1 00:00:04,240 --> 00:00:07,240 Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios, 2 00:00:07,320 --> 00:00:14,040 Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 3 00:00:14,120 --> 00:00:17,320 Speaker 1: I am your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer 4 00:00:17,360 --> 00:00:19,319 Speaker 1: with How Stuff Works and I heart Radio and I 5 00:00:19,400 --> 00:00:25,000 Speaker 1: love all things tech. And it has been about two 6 00:00:25,040 --> 00:00:27,960 Speaker 1: weeks since I've been in the studio, even though this 7 00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:30,680 Speaker 1: episode is going to go right behind one that I 8 00:00:30,760 --> 00:00:35,280 Speaker 1: recorded two weeks ago. So in our last episode, which 9 00:00:35,360 --> 00:00:37,880 Speaker 1: was ages ago for me, I teased a bit about 10 00:00:37,920 --> 00:00:41,360 Speaker 1: the emergence of the audio cassette tape, and I think 11 00:00:41,400 --> 00:00:44,760 Speaker 1: you could argue that the cassette split the path of 12 00:00:44,960 --> 00:00:51,280 Speaker 1: audio consumption into two sort of broad philosophies. On one side, 13 00:00:51,800 --> 00:00:55,720 Speaker 1: you have the audiophile dream of a format and a 14 00:00:55,880 --> 00:00:59,720 Speaker 1: system capable of producing sound from a recording that would 15 00:00:59,760 --> 00:01:03,600 Speaker 1: be indistinguishable from the original performance. So would be as 16 00:01:03,640 --> 00:01:06,920 Speaker 1: if you, the listener, were actually in the recording studio 17 00:01:07,040 --> 00:01:09,520 Speaker 1: when the tracks were first laid down, or at the 18 00:01:09,600 --> 00:01:12,120 Speaker 1: very least, that you would be hearing the sound that 19 00:01:12,200 --> 00:01:15,240 Speaker 1: the producers intended for you to hear, because if they 20 00:01:15,280 --> 00:01:17,520 Speaker 1: put a lot of effects on it or anything like 21 00:01:17,560 --> 00:01:20,040 Speaker 1: that in post production, then obviously you're not going to 22 00:01:20,120 --> 00:01:22,840 Speaker 1: hear exactly the thing that was performed when it was 23 00:01:22,880 --> 00:01:26,720 Speaker 1: being recorded. But you get my point. The other philosophy 24 00:01:26,840 --> 00:01:32,240 Speaker 1: would sacrifice some quality in return for added convenience. So 25 00:01:32,280 --> 00:01:34,959 Speaker 1: these this isn't just one format, but sort of a 26 00:01:35,000 --> 00:01:38,800 Speaker 1: group of formats that are not the highest in audio 27 00:01:38,920 --> 00:01:43,080 Speaker 1: quality compared to things like vinyl albums, for example. These 28 00:01:43,080 --> 00:01:46,840 Speaker 1: formats can't provide the fidelity of the ones that are 29 00:01:46,840 --> 00:01:49,800 Speaker 1: beloved by audio files, but they do allow for more 30 00:01:49,920 --> 00:01:54,480 Speaker 1: versatile listening experiences, such as portable devices capable of playing 31 00:01:54,520 --> 00:01:58,800 Speaker 1: back audio. These two philosophies would continue on from the 32 00:01:58,880 --> 00:02:02,840 Speaker 1: nineteen sixties through to today, and they have an impact 33 00:02:02,920 --> 00:02:06,480 Speaker 1: on the actual practices of audio recording. But we'll get 34 00:02:06,520 --> 00:02:10,280 Speaker 1: into all of that in this and future episodes. So first, 35 00:02:10,560 --> 00:02:14,440 Speaker 1: let's talk about magnetic tape. I mentioned it a bit 36 00:02:14,560 --> 00:02:17,720 Speaker 1: in the previous episode, like when I talked about recording 37 00:02:17,760 --> 00:02:21,240 Speaker 1: multiple tracks to the same tape, making it possible for 38 00:02:21,560 --> 00:02:25,320 Speaker 1: a single musician to accompany him or herself on different 39 00:02:25,360 --> 00:02:29,520 Speaker 1: instruments or even the same instrument, playing different parts of 40 00:02:29,560 --> 00:02:33,359 Speaker 1: a song. With enough tracks and a versatile enough musician, 41 00:02:33,800 --> 00:02:37,079 Speaker 1: you could have one person play virtually all the instruments 42 00:02:37,200 --> 00:02:41,520 Speaker 1: and provide lead and backing vocals on a single piece 43 00:02:41,560 --> 00:02:44,920 Speaker 1: of music. So, for example, this isn't a song, but 44 00:02:44,960 --> 00:02:48,040 Speaker 1: a piece of music. In the piece tubular Bells, which 45 00:02:48,120 --> 00:02:53,240 Speaker 1: was made famous in The Exorcist, Mike Oldfield played acoustic guitar, 46 00:02:53,680 --> 00:02:59,920 Speaker 1: bass guitar, electric guitar, three different kinds of organs, fuzz guitars, glockenspiel, mandolin, 47 00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:04,519 Speaker 1: and piano, and timpani. Oh, and also the tubular bells, 48 00:03:04,760 --> 00:03:08,160 Speaker 1: plus some other stuff. And obviously he wasn't playing all 49 00:03:08,200 --> 00:03:11,160 Speaker 1: of that simultaneously during the recording session, he was able 50 00:03:11,160 --> 00:03:15,040 Speaker 1: to lay that down track by track into a full piece. 51 00:03:15,560 --> 00:03:18,680 Speaker 1: So let's talk a bit about the tech of magnetic 52 00:03:18,800 --> 00:03:21,880 Speaker 1: tape and how all of this is possible. So this 53 00:03:21,919 --> 00:03:25,600 Speaker 1: is gonna mean backtracking again through our history, but I 54 00:03:25,639 --> 00:03:28,920 Speaker 1: feel like this is easier to understand if we tackle 55 00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:32,320 Speaker 1: each topic individually, as opposed to going year by year 56 00:03:32,440 --> 00:03:35,440 Speaker 1: and kind of leap frogging back and forth between different 57 00:03:35,440 --> 00:03:38,840 Speaker 1: technologies evolving at different rates. Um, that was just the 58 00:03:38,880 --> 00:03:42,960 Speaker 1: call I made when I was building out these episodes. So, uh, 59 00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:46,040 Speaker 1: you've gotta remember that the progress of magnetic tape is 60 00:03:46,080 --> 00:03:50,280 Speaker 1: also connected in many ways to other technologies. Including stuff 61 00:03:50,320 --> 00:03:53,040 Speaker 1: like the evolution of the microphone and the development of 62 00:03:53,080 --> 00:03:57,840 Speaker 1: amplification tubes and later amplification transistors. But we're gonna start 63 00:03:57,960 --> 00:04:02,040 Speaker 1: with a Danish engineer named valdam Our Poulson. Though some 64 00:04:02,080 --> 00:04:05,800 Speaker 1: other smarty pants had already been theorizing that magnetic recording 65 00:04:05,840 --> 00:04:08,760 Speaker 1: could be a possibility, but it was Poulson's work that 66 00:04:08,800 --> 00:04:13,040 Speaker 1: would produce the first actual working devices. Everything else was 67 00:04:13,120 --> 00:04:17,520 Speaker 1: kind of theoretical. Sometime around nine, Poulson developed a machine 68 00:04:17,560 --> 00:04:20,240 Speaker 1: that could record sound onto a length of steel wire 69 00:04:20,480 --> 00:04:23,839 Speaker 1: through means a magnetism. He called it the telegraphone. I'm 70 00:04:23,880 --> 00:04:28,640 Speaker 1: guessing it's telegraphone perhaps, But how the heck does the 71 00:04:28,720 --> 00:04:32,120 Speaker 1: darn thing work? Let alone? How is it pronounced? Well, 72 00:04:32,760 --> 00:04:36,200 Speaker 1: imagine you've got a ferro magnetic material. So this is like, 73 00:04:36,320 --> 00:04:38,440 Speaker 1: you know, something like iron. This is a material that 74 00:04:38,560 --> 00:04:41,440 Speaker 1: if you expose it to a magnetic field, it will 75 00:04:41,520 --> 00:04:44,800 Speaker 1: remain magnetized by that field. You take the field away, 76 00:04:44,960 --> 00:04:49,240 Speaker 1: the material still remains magnetized, so it doesn't just have 77 00:04:49,800 --> 00:04:52,800 Speaker 1: magnetic effect in the presence of a magnetic field. The 78 00:04:52,800 --> 00:04:56,160 Speaker 1: magnetic field itself will magnetize the material, at least until 79 00:04:56,200 --> 00:04:59,000 Speaker 1: some other magnetic force acts upon it. Now before you 80 00:04:59,040 --> 00:05:03,400 Speaker 1: record anything onto a fresh strip of magnetic tape or 81 00:05:03,440 --> 00:05:07,640 Speaker 1: in the case of Poulson's device, steel wire, the material 82 00:05:08,160 --> 00:05:12,240 Speaker 1: isn't magnetized. It's in its raw state, so it's just 83 00:05:12,360 --> 00:05:16,320 Speaker 1: waiting as a blank medium. You take a microphone and 84 00:05:16,400 --> 00:05:19,240 Speaker 1: you play sound into the microphone. Maybe you're singing into it, 85 00:05:19,279 --> 00:05:22,560 Speaker 1: maybe you're playing an acoustic guitar. But the vibrations from 86 00:05:22,600 --> 00:05:26,760 Speaker 1: the sound cause a small diaphragm inside the microphone to vibrate, 87 00:05:27,160 --> 00:05:30,320 Speaker 1: and the diaphragm transfers those vibrations to other elements in 88 00:05:30,360 --> 00:05:34,039 Speaker 1: the microphone. Those elements depend upon the type of microphones, 89 00:05:34,120 --> 00:05:36,480 Speaker 1: so not all microphones are exactly the same. They all 90 00:05:36,520 --> 00:05:40,320 Speaker 1: work on a similar principle, but the details are different. However, 91 00:05:40,560 --> 00:05:45,200 Speaker 1: for simplicity sake, let's talk about dynamic microphones for the 92 00:05:45,200 --> 00:05:49,240 Speaker 1: purposes of this discussion. The diaphragm would cause a coil 93 00:05:49,400 --> 00:05:53,360 Speaker 1: of conductive wire to move around a magnetic core. So 94 00:05:53,480 --> 00:05:57,160 Speaker 1: imagine you've got a coil and the coil is uh 95 00:05:57,400 --> 