Mainspring Press Is No Longer Hosting Brian Rust’s “Jazz Records,” As It Does Not Meet Our Current Standards for Discographical Research

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JAZZ AND RAGTIME RECORDS (1897 – 1942)
The Complete 6th (and Final) Edition
Brian Rust

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Mainspring Press is no longer hosting this work, as it fails to our current minimum standards for discographical research, including its failure to cite credible sources, and to clearly label anecdotal, conjectural, and/or fabricated data as such.

The PDF files has been deleted from the Mainspring Press website and blog.

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Legal Notice re. Rights to Rust’s “Jazz Records”

 

Perhaps understandably, there appears to be some confusion over rights to Brian Rust’s Jazz Records since its removal from the Mainspring Press sites.

In particular, we have reports of misinformation circulating on Facebook and other sites. We do not follow social media, so if you have questions, concerns, or anything substantive to say, please do the professional, adult thing and contact us directly.

For those of you not familiar with publishing and intellectual property law, there are two basic components in play here: (1) copyright, and (2) publication rights. They are not the same, and understanding the difference is key to avoiding some legal headaches.

To clarify:

COPYRIGHT: The contents of Jazz Records-6 were placed in the public domain in 2016 by Mainspring Press. This was done as a favor to the collecting community, particularly a number of collectors who made the case that doing so would allow them to incorporate that material into a new, original Jazz Records-7. (Tellingly enough, that’s never happened, but the opportunity is still there, since the data are now free for anyone to use in a new work.)

PUBLICATION RIGHTS: Mainspring Press retains the publication rights to Jazz Records-6 and all previous editions under our 2001 contract with Brian Rust, which remains in force. That means you cannot reprint those actual books, as some reportedly are recommending. Bear in mind that Mainspring Press is still very much in business (and in fact is planning to re-enter the book business in early 2023). We retain the services of an intellectual-property attorney in the U.S., and a licensed registered agent overseas, to whom any infringement of our rights will be referred for appropriate legal action.

WHAT YOU CAN AND CANNOT DO, LEGALLY:

  • You can incorporate the data from Rust’s Jazz Records-6, and any previous edition of that work, into a new, original work.
  • You can publish and sell a new, original work incorporating that data. Mainspring Press will make no legal claim in such a work (nor are we interested in publishing it).
  • You can continue to distribute copies of the Jazz Records-6 PDF file for personal, non-commercial use only.
  • You cannot sell, cause to be sold, or facilitate the selling of copies of that file in any format — print, e-book, digital, or otherwise — whether or not for financial profit.
  • You cannot reprint Jazz Records-6, or any previous editions of that work — for example, by printing from the PDF or scanned page files — or sell or cause to be sold such reprints, whether or not for financial profit. Mainspring Press retains the sole right to publish and sell those works in their present form, in any and all formats, and violations will result in legal action.

If you are interested in purchasing the printer-ready files and publication rights to JR-6 for reprint purposes, we are happy to consider offers.

Again, if you have questions or concerns, please contact us  directly. We do not follow or conduct business on social media.

— Allan Sutton / Owner, Mainspring Press

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