the date, the less likely it is that a recording survives. However, a good number of syndicated programs from this period have survived because copies were distributed far and wide. Recordings of live network broadcasts from the World War II years were preserved in the form of pressed vinyl copies issued by the Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) and survive in relative abundance. Syndicated programs from World War II and later years have nearly all survived. The survival of network programming from this time frame is more inconsistent; the networks started prerecording their formerly live shows on magnetic tape for subsequent network broadcast, but did not physically distribute copies, and the expensive tapes, unlike electrical transcription ("ET") discs, could be "wiped" and re-used (especially since, in the age of emerging trends such as television and [[music radio]], such recordings were believed to have virtually no [[rerun]] or resale value). Thus, while some prime time network radio series from this era exist in full or almost in full, especially the most famous and longest-lived of them, less prominent or shorter-lived series (such as [[serial (radio and television)|serials]]) may have only a handful of extant episodes. [[Aircheck]]s, off-the-air recordings of complete shows made by, or at the behest of, individuals for their own private use, sometimes help to fill in such gaps. The contents of privately made recordings of live broadcasts from the first half of the 1930s can be of particular interest, as little live material from that period survives. Unfortunately, the sound quality of very early private recordings is often very poor, although in some cases this is largely due to the use of an incorrect playback stylus, which can also badly damage some unusual types of discs.

Most of the Golden Age programs in circulation among collectors—whether on analog tape, CD, or in the form of [[MP3]]s—originated from analog 16-inch transcription disc, although some are off-the-[[Broadcasting|air]] [[AM broadcasting|AM]] recordings. But in many cases, the circulating recordings are corrupted (decreased in quality), because lossless [[digital recording]] for the home market did not come until the very end of the twentieth century.

Collectors made and shared recordings on [[analog signal|analog]] magnetic tapes, the only practical, relatively inexpensive medium, first on [[reel to reel|reels]], then [[cassette tapes|cassette]]s. "Sharing" usually meant making a duplicate tape. They connected two recorders, playing on one and recording on the other. Analog recordings are never perfect, and copying an analog recording multiplies the imperfections. With the oldest recordings this can even mean it went out the speaker of one machine and in via the microphone of the other. The muffled sound, dropouts, sudden changes in sound quality, unsteady pitch, and other defects heard all too often are almost always accumulated tape copy defects. In addition, magnetic recordings, unless preserved [[archival]]ly, are gradually damaged by the [[Earth's magnetic field]].

The audio quality of the source discs, when they have survived unscathed and are accessed and dubbed anew, is usually found to be reasonably clear and undistorted, sometimes startlingly good, although like all phonograph records they are vulnerable to wear and the effects of scuffs, scratches, and ground-in dust. Many shows from the 1940s have survived only in edited AFRS versions, although some exist in both the original and AFRS forms.

{{as of|2020}}, the Old Time Radio collection at the [[Internet Archive]] contains 5,121 recordings. An active group of collectors makes digitally available, via CD or [[download]], large collections of programs.  RadioEchoes.com offers 98,949 episodes in their collection, but not all is old-time radio.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.radioechoes.com/ |title=RadioEchoes.com |publisher=RadioEchoes.com |date= |access-date=2021-02-11}}</ref>

===Copyright status===
Unlike film, television, and print items from the era, the copyright status of most recordings from the Golden Age of Radio is unclear. This is because, before 1972, the United States delegated the [[sound recording copyright symbol|copyrighting of sound recordings]] to the individual states, many of which offered more generous [[common law copyright]] protections than the federal government offered for other media (some offered ''perpetual'' copyright, which has since been abolished; under the [[Music Modernization Act]] of September 2018, any sound recording 95 years old or older will be thrust into the public domain regardless of state law).<ref name="soundreccopyright">{{cite web|url=http://www.copyright.gov/docs/sound/|title=Federal Copyright Protection for Pre-1972 Sound Recordings – U.S. Copyright Office|website=www.copyright.gov|access-date=30 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180308090939/https://www.copyright.gov/docs/sound/|archive-date=8 March 2018|url-status=live}}</ref> The only exceptions are AFRS original productions, which are considered [[work of the United States government]] and thus both ineligible for federal copyright and outside the jurisdiction of any state; these programs are firmly in the [[public domain]] (this does not apply to programs carried by AFRS but produced by commercial networks).

In practice, most old-time radio recordings are treated as [[orphan work]]s: although there may still be a valid copyright on the program, it is seldom enforced. The copyright on an individual sound recording is distinct from the federal copyright for the underlying material (such as a published script, music, or in the case of adaptations, the original film or television material), and in many cases it is impossible to determine where or when the original recording was made or if the recording was copyrighted in that state. The U.S. Copyright Office states "there are a variety of legal regimes governing protection of pre-1972 sound recordings in the various states, and the scope of protection and of exceptions and limitations to that protection is unclear."<ref name="soundreccopyright"/> For example, [[New York (state)|New York]] has issued contradicting rulings on whether or not common law exists in that state; the most recent ruling, 2016's ''[[Flo & Eddie, Inc. v. Sirius XM Radio]]'', holds that there is no such copyright in New York in regard to public performance.<ref name=lawsuit>{{cite news|last=Klepper|first=David|url=http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_RECORDING_COPYRIGHT_RULING?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-12-20-16-50-38|title=Owner of 1967 Hit Song 'Happy Together' Lose Copyright Case|agency=Associated Press|date=20 December 2016|access-date=13 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161221093429/http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_RECORDING_COPYRIGHT_RULING?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-12-20-16-50-38|archive-date=21 December 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref> Further complicating matters is that certain examples in case law have implied that radio broadcasts (and faithful reproductions thereof), because they were distributed freely to the public over the air, may not be eligible for copyright in and of themselves.<ref>This was a key point in ''[[Fred Waring|Waring]] v. [[WDAS (AM)|WDAS Broadcasting Sta.]]'', a case that determined that a record company could claim copyright on a sound recording under Pennsylvania law because the recording was specifically designated as not being for radio broadcast.</ref> The [[Internet Archive]] and other organizations that distribute public domain and open-source audio recordings maintain extensive archives of old-time radio programs.