00:06:01,640 Speaker 1: is wrapped around a magnetic core loose wrapped around and 96 00:06:01,720 --> 00:06:05,600 Speaker 1: the coil can move back and forth laterally along this core. 97 00:06:06,080 --> 00:06:09,800 Speaker 1: If you remember how electro magnetism works. You'll remember that 98 00:06:09,880 --> 00:06:13,560 Speaker 1: if you happen to move a conductor in and out 99 00:06:13,600 --> 00:06:17,520 Speaker 1: of a magnetic field, or you subject the conductive material 100 00:06:17,600 --> 00:06:21,279 Speaker 1: to a fluctuating magnetic field, it induces current to flow 101 00:06:21,320 --> 00:06:25,400 Speaker 1: through that conductor. The electric current is pretty weak coming 102 00:06:25,400 --> 00:06:28,880 Speaker 1: out of a microphone, but it represents the fluctuations of 103 00:06:28,920 --> 00:06:31,920 Speaker 1: the diaphragm, which in turn are representations of the sound 104 00:06:32,000 --> 00:06:35,520 Speaker 1: vibrations that hit that diaphragm. So think of it this way. 105 00:06:35,720 --> 00:06:40,359 Speaker 1: Sound hits the diaphragm, diaphragm vibrates, the vibrates cause vibrations, 106 00:06:40,400 --> 00:06:43,680 Speaker 1: cause this coil to move back and forth across this 107 00:06:43,760 --> 00:06:48,640 Speaker 1: magnetic core. That induces current to flow through the wire, 108 00:06:49,400 --> 00:06:52,000 Speaker 1: and then you've got an electric current. You can use 109 00:06:52,040 --> 00:06:56,000 Speaker 1: that current to drive a different electro magnet. Typically you 110 00:06:56,040 --> 00:07:00,479 Speaker 1: would wrap the wire around a ferromagnetic or iron lie core, 111 00:07:00,880 --> 00:07:03,800 Speaker 1: and as the current flows through the wire coiled around 112 00:07:03,800 --> 00:07:07,560 Speaker 1: this core, the electro magnet generates a magnetic field. So 113 00:07:07,600 --> 00:07:11,760 Speaker 1: it's kind of recreating the magnetic field that was uh 114 00:07:12,120 --> 00:07:16,600 Speaker 1: fluctuating when the coil was vibrating in the microphone side. 115 00:07:16,760 --> 00:07:18,880 Speaker 1: So it's sort of the same thing I just described earlier, 116 00:07:18,920 --> 00:07:23,520 Speaker 1: but in reverse magnetic recording devices use such an electro 117 00:07:23,640 --> 00:07:29,880 Speaker 1: magnet too imprint a magnetic recording onto the medium. So 118 00:07:29,920 --> 00:07:32,560 Speaker 1: typically the core is actually a disc or a ring. 119 00:07:32,960 --> 00:07:37,840 Speaker 1: It's very small, and there is a wire coiled around 120 00:07:38,160 --> 00:07:40,120 Speaker 1: one side of the ring. Think of like a washer, 121 00:07:40,480 --> 00:07:44,480 Speaker 1: like a washer that you would get from a hardware store, 122 00:07:45,200 --> 00:07:48,600 Speaker 1: a little round disc. And imagine that you've wrapped this 123 00:07:48,680 --> 00:07:51,760 Speaker 1: particular little round disk happens to be magnet or at 124 00:07:51,800 --> 00:07:56,040 Speaker 1: least it's feral magnetic, and you've wrapped a wire, a 125 00:07:56,040 --> 00:08:01,800 Speaker 1: conductive wire, around one side of that disk, and then 126 00:08:01,840 --> 00:08:05,080 Speaker 1: you cut a gap at the bottom of that disk. 127 00:08:05,240 --> 00:08:08,400 Speaker 1: That that gap is what is going to be very 128 00:08:08,440 --> 00:08:11,920 Speaker 1: close to the recording medium. The gap actually causes the 129 00:08:11,920 --> 00:08:15,880 Speaker 1: magnetic field that will be generated when electric current flows 130 00:08:15,880 --> 00:08:20,000 Speaker 1: through the wire to fringe outward, and it's this that 131 00:08:20,120 --> 00:08:24,600 Speaker 1: magnetizes the recording medium passing below. So you've generated this 132 00:08:24,640 --> 00:08:27,920 Speaker 1: magnetic fluctuation by feeding an electrical signal that you had 133 00:08:27,960 --> 00:08:32,200 Speaker 1: generated with the microphone. And remember that electric signal represents 134 00:08:32,240 --> 00:08:35,839 Speaker 1: the original sound. You need the recording medium to pass 135 00:08:35,960 --> 00:08:39,040 Speaker 1: by that electromagnet at a regular speed to get a clear, 136 00:08:39,120 --> 00:08:42,679 Speaker 1: undistorted recording. So it's very important that the speed at 137 00:08:42,679 --> 00:08:48,599 Speaker 1: which the medium passes under this recording head is is 138 00:08:48,720 --> 00:08:53,559 Speaker 1: nice and regular. As the medium passes by this electromagnet, 139 00:08:53,679 --> 00:08:56,920 Speaker 1: the material in the medium is magnetized according to those 140 00:08:56,920 --> 00:09:00,920 Speaker 1: fluctuations from the magnetic field. When you're on you've got 141 00:09:00,920 --> 00:09:04,000 Speaker 1: a length of that medium, whether it's tape or it's 142 00:09:04,000 --> 00:09:08,640 Speaker 1: steel wire that has imprinted on it, those magnetized particles, 143 00:09:08,640 --> 00:09:12,480 Speaker 1: and they will stay in those magnetic orientations unless you 144 00:09:12,559 --> 00:09:15,200 Speaker 1: expose them to a more powerful magnetic field, in which 145 00:09:15,200 --> 00:09:17,840 Speaker 1: case they will re orient. This, by the way, is 146 00:09:17,920 --> 00:09:20,880 Speaker 1: why if you've ever worked with any sort of magnetic storage, 147 00:09:20,920 --> 00:09:22,720 Speaker 1: people would tell you make sure you don't have any 148 00:09:22,720 --> 00:09:27,360 Speaker 1: powerful magnets nearby it. That's why, because the powerful magnets 149 00:09:27,360 --> 00:09:32,920 Speaker 1: could re orient the magnetic particles in that material and 150 00:09:32,960 --> 00:09:36,839 Speaker 1: thus erase whatever was recorded on them. That's why if 151 00:09:36,880 --> 00:09:41,280 Speaker 1: you are destroying magnetic storage, you typically expose it to 152 00:09:41,320 --> 00:09:45,360 Speaker 1: a very powerful magnet first. To play back recorded sound. 153 00:09:45,800 --> 00:09:48,560 Speaker 1: You would then take this medium where you've got these 154 00:09:48,600 --> 00:09:54,360 Speaker 1: magnetized particles, and you would run them under a tape head. Uh. 155 00:09:54,400 --> 00:09:56,440 Speaker 1: It's essentially it's exactly the same thing. In fact, it 156 00:09:56,440 --> 00:10:00,439 Speaker 1: could be the same head as the recording tape head. 157 00:10:00,840 --> 00:10:03,640 Speaker 1: And in this case, you don't actually have a current 158 00:10:03,800 --> 00:10:08,559 Speaker 1: running through that wire. It's the ferromagnetic core and it's 159 00:10:08,559 --> 00:10:10,240 Speaker 1: the coil wrapped around up. But the coil at the 160 00:10:10,240 --> 00:10:13,920 Speaker 1: moment is inert, there's no electricity running through it. When 161 00:10:13,960 --> 00:10:19,720 Speaker 1: you run the magnetic material past this, then you create 162 00:10:19,760 --> 00:10:23,920 Speaker 1: those magnetic fluctuations which induce electricity to flow through the 163 00:10:23,960 --> 00:10:27,880 Speaker 1: wire wrapped around the ferro magnetic core, and you reproduce 164 00:10:28,720 --> 00:10:32,560 Speaker 1: the electric current that was used to create the magnetic 165 00:10:32,600 --> 00:10:35,800 Speaker 1: fluctuations that were imprinted on the material in the first place. 166 00:10:36,240 --> 00:10:39,679 Speaker 1: So you're just you're reversing the whole process. And again 167 00:10:39,920 --> 00:10:44,800 Speaker 1: it's because of that electromagnetic phenomena where you have the 168 00:10:45,000 --> 00:10:51,440 Speaker 1: magnetized material running past a conductor that's wrapped around ferro 169 00:10:51,480 --> 00:10:54,960 Speaker 1: magnetic core. You technically don't even need the ferro magnetic 170 00:10:55,000 --> 00:10:57,640 Speaker 1: core to do this. It's just it makes it easier. 171 00:10:58,080 --> 00:11:01,360 Speaker 1: It kind of it almost acts like amplifier, so that's 172 00:11:01,480 --> 00:11:05,160 Speaker 1: really why it's there. And then that current that's generated 173 00:11:05,240 --> 00:11:08,320 Speaker 1: can be then sent to amplifiers which will take in 174 00:11:08,400 --> 00:11:12,079 Speaker 1: that signal and boost its strength so that that signal 175 00:11:12,160 --> 00:11:15,120 Speaker 1: can then drive something like speakers and then you get 176 00:11:15,120 --> 00:11:18,880 Speaker 1: the sound. So the steel wire approach worked, but it 177 00:11:18,960 --> 00:11:22,800 Speaker 1: produced recordings of pretty low sound quality. It was not 178 00:11:23,040 --> 00:11:27,000 Speaker 1: something you could use for music or for performance. Recorders 179 00:11:27,080 --> 00:11:30,400 Speaker 1: using magnetic wire did find their way into some products 180 00:11:30,600 --> 00:11:35,400 Speaker 1: with later innovators. They took that same idea that Pulson had, 181 00:11:35,960 --> 00:11:40,040 Speaker 1: and mostly you would get dictation machines that were used 182 00:11:40,040 --> 00:11:43,240 Speaker 1: by hoity toity executive types who would dictate their words 183 00:11:43,240 --> 00:11:46,840 Speaker 1: to be preserved on wire for later transcription. Then you 184 00:11:46,880 --> 00:11:50,000 Speaker 1: have a German businessman named Louis Blattner who wanted to 185 00:11:50,040 --> 00:11:53,080 Speaker 1: take this technology and to develop it further. Well, not 186 00:11:53,080 --> 00:11:56,280 Speaker 1: not himself personally, he actually told the engineers in his 187 00:11:56,360 --> 00:11:58,520 Speaker 1: company to get to work on doing that. He wanted 188 00:11:58,559 --> 00:12:00,920 Speaker 1: to try and have a product he could sell to 189 00:12:01,000 --> 00:12:04,959 Speaker 1: the BBC. And they made the switch from steel wire 190 00:12:05,080 --> 00:12:08,439 Speaker 1: to steal tape, so it's flat piece of tape, but 191 00:12:08,480 --> 00:12:12,200 Speaker 1: it's made out of steel, and they produced a device 192 00:12:12,280 --> 00:12:15,360 Speaker 1: that was called the Blattner Phone, which is probably the 193 00:12:15,440 --> 00:12:19,320 Speaker 1: most attractive name for a piece of technology I've ever heard. 