Editing Golden Age of Radio (section)

===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.