Vintage USAFI Recordings: A Collector’s Remorse

[Speakeasy]

As some forum members might already be aware, I am an avid collector of vintage language-learning materials, particularly those covering the German language and for which audio recordings are still available. Recently, I experienced a “comeuppance” of sorts …

While obsessively searching the Internet for vintage courses, I happened upon an offer for a collection of 24 vinyl records. The photographs of the record labels indicated that they were for the U.S. Armed Forces Institute "Spoken German Basic Course" covering LCM 716 thru 763 (whatever that is). I communicated with the vendor, a very pleasant fellow, who did not have a record player on which he could play the records and who had virtually no information to share with me concerning the collection. Although the playing speed was not displayed on the record labels, as they were 12" vinyl records, he surmised, and I agreed, that they were likely 33-1/3 rpm. I made a rough calculation of the possible duration of the record set: 22 minutes per side x 2 sides x 24 records / 60 minutes = 17.5 hours. As this seemed to be a very substantial amount of audio recordings, especially for the period, and as I suspected that this would have exceeded the audio recordings accompanying the Spoken Language Services Spoken German course with which I was already familiar, I concluded that this set of records was a long-forgotten hidden treasure and I placed my order.

When I received delivery, I sorted the records according to the LCM numbers on the labels, created a list, and set them aside. I had already decided that, should I be unable to locate the course books for which these records had been prepared, most likely at some time in the 1940’s, I would digitize the recordings, transcribe and translate the contents, have my work verified by a native speaker of German and, once this little project had been completed, offer the sound files and transcriptions for hosting on the FSI-Languages-yojik website.

The next day, I placed the first of the records on my variable-speed turntable, set the playing speed to 33-1/3 rpm, lowered the needle onto the record and waited in breathless anticipation of discovering a long-forgotten, high-quality German course of inestimable cultural value. I listened intently as the recorded voice said : "ggg ... uuu... ttt ... eee ... nnn ... ttt ... aaa ... ggghhh." It struck me immediately that these were 78 rpm records! I selected my copy of Spoken German, turned to the page on which the Basic Sentences first appear, reset the playing speed to 78 rpm, lowered the needle once again onto the record and listened with disappointment as the voice said "Guten Tag" and continued to voice the Basic Sentences as they appear in the Spoken Language Services Spoken German course. The audio recordings for the latter can be found rather easily on the Internet. A collector’s remorse!

As an aside, I came across a similar offer for a collection of 24 records for the U.S. Armed Forces Institute "Spoken Spanish Basic Course" covering a different series LCM numbers (whatever they are). I think I’ll pass on this offer!

Oh, by the way, I do not hold the vendor responsible for my misfortune, he had expressed genuine enthusiasm in having finally come into contact with "someone out there" who shared his passion for collecting and preserving long-forgotten and unappreciated oddities. When I explained my project (digitizing the recordings, preparing a transcript, rendering them freely-available to the public), he even ate a good part of the postage costs in support.

EDITED:
Addition of "Oh, by the way..."
Image of one of the record labels appended.

[Random Review]

As some forum members might already be aware, I am an avid collector of vintage language-learning materials, particularly those covering the German language and for which audio recordings are still available. Recently, I experienced a “comeuppance” of sorts …

While obsessively searching the Internet for vintage courses, I happened upon an offer for a collection of 24 vinyl records. The photographs of the record labels indicated that they were for the U.S. Armed Forces Institute "Spoken German Basic Course" covering LCM 716 thru 763 (whatever that is). I communicated with the vendor, a very pleasant fellow, who did not have a record player on which he could play the records and who had virtually no information to share with me concerning the collection. Although the playing speed was not displayed on the record labels, as they were 12" vinyl records, he surmised, and I agreed, that they were likely 33-1/3 rpm. I made a rough calculation of the possible duration of the record set: 22 minutes per side x 2 sides x 24 records / 60 minutes = 17.5 hours. As this seemed to be a very substantial amount of audio recordings, especially for the period, and as I suspected that this would have exceeded the audio recordings accompanying the Spoken Language Services Spoken German course with which I was already familiar, I concluded that this set of records was a long-forgotten hidden treasure and I placed my order.