194 00:12:20,080 --> 00:12:23,800 Speaker 1: Lou would present this gadget to the BBC and they 195 00:12:23,840 --> 00:12:26,640 Speaker 1: decided it's good enough for recording speech, but it was 196 00:12:26,760 --> 00:12:30,760 Speaker 1: not good enough to record sound of other stuff like 197 00:12:30,760 --> 00:12:34,679 Speaker 1: like music, and a high enough quality to be considered broadcastable. 198 00:12:35,400 --> 00:12:38,480 Speaker 1: The tape was, or at least the original machines the 199 00:12:38,480 --> 00:12:42,000 Speaker 1: first two use tape that was six millimeters wide, so 200 00:12:42,160 --> 00:12:44,240 Speaker 1: not very wide at all, and it ran through the 201 00:12:44,240 --> 00:12:47,439 Speaker 1: machine at a rate of five ft per second. That's 202 00:12:47,440 --> 00:12:50,320 Speaker 1: about a meter and a half per second, which is 203 00:12:50,640 --> 00:12:53,400 Speaker 1: pretty darn fast. Think about this. You've got this thin 204 00:12:53,760 --> 00:12:58,480 Speaker 1: steel tape moving at that speed. You might be thinking, oh, my, 205 00:12:58,600 --> 00:13:02,560 Speaker 1: Drew gees, that's pretty darn dangerous, and you would be right. 206 00:13:03,080 --> 00:13:04,880 Speaker 1: You would not want to get too close to this thing, 207 00:13:05,000 --> 00:13:08,520 Speaker 1: or you could get pretty badly cut. And it didn't 208 00:13:08,559 --> 00:13:10,840 Speaker 1: get much better. When Blattner's team created a version that 209 00:13:10,960 --> 00:13:15,400 Speaker 1: used tape. It was only three millimeters wide, but the 210 00:13:15,440 --> 00:13:18,640 Speaker 1: tape was actually better than steel wire. You've got better 211 00:13:19,120 --> 00:13:21,840 Speaker 1: quality recordings, but still not to the level that could 212 00:13:21,840 --> 00:13:24,120 Speaker 1: be used for broadcast, and certainly a far cry from 213 00:13:24,160 --> 00:13:26,960 Speaker 1: anything that could be used for consumers. Now. While the 214 00:13:26,960 --> 00:13:30,360 Speaker 1: Blatner phone was terrorizing the BBC, there was a German 215 00:13:30,400 --> 00:13:34,920 Speaker 1: Austrian engineer named Dr Fritz Floimer, and he had been 216 00:13:34,960 --> 00:13:40,559 Speaker 1: experimenting with a paper tape coated with lacquer and an 217 00:13:40,600 --> 00:13:45,320 Speaker 1: iron oxide powder. So iron oxide is ferro magnetic and 218 00:13:45,360 --> 00:13:48,679 Speaker 1: would serve as the actual recording medium, and iron eyed 219 00:13:48,720 --> 00:13:52,040 Speaker 1: oxide for a very very long time would become the 220 00:13:52,240 --> 00:13:55,520 Speaker 1: go to material. There were different iron oxides that different 221 00:13:56,160 --> 00:13:58,640 Speaker 1: inventors would use over the years to get better and 222 00:13:58,640 --> 00:14:01,800 Speaker 1: better results, but iron oxide became kind of ve go 223 00:14:02,000 --> 00:14:05,920 Speaker 1: to powder that you would use to create this kind 224 00:14:05,960 --> 00:14:10,120 Speaker 1: of magnetic tape. So the A E. G Company in 225 00:14:10,200 --> 00:14:14,760 Speaker 1: Berlin negotiated with floim Er Uh to develop a device 226 00:14:14,800 --> 00:14:18,160 Speaker 1: based off of his work back in ninety two, and 227 00:14:18,200 --> 00:14:21,240 Speaker 1: they also collaborated with a different company called B A 228 00:14:21,600 --> 00:14:26,080 Speaker 1: SF to create a magnetic recording materials and equipment. This 229 00:14:26,160 --> 00:14:30,240 Speaker 1: collaboration led to a tape made from cellulose acetate rather 230 00:14:30,320 --> 00:14:34,520 Speaker 1: than papers, still coated with lacquer and iron oxide, and 231 00:14:34,640 --> 00:14:38,320 Speaker 1: using another cellulos acetate type of material to act as 232 00:14:38,360 --> 00:14:42,360 Speaker 1: a binder agent. The two companies presented their collaboration, which 233 00:14:42,400 --> 00:14:45,680 Speaker 1: they called the Magneto Phone, which is not something you 234 00:14:45,760 --> 00:14:50,000 Speaker 1: used to call the head of evil mutants, and they 235 00:14:50,040 --> 00:14:53,040 Speaker 1: showed it off at the nineteen thirty five Radio Fair 236 00:14:53,080 --> 00:14:56,400 Speaker 1: in Berlin. Now floim er had a bit of a 237 00:14:56,440 --> 00:15:00,160 Speaker 1: sad outcome to this whole thing. Everything was done on 238 00:15:00,200 --> 00:15:03,680 Speaker 1: the up and up, but his patents were later overturned 239 00:15:03,680 --> 00:15:07,120 Speaker 1: by the German National Court. They court determined that the 240 00:15:07,200 --> 00:15:12,080 Speaker 1: ideas he had patented had already been presented way back 241 00:15:12,120 --> 00:15:16,080 Speaker 1: in the late eighteen hundreds by none other than Valdemar Poulson, 242 00:15:16,400 --> 00:15:18,800 Speaker 1: the guy who came up with that steel wire contraption 243 00:15:18,840 --> 00:15:23,160 Speaker 1: that he had already described a tape based system. It's 244 00:15:23,200 --> 00:15:25,840 Speaker 1: just that he wasn't able to make that one work 245 00:15:26,280 --> 00:15:30,480 Speaker 1: during his lifetime. But because there was prior art, the 246 00:15:30,560 --> 00:15:36,760 Speaker 1: patents that Floeimer had had registered were overturned. German engineers 247 00:15:36,800 --> 00:15:40,120 Speaker 1: continued to improve the technology, and by the early nineteen 248 00:15:40,120 --> 00:15:41,880 Speaker 1: forties it was at the point where it was a 249 00:15:41,960 --> 00:15:46,000 Speaker 1: legitimate alternative to the other recording methods of the time. 250 00:15:46,640 --> 00:15:50,960 Speaker 1: Magnetic tape made a huge impact on that recording industry. So, 251 00:15:51,040 --> 00:15:54,600 Speaker 1: for one thing, you could record way more information on 252 00:15:54,640 --> 00:15:57,760 Speaker 1: a reel of tape than you could on a wax 253 00:15:57,880 --> 00:16:01,360 Speaker 1: cylinder or a shellack disc, which of the other media 254 00:16:01,440 --> 00:16:05,240 Speaker 1: at the time. For another, with tape, you could edit 255 00:16:05,600 --> 00:16:09,080 Speaker 1: if you're recording to a wax disc or a shell 256 00:16:09,120 --> 00:16:12,960 Speaker 1: act disc, and you make a mistake, it's there and 257 00:16:13,080 --> 00:16:16,080 Speaker 1: you pretty much have to scrap everything and start over, 258 00:16:16,160 --> 00:16:18,840 Speaker 1: or you have to live with the mistake. With tape, 259 00:16:19,200 --> 00:16:23,240 Speaker 1: you could actually record and you could literally cut and 260 00:16:23,280 --> 00:16:26,600 Speaker 1: paste if you needed to the tape so that you 261 00:16:26,600 --> 00:16:30,000 Speaker 1: could get rid of accidents. You could loop things if 262 00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:31,600 Speaker 1: you wanted to. There are a lot of different tricks 263 00:16:31,640 --> 00:16:35,800 Speaker 1: you could do. And as we listened to the last episode, 264 00:16:36,120 --> 00:16:39,840 Speaker 1: you could do multi track recordings. You could put multiple 265 00:16:39,880 --> 00:16:42,200 Speaker 1: tracks side by side on the same length of tape. 266 00:16:42,240 --> 00:16:45,240 Speaker 1: You know, imagine you've got a piece of tape and 267 00:16:45,440 --> 00:16:48,960 Speaker 1: it's several feet long and it's maybe a couple of 268 00:16:48,960 --> 00:16:54,040 Speaker 1: inches wide. You could actually fit multiple tracks side by side, 269 00:16:54,280 --> 00:16:57,640 Speaker 1: and each track is a different recording, and they're all 270 00:16:57,760 --> 00:17:01,680 Speaker 1: synchronized by just being next to each other on this tape. 271 00:17:02,480 --> 00:17:05,320 Speaker 1: So that allowed for a lot of versatility in the 272 00:17:05,359 --> 00:17:09,240 Speaker 1: recording process and it really freed things up. Shifting the 273 00:17:09,280 --> 00:17:11,800 Speaker 1: recording head over slightly allows you to record a second 274 00:17:11,800 --> 00:17:15,240 Speaker 1: track or a third track. Um you could even record 275 00:17:15,640 --> 00:17:18,800 Speaker 1: tracks for specific speakers. That's what allowed for stereo sound. 276 00:17:19,400 --> 00:17:21,560 Speaker 1: And like I said in the last episode, Less Paul 277 00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:24,280 Speaker 1: played a really big part in getting multi track recording 278 00:17:24,320 --> 00:17:29,080 Speaker 1: off the ground running. Uh Ampex would actually build the 279 00:17:29,119 --> 00:17:32,119 Speaker 1: device based on less Paul's requests, and they built the 280 00:17:32,160 --> 00:17:35,800 Speaker 1: first eight track recording system. So soon you had the 281 00:17:35,960 --> 00:17:39,399 Speaker 1: entire recording industry relying on magnetic tape for recording, mixing, 282 00:17:39,440 --> 00:17:42,800 Speaker 1: and mastering. At the time, they were mostly relying on 283 00:17:42,880 --> 00:17:45,440 Speaker 1: three track systems, and then a little bit later four 284 00:17:45,480 --> 00:17:48,160 Speaker 1: track systems. The eight track actually didn't come into play 285 00:17:48,440 --> 00:17:51,240 Speaker 1: until a bit later, but people began to figure out 286 00:17:51,280 --> 00:17:54,040 Speaker 1: how to work with those, Like you could record four 287 00:17:54,119 --> 00:17:57,080 Speaker 1: tracks onto a tape, then you can take that tape 288 00:17:57,119 --> 00:18:00,520 Speaker 1: of four tracks and transfer the recording to one track 289 00:18:00,720 --> 00:18:03,879 Speaker 1: of another four track recorder, and thus you could start 290 00:18:03,880 --> 00:18:07,879 Speaker 1: to build a piece that way. It was more time consuming, 291 00:18:07,960 --> 00:18:11,959 Speaker 1: but it was also still more versatile than the you know, 292 00:18:12,000 --> 00:18:13,880 Speaker 1: just getting everybody in the same room at the same 293 00:18:13,880 --> 00:18:16,240 Speaker 1: time and hope that no one makes a mistake. So 294 00:18:17,000 --> 00:18:19,679 Speaker 1: the real impact of magnetic tape I want to feature 295 00:18:20,280 --> 00:18:23,840 Speaker 1: on this episode hit consumers, and we're gonna talk about 296 00:18:23,880 --> 00:18:26,040 Speaker 1: that in just a second, But first let's take a 297 00:18:26,119 --> 00:18:37,120 Speaker 1: quick break from the nineteen thirties to the early nineteen sixties, 298 00:18:37,160 --> 00:18:41,080 Speaker 1: the format of the tape recorder was huge. It was 299 00:18:41,119 --> 00:18:44,119 Speaker 1: a big, big machine. You are working with real to 300 00:18:44,280 --> 00:18:47,000 Speaker 1: real tapes. That meant that you would have one reel 301 00:18:47,200 --> 00:18:50,280 Speaker 1: that would have all of your audio stored on magnetic tape. 302 00:18:50,320 --> 00:18:52,639 Speaker 1: It's wrapped around this reel, and then you have a 303 00:18:52,680 --> 00:18:55,120 Speaker 1: second empty reel, and you would put both of those 304 00:18:55,119 --> 00:18:58,440 Speaker 1: reels on spokes on your tape recorder. Then you would 305 00:18:58,720 --> 00:19:02,800 Speaker 1: take the magnetic tape from the main reel. You would 306 00:19:02,840 --> 00:19:06,920 Speaker 1: carefully feed the magnetic tape through the machine so that 307 00:19:07,080 --> 00:19:09,600 Speaker 1: the tape is going to pass under the tape head 308 00:19:10,280 --> 00:19:12,280 Speaker 1: or over the tape head, depending upon the design of 309 00:19:12,320 --> 00:19:15,000 Speaker 1: the machine, but that the tape head would it would 310 00:19:15,040 --> 00:19:19,200 Speaker 1: pass across it. Then you would feed it continuing through 311 00:19:19,240 --> 00:19:22,399 Speaker 1: the machine until you could wrap it and tuck it 312 00:19:22,480 --> 00:19:26,960 Speaker 1: into the secondary reel. You turn on the machine, and 313 00:19:27,000 --> 00:19:30,119 Speaker 1: then the secondary reel starts to turn and starts to 314 00:19:30,200 --> 00:19:34,360 Speaker 1: pull the tape through the recorder. And that meant that 315 00:19:34,400 --> 00:19:38,560 Speaker 1: the magnetic tape would pass over or under the tape head, 316 00:19:38,960 --> 00:19:41,560 Speaker 1: and that would create that electrical signal in the tape 317 00:19:41,600 --> 00:19:44,280 Speaker 1: head that could be amplified to drive a speaker and 318 00:19:44,280 --> 00:19:47,400 Speaker 1: you could play it back. It was big, it was bulky. 319 00:19:47,640 --> 00:19:50,720 Speaker 1: It required deft hands to thread the tape, and it 320 00:19:50,800 --> 00:19:54,280 Speaker 1: meant it was not typically very user friendly for most people, 321 00:19:54,600 --> 00:19:58,040 Speaker 1: and it was pretty expensive. There were consumer models of 322 00:19:58,080 --> 00:20:00,600 Speaker 1: reel to reel tape players. You could out and buy 323 00:20:00,640 --> 00:20:04,639 Speaker 1: one yourself, but very few people actually owned one, just 324 00:20:04,680 --> 00:20:06,800 Speaker 1: because it was kind of a hassle to use them 325 00:20:07,280 --> 00:20:10,560 Speaker 1: and they were very expensive. Also, the reels took up 326 00:20:10,560 --> 00:20:14,040 Speaker 1: a lot of space, and depending upon which model you got, 327 00:20:14,280 --> 00:20:17,240 Speaker 1: you might be stuck with specific types of reels that 328 00:20:17,320 --> 00:20:20,000 Speaker 1: you could use, and you couldn't use other ones because 329 00:20:20,000 --> 00:20:23,359 Speaker 1: they weren't compatible. Our c A, the Radio Corporation of 330 00:20:23,359 --> 00:20:27,320 Speaker 1: America that has factored so heavily in these histories, developed 331 00:20:27,359 --> 00:20:31,280 Speaker 1: a reversible cassette tape as early as the late nineteen fifties, 332 00:20:31,480 --> 00:20:33,720 Speaker 1: but it didn't look like the cassette tapes that were 333 00:20:33,760 --> 00:20:36,399 Speaker 1: all the rage in the nineteen eighties. The r C 334 00:20:36,600 --> 00:20:39,159 Speaker 1: A cassette tape was much larger. It was about the 335 00:20:39,200 --> 00:20:43,119 Speaker 1: size of a video cassette. And now I'm realizing that 336 00:20:43,160 --> 00:20:49,200 Speaker 1: I'm comparing one obsolete technology against a different obsolete technology, 337 00:20:49,240 --> 00:20:51,440 Speaker 1: and some of you may have no idea what I'm 338 00:20:51,480 --> 00:20:54,040 Speaker 1: talking about. But the cassettes were about the size of 339 00:20:54,080 --> 00:20:57,440 Speaker 1: your average paperback book. They were big and the form 340 00:20:57,520 --> 00:21:00,359 Speaker 1: factor didn't really catch on, so our ci A would 341 00:21:00,400 --> 00:21:04,119 Speaker 1: scrap it. After a short while, the company Phillips created 342 00:21:04,119 --> 00:21:07,640 Speaker 1: the format that would become the cassette tape that those 343 00:21:07,720 --> 00:21:09,920 Speaker 1: of us who grew up in the eighties no and love. 344 00:21:10,480 --> 00:21:13,480 Speaker 1: It was called a compact cassette in the early days, 345 00:21:13,680 --> 00:21:17,520 Speaker 1: and Phillips developed these much smaller cassettes filled with magnetic 346 00:21:17,560 --> 00:21:22,200 Speaker 1: storage back in nineteen sixty two. They unveiled the technology 347 00:21:22,240 --> 00:21:25,359 Speaker 1: at the nineteen sixty three Berlin radio show, the same 348 00:21:25,520 --> 00:21:29,560 Speaker 1: radio show where we got to see the earlier forms 349 00:21:29,560 --> 00:21:33,320 Speaker 1: of magnetic tape playback. So these cassettes were about the 350 00:21:33,359 --> 00:21:35,960 Speaker 1: size of a credit card, much much smaller than our 351 00:21:36,000 --> 00:21:39,840 Speaker 1: Cier's version. At the time, there were other magnetic storage 352 00:21:39,840 --> 00:21:44,760 Speaker 1: formats that were vying for the top spot in the market, 353 00:21:45,280 --> 00:21:49,560 Speaker 1: and the early versions of the Phillips cassette weren't able 354 00:21:49,600 --> 00:21:52,360 Speaker 1: to produce very high quality recordings, and so they were 355 00:21:52,400 --> 00:21:56,119 Speaker 1: marketed more as something to record speech to rather than music. 356 00:21:56,160 --> 00:21:59,240 Speaker 1: You would buy a tape recorder and you would buy 357 00:21:59,280 --> 00:22:01,959 Speaker 1: the cassettes and you would use it to dictate, very 358 00:22:02,040 --> 00:22:06,000 Speaker 1: much like the steel wire devices from decades earlier. So 359 00:22:06,040 --> 00:22:09,320 Speaker 1: how the heck did the cassette become the standard with 360 00:22:09,359 --> 00:22:12,680 Speaker 1: these kind of drawbacks, Well, it was largely because Phillips 361 00:22:12,720 --> 00:22:17,280 Speaker 1: made a very shrewd move. The company licensed the technology 362 00:22:17,359 --> 00:22:20,679 Speaker 1: to other companies for free. So if you had the 363 00:22:20,680 --> 00:22:24,160 Speaker 1: means to manufacture cassettes, you could get a free license 364 00:22:24,200 --> 00:22:27,320 Speaker 1: from Phillips and then you could do it. Phillips wasn't 365 00:22:27,320 --> 00:22:30,280 Speaker 1: going to take any sort of licensing fee or royalties. 366 00:22:30,280 --> 00:22:33,520 Speaker 1: That way, they could make money selling machines capable of 367 00:22:33,520 --> 00:22:36,119 Speaker 1: recording and playing back the stuff on tapes. And it 368 00:22:36,240 --> 00:22:38,680 Speaker 1: was a savvy move that paid off, and the cassette, 369 00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:44,000 Speaker 1: despite its early limitations, received widespread adoption. Engineers would continue 370 00:22:44,040 --> 00:22:46,800 Speaker 1: to work on the technology and it didn't take terribly 371 00:22:46,840 --> 00:22:49,280 Speaker 1: long for the recording quality to improve to the point 372 00:22:49,320 --> 00:22:51,760 Speaker 1: where it was at least feasible to use cassettes to 373 00:22:51,800 --> 00:22:56,440 Speaker 1: record music. By nineteen sixty five, European companies were doing that, 374 00:22:56,880 --> 00:22:59,280 Speaker 1: and the following year in sixty six, saw the United 375 00:22:59,320 --> 00:23:02,280 Speaker 1: States doing the same, and right away companies were selling 376 00:23:02,320 --> 00:23:05,200 Speaker 1: machines that could not only play a cassette, but also 377 00:23:05,600 --> 00:23:08,560 Speaker 1: record to blank cassettes. And this would be another thing 378 00:23:08,720 --> 00:23:11,680 Speaker 1: that would make an enormous impact on the recording industry. 379 00:23:11,960 --> 00:23:17,159 Speaker 1: For two decades, Vinyl would still hold out over prerecorded cassettes. 380 00:23:17,520 --> 00:23:22,119 Speaker 1: It's not like prerecorded cassettes immediately displaced vinyl records, but 381 00:23:22,160 --> 00:23:27,120 Speaker 1: in the nighties, prerecorded music cassettes overtook vinyl sales and 382 00:23:27,440 --> 00:23:31,600 Speaker 1: things changed dramatically. The compact cassettes quality was pretty much 383 00:23:31,600 --> 00:23:35,600 Speaker 1: always held up as inferior to a good vinyl album. 