When I received delivery, I sorted the records according to the LCM numbers on the labels, created a list, and set them aside. I had already decided that, should I be unable to locate the course books for which these records had been prepared, most likely at some time in the 1940’s, I would digitize the recordings, transcribe and translate the contents, have my work verified by a native speaker of German and, once this little project had been completed, offer the sound files and transcriptions for hosting on the FSI-Languages-yojik website.

The next day, I placed the first of the records on my variable-speed turntable, set the playing speed to 33-1/3 rpm, lowered the needle onto the record and waited in breathless anticipation of discovering a long-forgotten, high-quality German course of inestimable cultural value. I listened intently as the recorded voice said : "ggg ... uuu... ttt ... eee ... nnn ... ttt ... aaa ... ggghhh." It struck me immediately that these were 78 rpm records! I selected my copy of Spoken German, turned to the page on which the Basic Sentences first appear, reset the playing speed to 78 rpm, lowered the needle once again onto the record and listened with disappointment as the voice said "Guten Tag" and continued to voice the Basic Sentences as they appear in the Spoken Language Services Spoken German course. The audio recordings for the latter can be found rather easily on the Internet. A collector’s remorse!

As an aside, I came across a similar offer for a collection of 24 records for the U.S. Armed Forces Institute "Spoken Spanish Basic Course" covering a different series LCM numbers (whatever they are). I think I’ll pass on this offer!

Oh, by the way, I do not hold the vendor responsible for my misfortune, he had expressed genuine enthusiasm in having finally come into contact with "someone out there" who shared his passion for collecting and preserving long-forgotten and unappreciated oddities. When I explained my project (digitizing the recordings, preparing a transcript, rendering them freely-available to the public), he even ate a good part of the postage costs in support.

EDITED:
Addition of "Oh, by the way..."
Image of one of the record labels appended.

Am I missing something here or have you not actually found a genuine hidden gem? Spoken Language Services' German course can't be hosted on the FSI websites for obvious reasons; but you have photographs proving the audio for this is from the original US Government records, right? Surely this can be hosted and, especially with SLS no longer selling the course, that is a fantastic thing.

Am I wrong about this? Intellectual property law is not my forte.

[Speakeasy]

REVISED POST:
This post was originally effected in two parts. Having reconsidered the matter, as the topics of the two parts are quite separate, and particularly because the images at the bottom refer only to what was at the outset Part I, I have decided to separate them into two separate posts. Thank you for your forbearance!

USAFI Audio Recordings and Course Books
In my initial post above, I reported my deception at having purchased a collection of USAFI 78 rpm vinyl records that I had erroneously believed were 33-1/3 rpm records (possessing three times the duration of audio recordings as would 78 rpm records) for a heretofore unknown German course and my disappointment at not being in a position to revive this lost treasure through the hosting of the audio files and a transcription/translation of the contents on the FSI-Languages database. Afterwards, for the benefit of other would-be collectors of these vintage materials, I thought that it might be useful to explain how some of the confusion arose. I have appended, below, images of two separate USAFI editions of the Spoken German course, one of which is identified as EM 518 and one which is identified as A 618. In addition, I have appended an image of a boxed-set of six 33-1/3 rpm vinyl records identified as Spoken German, A 618.61. The sequence in which I acquired my collection of Spoken German materials was as follows:

(a) Spoken German One, book and cassettes, published by Spoken Language Services, Inc.
(b) Spoken German, EM 518, book, published by USAFI
(c) Spoken German, A 618.61, 33-1/3 rpm vinyl records, published by USAFI
(d) Spoken German, A 618, book, published by USAFI
(e) Spoken German, collection of 78 rpm records, labelled LCM 716 thru 763, published by USAFI

Owing to the changes in identification by USAFI and Spoken Language Services, coupled with the fact that the information available concerning the recordings was either misleading or incomplete, at each step in the acquisition process, I managed to convince myself that I was on the verge of discovering something unique. My polite requests for information concerning these materials to the vendors, to Spoken Language Services, to USAFI, to the JLU, to the NTIS and to others either drew a blank or went unanswered. I can well understand that individuals receiving my Emails could have spent several days searching their employer’s archives only to come up empty-handed (something I have been required to done myself on behalf of a multi-national supplier of products whose life-span is measured in centuries and for whom access to the original specifications can be quite important); so, why deploy the effort or even respond, particularly if, in doing so, one risks being reprimanded by one’s supervisor?