384 00:23:35,760 --> 00:23:38,639 Speaker 1: Cheap cassettes had a lot of tape hiss, and tape 385 00:23:38,680 --> 00:23:41,840 Speaker 1: hiss is produced by the magnetic particles that are on 386 00:23:41,960 --> 00:23:45,520 Speaker 1: the tape. The larger the particles are, the more hiss 387 00:23:45,600 --> 00:23:47,520 Speaker 1: you will hear during a recording. It's kind of the 388 00:23:47,840 --> 00:23:51,520 Speaker 1: base level or the the room noise of a tape. 389 00:23:51,760 --> 00:23:54,480 Speaker 1: And you can reduce tape hiss a couple of different ways. 390 00:23:54,520 --> 00:23:57,360 Speaker 1: One is by recording sound at a higher tape speed, 391 00:23:57,720 --> 00:24:01,000 Speaker 1: which effectively uses more tape to cord the same amount 392 00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:04,399 Speaker 1: of sounds. So instead of saying, let's say that one 393 00:24:04,760 --> 00:24:09,840 Speaker 1: version would have a second equals you know, let's say 394 00:24:11,200 --> 00:24:15,520 Speaker 1: eight inches of tape, which is pretty fast, and another 395 00:24:15,560 --> 00:24:18,720 Speaker 1: one a second equal sixteen inches of tape, Well, you're 396 00:24:18,760 --> 00:24:21,359 Speaker 1: using twice as much tape to record the same amount 397 00:24:21,359 --> 00:24:25,359 Speaker 1: of sound, and you also reduce hiss that way. You 398 00:24:25,400 --> 00:24:29,399 Speaker 1: can also reduce hiss by reducing the size of the 399 00:24:29,440 --> 00:24:33,000 Speaker 1: magnetic particles themselves. If you get finer grains of iron 400 00:24:33,040 --> 00:24:37,120 Speaker 1: oxide than it brings down hiss, and then other technologies 401 00:24:37,200 --> 00:24:40,640 Speaker 1: later on would reduce hiss further. But early in the time, 402 00:24:40,840 --> 00:24:43,919 Speaker 1: the early days of cassette tapes, hiss was one of 403 00:24:43,920 --> 00:24:48,840 Speaker 1: those issues, and cheaper tapes would still kind of create 404 00:24:48,840 --> 00:24:52,240 Speaker 1: a hissing sound even late in the cassette tape era. 405 00:24:53,240 --> 00:24:56,560 Speaker 1: That sound quality issue allowed another type of tape cassette 406 00:24:56,560 --> 00:24:59,560 Speaker 1: to emerge as a contender for a relatively short while. 407 00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:05,240 Speaker 1: So you had the compact cassette that was pretty versatile 408 00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:09,440 Speaker 1: but not giving you the best sound quality. This rival 409 00:25:09,560 --> 00:25:12,600 Speaker 1: had much better sound quality but less versatility, and that 410 00:25:12,720 --> 00:25:15,960 Speaker 1: was the famed eight track tape. The eight track was 411 00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:19,040 Speaker 1: able to take a spot the cassette wasn't quite ready 412 00:25:19,119 --> 00:25:24,439 Speaker 1: for in nineteen as a format for prerecorded content, specifically music, 413 00:25:24,760 --> 00:25:28,119 Speaker 1: and it was the product of an odd collaboration. The 414 00:25:28,200 --> 00:25:31,439 Speaker 1: partners of that collaboration included Ampex. That was the company 415 00:25:31,440 --> 00:25:34,159 Speaker 1: that made the eight track recorder for Les Paul, and 416 00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:37,600 Speaker 1: it also included r C A Records as a prime contributor. 417 00:25:37,960 --> 00:25:42,159 Speaker 1: And then there was the Lear Jet Company, which, yeah, 418 00:25:42,359 --> 00:25:45,840 Speaker 1: that's kind of weird, right, company known for making jets, 419 00:25:45,840 --> 00:25:49,000 Speaker 1: played a major role in developing a magnetic tape technology 420 00:25:49,040 --> 00:25:52,080 Speaker 1: for music, and William Lear, the head of the company, 421 00:25:52,320 --> 00:25:55,639 Speaker 1: used his connections to convince executives at Ford Motors to 422 00:25:55,680 --> 00:25:58,119 Speaker 1: come on board and make an eight track player and 423 00:25:58,280 --> 00:26:03,280 Speaker 1: option on every single nineteen sixties six Ford model, and 424 00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:05,639 Speaker 1: that was a huge boost for the eight track, and 425 00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:10,439 Speaker 1: it was considered a great solution. You could take your 426 00:26:10,520 --> 00:26:12,560 Speaker 1: music with you and you could listen to it in 427 00:26:12,600 --> 00:26:16,639 Speaker 1: the car. So there's something else that I gotta talk about, 428 00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:19,080 Speaker 1: just briefly before I get into more about the eight tracks, 429 00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:22,040 Speaker 1: which was that in the nineteen fifties and the nineteen sixties, 430 00:26:22,320 --> 00:26:24,959 Speaker 1: leading up to the introduction of the eight track, a 431 00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:29,199 Speaker 1: few companies had experimented with vinyl turntable systems for cars, 432 00:26:29,800 --> 00:26:33,600 Speaker 1: which sounds crazy for understandable reasons. It was not an 433 00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:36,080 Speaker 1: easy thing to do. You have to rely on a 434 00:26:36,119 --> 00:26:40,400 Speaker 1: format that has a physical needle or stylus moving through 435 00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:44,399 Speaker 1: a tiny groove on a spinning disk. Meanwhile, you're driving 436 00:26:44,400 --> 00:26:47,560 Speaker 1: a vehicle on different surfaces, it's probably not the most 437 00:26:47,680 --> 00:26:51,560 Speaker 1: reliable way of hearing high fidelity tunes. So while some 438 00:26:51,600 --> 00:26:56,120 Speaker 1: companies tried that, including CBS, which introduced a record format 439 00:26:56,320 --> 00:26:59,560 Speaker 1: just for cars that spun at sixteen and two thirds 440 00:26:59,720 --> 00:27:03,399 Speaker 1: rp ms than a specific player that spun at that speed, 441 00:27:03,400 --> 00:27:06,080 Speaker 1: which meant that you had to have discs recorded at 442 00:27:06,119 --> 00:27:09,440 Speaker 1: that speed to be able to use it. They these 443 00:27:09,480 --> 00:27:13,639 Speaker 1: systems never got much momentum, and that's a pun. So 444 00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:16,680 Speaker 1: eight track tapes are portable. You could have a few 445 00:27:16,680 --> 00:27:18,439 Speaker 1: in your car. You can plug them into your system 446 00:27:18,600 --> 00:27:21,080 Speaker 1: listen to tunes, and that came in handy if your 447 00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:24,119 Speaker 1: radio wasn't picking up any strong signals, or if the 448 00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:27,040 Speaker 1: stuff playing in your area didn't meet your personal musical tastes. 449 00:27:27,359 --> 00:27:30,520 Speaker 1: And this was a time when FM stereo wasn't really 450 00:27:30,520 --> 00:27:33,520 Speaker 1: widely available in the nineteen sixties. You know, you couldn't 451 00:27:33,600 --> 00:27:36,480 Speaker 1: get it everywhere, So there was a niche to be 452 00:27:36,560 --> 00:27:40,119 Speaker 1: filled for for higher quality sound in cars, and the 453 00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:43,600 Speaker 1: eight track one out over another format, the four track. 454 00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:47,000 Speaker 1: There was a four track tape as well, but the 455 00:27:47,080 --> 00:27:49,440 Speaker 1: quality of an eight track was far superior to cassettes 456 00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:52,440 Speaker 1: of the same era, and it would take more advances 457 00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:55,920 Speaker 1: in cassette technology for the cassette format to surpass that 458 00:27:56,000 --> 00:27:58,879 Speaker 1: of the eight track, and music labels jumped on board. 459 00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:01,040 Speaker 1: They gave a lot of port for eight track tapes 460 00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:03,080 Speaker 1: in the early days, and it had a pretty strong 461 00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:07,040 Speaker 1: run for about a decade. But by the mid nineteen seventies, 462 00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:11,920 Speaker 1: improvements in cassette technology, including reducing tape hiss and Dolby 463 00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:15,040 Speaker 1: invented a noise reduction approach, along with the introduction of 464 00:28:15,160 --> 00:28:19,359 Speaker 1: high bias tape coding UH that really made cassettes viable 465 00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:23,120 Speaker 1: against eight tracks. Plus, cassette tapes were easy to record on. 466 00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:25,760 Speaker 1: If you wanted, you could buy blank tapes, put them 467 00:28:25,800 --> 00:28:28,480 Speaker 1: in a tape recorder and take music from some other 468 00:28:28,560 --> 00:28:31,159 Speaker 1: source like the radio, which is what I used to 469 00:28:31,160 --> 00:28:34,199 Speaker 1: do as a kid. And man, did I hate it 470 00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:36,920 Speaker 1: when DJs would start talking at the end or beginning 471 00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:40,000 Speaker 1: of songs and ruining my song. Man, shut up, does 472 00:28:40,080 --> 00:28:43,000 Speaker 1: let it play? The eight track faded from the consumer 473 00:28:43,040 --> 00:28:46,720 Speaker 1: space over the course of another decade, so cassettes took 474 00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:49,280 Speaker 1: over after about ten years, but the eight track held on. 475 00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:52,800 Speaker 1: It didn't just disappear immediately. By the mid nineteen seventies, 476 00:28:52,840 --> 00:28:55,920 Speaker 1: the major companies had stopped making eight track players, but 477 00:28:56,120 --> 00:28:58,680 Speaker 1: the format itself hung on a little bit longer than that. 478 00:28:58,720 --> 00:29:02,320 Speaker 1: Companies were still produced seeing eight track albums for several 479 00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:05,600 Speaker 1: years after that. Um though, it was actually a challenge 480 00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:08,320 Speaker 1: to find a store that would carry eight tracks while 481 00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:11,560 Speaker 1: the cassette was taking off because stores loved cassettes. They 482 00:29:11,560 --> 00:29:13,440 Speaker 1: took up very little space, so you can have a 483 00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:16,400 Speaker 1: pretty wide selection of music without requiring an enormous amount 484 00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:19,200 Speaker 1: of physical store space, and cassettes didn't have some of 485 00:29:19,200 --> 00:29:22,120 Speaker 1: the capacity limitations that eight track tapes had. An eight 486 00:29:22,120 --> 00:29:25,440 Speaker 1: track typically divided up an album into four stretches of 487 00:29:25,560 --> 00:29:30,560 Speaker 1: tape called programs, and there was an audible gap between programs. 488 00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:33,120 Speaker 1: There was a limited amount of tape that the eight 489 00:29:33,160 --> 00:29:35,560 Speaker 1: track could hold, and it usually meant that at least 490 00:29:35,600 --> 00:29:38,600 Speaker 1: one song on an album wouldn't make it onto the 491 00:29:38,640 --> 00:29:42,280 Speaker 1: eight track version, and some songs would fall right on 492 00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:46,040 Speaker 1: that break between two programs. Typically that would mean that 493 00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:48,880 Speaker 1: the song you were listening to would fade out, then 494 00:29:48,920 --> 00:29:51,680 Speaker 1: there would be an audible click, then there would be 495 00:29:51,720 --> 00:29:54,560 Speaker 1: a pause of silence while the next program was getting 496 00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:57,480 Speaker 1: pulled through the player, and then the song would fade 497 00:29:57,520 --> 00:30:00,880 Speaker 1: up again, essentially where it left off, which wasn't ideal. 498 00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:04,240 Speaker 1: Cassettes had a bit more versatility, allowing record labels to 499 00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:07,400 Speaker 1: fit an entire side of a vinyl album onto one 500 00:30:07,480 --> 00:30:11,120 Speaker 1: side of a cassette tape. Cassettes were also seen as 501 00:30:11,160 --> 00:30:13,400 Speaker 1: more portable than eight tracks. It was possible to have 502 00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:16,720 Speaker 1: a cassette player in a car or stereo system, or 503 00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:20,000 Speaker 1: a boom box, or a portable cassette player like the 504 00:30:20,040 --> 00:30:23,520 Speaker 1: famed Sony Walkman. People could have their music on the go. 505 00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:27,920 Speaker 1: They could jog while listening to music. The convenience and portability, 506 00:30:28,040 --> 00:30:31,080 Speaker 1: paired with the capability of recording stuff of your own 507 00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:34,680 Speaker 1: choosing onto tape whether it was someone else's stuff or 508 00:30:34,720 --> 00:30:38,360 Speaker 1: your own, that made cassettes the clear winner over eight tracks, 509 00:30:38,880 --> 00:30:42,160 Speaker 1: And while those early cassettes still weren't necessarily viewed by 510 00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:46,400 Speaker 1: audio files as being particularly good, they also were winning 511 00:30:46,400 --> 00:30:50,160 Speaker 1: out over vinyl for those same reasons with the general consumer. 512 00:30:50,520 --> 00:30:55,479 Speaker 1: The philosophy of convenience and accessibility over fidelity was winning 513 00:30:55,520 --> 00:30:58,400 Speaker 1: in the mainstream public, much to the chagrin of many 514 00:30:58,440 --> 00:31:02,120 Speaker 1: audio files out there, and the cassette gave opportunities to 515 00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:05,800 Speaker 1: independent musicians that they otherwise never would have had more 516 00:31:05,840 --> 00:31:08,920 Speaker 1: about that in just a second. But first let's take 517 00:31:09,040 --> 00:31:20,280 Speaker 1: another quick break. So the recording industry typically works like this. 518 00:31:20,760 --> 00:31:23,360 Speaker 1: You're a musician, or you're in a band or something. 519 00:31:23,680 --> 00:31:26,920 Speaker 1: You play gigs whenever you can, You practice, you write songs, 520 00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:29,800 Speaker 1: you practice some more, you get better over time, you 521 00:31:29,880 --> 00:31:33,160 Speaker 1: develop your sound, your style, your voice, and generally you 522 00:31:33,360 --> 00:31:37,040 Speaker 1: figure out who the heck you are musically speaking. You 523 00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:40,160 Speaker 1: might submit your music to record labels, you might hire 524 00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:42,240 Speaker 1: a manager to try and take care of that for you, 525 00:31:42,560 --> 00:31:45,560 Speaker 1: or maybe you're super lucky and someone influential sees one 526 00:31:45,600 --> 00:31:47,320 Speaker 1: of your shows and you get a meeting with a 527 00:31:47,360 --> 00:31:50,880 Speaker 1: record label representative. Then you negotiate, you sign a deal, 528 00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:53,760 Speaker 1: and now bam, you get yourself a record contract, which 529 00:31:53,760 --> 00:31:56,200 Speaker 1: is a great fairy tale, and for some people it 530 00:31:56,200 --> 00:31:59,520 Speaker 1: does work out that way. But you've got thousands of 531 00:31:59,560 --> 00:32:02,960 Speaker 1: people for every success story who make music, but they're 532 00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:05,920 Speaker 1: not being heard by record labels, and that's not necessarily 533 00:32:05,920 --> 00:32:08,360 Speaker 1: out of malice or anything like that. And then there 534 00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:11,160 Speaker 1: are musicians who would rather stay independent than sign on 535 00:32:11,200 --> 00:32:13,440 Speaker 1: with a record company in the first place, since the 536 00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:16,640 Speaker 1: company might dictate what the musician can or can't record 537 00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:19,440 Speaker 1: or what they should sound like. The cassette tape gave 538 00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:22,640 Speaker 1: people but that were in that category a lot of 539 00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:27,920 Speaker 1: new chances. The recording equipment was relatively inexpensive. Blake cassettes 540 00:32:27,920 --> 00:32:31,880 Speaker 1: were likewise pretty darn cheap, and they also are pretty rugged. 541 00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:34,840 Speaker 1: You could record music to a cassette, you could duplicate 542 00:32:34,880 --> 00:32:37,360 Speaker 1: the cassette, and then you can mail off the duplicates 543 00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:39,920 Speaker 1: to people in the mail and the tape was probably 544 00:32:39,920 --> 00:32:43,959 Speaker 1: gonna survive because it's it's pretty hardy stuff. And indie 545 00:32:44,000 --> 00:32:47,680 Speaker 1: culture developed around this practice, with different musicians and music 546 00:32:47,800 --> 00:32:51,120 Speaker 1: enthusiasts trading tapes back and forth and spreading music that 547 00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:54,360 Speaker 1: way outside the recording industry system. So you had this 548 00:32:54,440 --> 00:32:57,200 Speaker 1: kind of thriving independent scene that was growing because of 549 00:32:57,240 --> 00:33:00,000 Speaker 1: the cassette tape. The cassette and the introduction of sound 550 00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:03,280 Speaker 1: systems like the boombox also allowed people to share music 551 00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:06,120 Speaker 1: with others in an unprecedented way. It was easy to 552 00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:08,720 Speaker 1: bring a boombox to a location, popping a cassette and 553 00:33:08,720 --> 00:33:11,440 Speaker 1: then blast out the tunes, so people nearby could hear 554 00:33:11,480 --> 00:33:13,840 Speaker 1: the music, you know, whether they wanted to or not. 555 00:33:14,240 --> 00:33:17,400 Speaker 1: But it allowed for the development of music communities and 556 00:33:17,440 --> 00:33:21,280 Speaker 1: cultures like hip hop, so whole new genres of music 557 00:33:21,320 --> 00:33:23,800 Speaker 1: we're growing out of the adoption and use of this 558 00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:27,800 Speaker 1: recorded medium. At first, the recording industry was totally on 559 00:33:27,880 --> 00:33:32,000 Speaker 1: board with cassette culture, but this gradually changed as executives 560 00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:35,880 Speaker 1: realized the format allowed people to easily reproduce prerecorded cassettes. 