In any event, I thought that potential collectors of the USAFI Spoken Language series might wish to know that chasing down these vintage materials is not as easy as it might seem.

EDITED:
I have appended the images to which I referred in Part 1 of the above post.

[Speakeasy]

REVISED POST:
This post was originally effected in two parts. Having reconsidered the matter, as the topics of the two parts are quite separate, and particularly because the images at the bottom of the (now) post above refer only to what was at the outset Part I, I have decided to separate them into two separate posts. Thank you for your forbearance!

Copyright Status of the USAFI “Spoken Language” Series
Random Review has offered the at-first-glance-reasonable suggestion that the collection of 78 rpm records that I purchased are proof that these materials were produced by the U.S. Government (United States Armed Forces Institute, USAFI) and that, as a result, they should be considered as being in the public domain and therefore can be made freely-available to the public via the FSI-Languages database and any other means of publication. Although I, too, am not versed in Copyright Law, I would suggest that the matter of copyright is, at the very least, not clear.

First, it would appear that the “Spoken Language” series of courses were prepared in the mid-1940’s under the aegis of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Linguistic Society of America for the account of the United Armed Forces Institute (USAFI). Over 30 languages were covered in the series and individual authors were involved in the conception of courses covering either specific languages or groups of them. I have two copies of the Spoken German course in which the advisory notice “Copyright, 1944, By Linguistic Society of America” appears. Used copies of these “USAFI” editions are still available for purchase. Since, generally speaking, U.S. Law recognizes copyrights for a period up to 70 years subsequent to the author’s demise, I would conclude that the original copyrights and/or any transfers of the rights are still valid.

Second, I would note that the American book publishing company, Henry Holt and Company, published their own edition of these courses in the late 1940’s. My copy of "Spoken German" by this publisher contains the annotation Copyright, 1944, Linguistic Society of America and, while it does not specify precisely under what authority this series was published, it does contain the habitual notice that no part of the material may be produced without written permission of the publisher. I would assume that Henry Holt and Company published their series having acquired the exclusive authority to do so from the copyright holders.. Used copies of these “Holt” editions are still available for purchase.

Third, I also have a copy of Spoken German published by Spoken Language Services, Inc., which contains the annotations: © Linguistic Society of America 1944 and © Spoken Languages Services, Inc. 1972, 1976. In the discussion thread “Spoken Language Services – Courses on FSI Website?”, I reported that I had received the following Email from the owner of the business: "Spoken Language Services ceased business as of January 1, 2017, and the website was taken down shortly after that. We are no longer accepting or processing orders. I'm sorry for any inconvenience this causes. All the best." As it turns out, I had been communicating with a former employee of the company who had kindly assumed the responsibility of responding to my inquiries. In our subsequent exchange of Emails, my correspondent identified the former owners of Spoken Language Services, Inc., and holder of the copyrights to these courses as being Mr. and Mrs. Ron and Mehri Cowan. Although my correspondent forwarded my three requests to the owners, wherein I proposed the free-to-the-public hosting of the Spoken Language courses on the FSI-Languages website, I never received a reply and I dropped the matter.

Fourth, while I would genuinely like to see the large collection of Spoken Language courses (well over 30) made freely-available to the public and would be willing to participate in a project in this sense, from my perspective, the apparent lack of interest on the part of the last-known holders of the copyrights to these materials to engage in discussions suggests that this project is not likely to succeed. Finally, given the unresolved matter of copyrights, I believe that the unauthorized hosting of these materials on the FSI-Languages website would be an unwise move as doing so would leave the entire contents of the website, including its very existence, open to legal challenge.

So as to “close the loop”, I have posted the above text to the discussion thread “Spoken Language Services – Courses on FSI Website?”

EDITED:
Revision to text concerning the "Henry Holt and Company" series