561 00:33:36,320 --> 00:33:39,040 Speaker 1: They feared a hit to the bottom line. So here's 562 00:33:39,040 --> 00:33:43,120 Speaker 1: how their doomsday scenario might play out. A music fan 563 00:33:43,920 --> 00:33:46,960 Speaker 1: let's call him Jonathan, decides to purchase a brand new 564 00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:50,400 Speaker 1: cassette copy of the album Speaking in Tongues by Talking 565 00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:52,800 Speaker 1: Heads because he really digs the song this must be 566 00:33:52,840 --> 00:33:55,520 Speaker 1: the Place, which is pretty much all true because that 567 00:33:55,600 --> 00:33:59,400 Speaker 1: song is perfect, okay, But Jonathan, loving this song, gets 568 00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:01,960 Speaker 1: an idea. He bought this cassette for let's say the 569 00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:05,120 Speaker 1: princely sum of twelve dollars, and he goes out and 570 00:34:05,120 --> 00:34:07,880 Speaker 1: buys a whole bunch of blank cassettes for twenty bucks, 571 00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:10,720 Speaker 1: so he's brought his investment up to thirty two dollars. 572 00:34:11,680 --> 00:34:15,240 Speaker 1: Then he starts duplicating his copy of Speaking in Tongues 573 00:34:15,520 --> 00:34:18,719 Speaker 1: and then sells the copies for just five dollars each. 574 00:34:19,239 --> 00:34:23,040 Speaker 1: And after selling seven copies he's recaptured all the costs 575 00:34:23,080 --> 00:34:25,799 Speaker 1: of both the blank cassettes and the original tape, and 576 00:34:26,080 --> 00:34:31,240 Speaker 1: undercutting local music stores and the recording label. Sire Records, 577 00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:34,279 Speaker 1: which was the recording label doesn't get the benefit from 578 00:34:34,320 --> 00:34:37,640 Speaker 1: all those copies that Jonathan is selling. So music industry 579 00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:42,000 Speaker 1: executives were understandably concerned. They hated this idea with a 580 00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:46,719 Speaker 1: passion hotter than a thousand exploding suns. Several companies than 581 00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:50,239 Speaker 1: the British Phonographic Industry Trade Group decided to launch a 582 00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:53,760 Speaker 1: pr campaign against the practice, with a claim that quote 583 00:34:53,960 --> 00:34:57,839 Speaker 1: home taping is killing music end quote music, by the way, 584 00:34:57,920 --> 00:35:00,520 Speaker 1: is still alive and well today, just in case were worried, 585 00:35:00,840 --> 00:35:03,719 Speaker 1: And I'm sure this argument sounds familiar to you. If 586 00:35:03,719 --> 00:35:05,760 Speaker 1: it doesn't, it will by the end of the series, 587 00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:09,640 Speaker 1: because it's gonna come up again and again in different forms. 588 00:35:09,680 --> 00:35:11,880 Speaker 1: So while the record labels were freaking out, lots of 589 00:35:11,960 --> 00:35:15,680 Speaker 1: musicians were actually encouraging the practice of copying music and 590 00:35:15,719 --> 00:35:18,839 Speaker 1: sharing it with others. Lots of musicians were concerned more 591 00:35:18,880 --> 00:35:21,200 Speaker 1: with their music being heard by a larger number of 592 00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:24,560 Speaker 1: people than with the actual record sales numbers, and the 593 00:35:24,640 --> 00:35:27,400 Speaker 1: slogan home taping is killing music became sort of a 594 00:35:27,480 --> 00:35:30,520 Speaker 1: joke among a certain set of musicians, particularly in the 595 00:35:30,600 --> 00:35:34,399 Speaker 1: punk rock music scene, which was just really taking off 596 00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:37,480 Speaker 1: in the in the late seventies, and that was already 597 00:35:37,480 --> 00:35:41,760 Speaker 1: firmly in the anti establishment headspace. Dead Kennedy's were famous 598 00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:46,520 Speaker 1: for doing this. Now, music piracy was possible, it could happen, 599 00:35:46,560 --> 00:35:49,960 Speaker 1: but it wasn't really rampant in the cassette days. In 600 00:35:50,040 --> 00:35:53,720 Speaker 1: most places, hired in music still took money and time 601 00:35:53,800 --> 00:35:55,720 Speaker 1: and effort. You had to get hold of a copy 602 00:35:55,719 --> 00:35:58,040 Speaker 1: of the music. You had to get hold of blank cassettes, 603 00:35:58,360 --> 00:36:00,400 Speaker 1: and then you had to spend the time record hoarding 604 00:36:00,480 --> 00:36:04,279 Speaker 1: from the original onto a copy, and most recorders would 605 00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:07,239 Speaker 1: only allow you to do that at playback speed, So 606 00:36:07,280 --> 00:36:09,600 Speaker 1: if you have an hour long album, it would take 607 00:36:09,600 --> 00:36:12,240 Speaker 1: an hour for you to copy it onto a single 608 00:36:12,360 --> 00:36:18,040 Speaker 1: blank cassette. So it wasn't exactly uh, something that was 609 00:36:18,080 --> 00:36:21,080 Speaker 1: easy to mass manufacture, and I think most of those 610 00:36:21,120 --> 00:36:25,120 Speaker 1: fears were largely unwarranted. Something that happened more frequently were 611 00:36:25,160 --> 00:36:28,720 Speaker 1: mixtapes made recently famous by the guardians of the Galaxy movies. 612 00:36:29,080 --> 00:36:31,560 Speaker 1: People began to rifle through their music collections and put 613 00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:34,040 Speaker 1: together a series of songs for folks they knew, and 614 00:36:34,080 --> 00:36:36,960 Speaker 1: there was a real art to this. According to some people, 615 00:36:36,960 --> 00:36:39,880 Speaker 1: there were even rules you should absolutely follow to get 616 00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:42,680 Speaker 1: the best result. For example, some officionados will tell you 617 00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:46,120 Speaker 1: that a mix tape should never feature the same artist 618 00:36:46,320 --> 00:36:49,560 Speaker 1: or group on it twice, no repeats. So if you 619 00:36:49,640 --> 00:36:52,279 Speaker 1: open with the Kinks All Day and All of the Night, 620 00:36:52,480 --> 00:36:54,920 Speaker 1: which came out in nineteen sixty five, and then you 621 00:36:55,080 --> 00:36:58,560 Speaker 1: ended the mixtape with the Kinks song Apeman, which came 622 00:36:58,560 --> 00:37:02,480 Speaker 1: out in you would technically be breaking that rule. Now, personally, 623 00:37:02,640 --> 00:37:05,720 Speaker 1: I think that's silly because some bands like the Kinks 624 00:37:05,880 --> 00:37:09,320 Speaker 1: can change their sound dramatically over the course of their careers. 625 00:37:09,360 --> 00:37:12,040 Speaker 1: It almost sounds like two totally different bands. But never 626 00:37:12,120 --> 00:37:15,320 Speaker 1: mind all that. Anyway, you can search the internet to 627 00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:18,319 Speaker 1: find out about the rules of making mixtapes. Everyone has 628 00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:21,800 Speaker 1: their own set, and these days those same rules carry 629 00:37:21,840 --> 00:37:25,680 Speaker 1: over into making playlists, so it still has relevance. The 630 00:37:25,719 --> 00:37:29,279 Speaker 1: mixtape culture became an important social interaction. It provided a 631 00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:31,960 Speaker 1: new way to clue people in as to what kind 632 00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:34,560 Speaker 1: of person you are, and it gave folks a chance 633 00:37:34,600 --> 00:37:37,560 Speaker 1: to put something together for someone else, showing that they 634 00:37:37,560 --> 00:37:40,440 Speaker 1: were thinking about them. So if you received a mixtape, 635 00:37:40,440 --> 00:37:43,800 Speaker 1: particularly a really good one, it was a huge thrill 636 00:37:43,880 --> 00:37:46,439 Speaker 1: because it showed that someone else was thinking about you 637 00:37:46,719 --> 00:37:50,000 Speaker 1: and trying to craft an experience that you would really enjoy. 638 00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:53,640 Speaker 1: So the eight track had a rain of around nineteen 639 00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:57,520 Speaker 1: sixty six to nineteen seventy, and then the compact cassette. 640 00:37:57,560 --> 00:38:00,279 Speaker 1: The cassette tape took over from there and really caught 641 00:38:00,320 --> 00:38:02,759 Speaker 1: on in the nineteen eighties, but it too would have 642 00:38:02,880 --> 00:38:05,719 Speaker 1: a short run as the king of media, because the 643 00:38:05,760 --> 00:38:08,960 Speaker 1: compact disc would debut in the late nineteen eighties and 644 00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:12,840 Speaker 1: by the following decade would all but annihilate the compact cassette. 645 00:38:13,960 --> 00:38:16,480 Speaker 1: During this same era, there was another huge change that 646 00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:18,400 Speaker 1: was taking place in the United States as well as 647 00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:20,400 Speaker 1: other parts of the world, but I'm mainly going to 648 00:38:20,480 --> 00:38:22,880 Speaker 1: focus on the US, and that was the nature of 649 00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:26,239 Speaker 1: copyright law. In the US. The government had passed a 650 00:38:26,280 --> 00:38:29,600 Speaker 1: Copyright Act way back in nineteen o nine, but it 651 00:38:29,680 --> 00:38:33,360 Speaker 1: hadn't really touched it since. But in the decades following 652 00:38:33,480 --> 00:38:35,919 Speaker 1: nineteen o nine, it became clear that copyright law would 653 00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:38,920 Speaker 1: need an update. Technology was allowing for the broadcast and 654 00:38:38,960 --> 00:38:43,239 Speaker 1: preservation of intellectual property in new ways, from radio to television, 655 00:38:43,280 --> 00:38:46,920 Speaker 1: two recorded media like vinyl albums and cassettes, and the 656 00:38:47,040 --> 00:38:52,080 Speaker 1: Universal Copyright Convention and International Agreement on Copyright had debuted 657 00:38:52,120 --> 00:38:54,719 Speaker 1: back in nineteen fifty two in Switzerland, and the United 658 00:38:54,760 --> 00:38:57,719 Speaker 1: States joined that convention in nineteen fifty five, but it 659 00:38:57,760 --> 00:39:01,320 Speaker 1: wasn't until nineteen seventies six that the US government was 660 00:39:01,360 --> 00:39:05,200 Speaker 1: ready to pass some new copyright rules in the nineteen 661 00:39:05,200 --> 00:39:09,160 Speaker 1: seventy six Copyright Act. The new act created protections of 662 00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:13,319 Speaker 1: all sorts of intellectual property, and it also extended the 663 00:39:13,440 --> 00:39:16,799 Speaker 1: terms of protection. Under the nineteen o nine Act, a 664 00:39:16,840 --> 00:39:21,880 Speaker 1: copyrighted work would receive protection for twenty eight years since 665 00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:25,000 Speaker 1: from the date of its origin, with the possibility of 666 00:39:25,040 --> 00:39:28,920 Speaker 1: a twenty eight year extension, so ultimately you could protect 667 00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:32,040 Speaker 1: it for fifty six years total. The nineteen seventy six 668 00:39:32,080 --> 00:39:35,600 Speaker 1: Act changed that. Under the nineteen seventy six Act, a 669 00:39:35,640 --> 00:39:38,560 Speaker 1: work is protected by copyright for the length of the 670 00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:42,600 Speaker 1: author's life plus fifty years. That would get changed again 671 00:39:42,640 --> 00:39:46,560 Speaker 1: in nineteen with the Copyright Term Extension Act that pushed 672 00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:50,080 Speaker 1: it to the author's life plus seventy years, and for 673 00:39:50,160 --> 00:39:53,360 Speaker 1: works created before nineteen seventy eight. The rules are a 674 00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:56,719 Speaker 1: little different. There are several factors that determine the length 675 00:39:56,760 --> 00:39:59,919 Speaker 1: of copyright protection, but many works were given seventy six 676 00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:03,160 Speaker 1: years of protection from the year of their creation or publication. 677 00:40:03,600 --> 00:40:06,719 Speaker 1: The extension would push that to ninety five years. And 678 00:40:06,760 --> 00:40:09,960 Speaker 1: if you're wondering why is this happening, what what's important 679 00:40:09,960 --> 00:40:12,480 Speaker 1: about this? And and how is or how are all 680 00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:16,200 Speaker 1: these changes happening, Well, it's largely because of really big 681 00:40:16,239 --> 00:40:21,680 Speaker 1: companies that rely on intellectual property for their value. For example, 682 00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:24,840 Speaker 1: the Walt Disney Company. A lot of people refer to 683 00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:28,240 Speaker 1: these extensions as Walt Disney extensions. The Walt Disney Company 684 00:40:28,320 --> 00:40:32,120 Speaker 1: certainly does not want it's it's formative works falling into 685 00:40:32,120 --> 00:40:34,960 Speaker 1: the public domain if it can help it, because then 686 00:40:35,040 --> 00:40:37,719 Speaker 1: once they're in the public domain, anyone can use them 687 00:40:37,840 --> 00:40:41,360 Speaker 1: under certain circumstances. There are other protections that are in 688 00:40:41,400 --> 00:40:44,520 Speaker 1: place as well, but you know, copyrights goes into public 689 00:40:44,600 --> 00:40:48,920 Speaker 1: domain and then anyone can can show this stuff without 690 00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:52,600 Speaker 1: any fear of the mouse House coming down on them. 691 00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:55,799 Speaker 1: So without the extension, Mickey Mouse would have gone into 692 00:40:55,800 --> 00:40:59,960 Speaker 1: the public domain in two thousand four. Under the Original 693 00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:03,319 Speaker 1: Copyright Act of nineteen seventy six. Now he's set to 694 00:41:03,360 --> 00:41:06,600 Speaker 1: skip off into the public domain in twenty twenty four, 695 00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:09,480 Speaker 1: and as of right now, there has not been another 696 00:41:09,560 --> 00:41:14,920 Speaker 1: change to copyright law to change that date. So we're 697 00:41:14,920 --> 00:41:17,600 Speaker 1: looking at mickeymails going into the public domain unless something 698 00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:20,359 Speaker 1: changes within the next few years. My point with all 699 00:41:20,400 --> 00:41:23,160 Speaker 1: of that is to say, the changing technology from the 700 00:41:23,239 --> 00:41:27,439 Speaker 1: nineteenth and twentieth centuries meant that suddenly things that used 701 00:41:27,440 --> 00:41:30,279 Speaker 1: to be ephemeral, you know, like a performance, could now 702 00:41:30,320 --> 00:41:33,640 Speaker 1: be made permanent. People could have a permanent record of that, 703 00:41:33,680 --> 00:41:38,480 Speaker 1: a permanent way of recreating those performances, when before you 704 00:41:38,560 --> 00:41:40,560 Speaker 1: just had to be there when it happened, and and 705 00:41:40,560 --> 00:41:43,880 Speaker 1: if you weren't, you missed it. And these things have 706 00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:46,680 Speaker 1: value not just to the creators, but to the audiences 707 00:41:46,719 --> 00:41:50,840 Speaker 1: as well, and that this drove changes in technology, in culture, 708 00:41:51,000 --> 00:41:54,640 Speaker 1: and in law. But we're not done yet. In our 709 00:41:54,680 --> 00:41:57,480 Speaker 1: next episode, I'm going to talk a bit about how 710 00:41:57,520 --> 00:42:01,080 Speaker 1: the videotape made a similar impact in film and television 711 00:42:01,360 --> 00:42:04,640 Speaker 1: as the cassette did in the music industry, and we'll 712 00:42:04,640 --> 00:42:07,680 Speaker 1: also look at the rise of the compact disc. Still 713 00:42:07,719 --> 00:42:11,359 Speaker 1: to come is the transition to digital formats and then 714 00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:15,239 Speaker 1: beyond DVDs and things of that nature, and blue rays. 715 00:42:15,280 --> 00:42:17,680 Speaker 1: We're going to talk about digital files, and then we're 716 00:42:17,680 --> 00:42:19,799 Speaker 1: going to talk about different ways of delivering it, from 717 00:42:19,840 --> 00:42:22,680 Speaker 1: downloading it to streaming it, and how all of this 718 00:42:22,760 --> 00:42:26,759 Speaker 1: has affected our behaviors, business, and even the process of 719 00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:29,520 Speaker 1: creating the entertainment in the first place. I hope you 720 00:42:29,560 --> 00:42:33,320 Speaker 1: guys are enjoying this series of episodes. I've really enjoyed 721 00:42:33,719 --> 00:42:36,080 Speaker 1: jumping into it. I like doing the sort of thematic 722 00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:39,799 Speaker 1: approach and a deep dive on a specific topic. But 723 00:42:40,120 --> 00:42:42,120 Speaker 1: once we're done with these, will be going back to 724 00:42:42,560 --> 00:42:44,920 Speaker 1: lots of other kind of one off tech stuffs, So 725 00:42:44,960 --> 00:42:47,279 Speaker 1: don't worry if this wasn't your cup of tea, we're 726 00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:49,480 Speaker 1: gonna be getting back to other tech stuff stuff in 727 00:42:49,520 --> 00:42:52,360 Speaker 1: the near future. Tech stuff stuff, I should make a 728 00:42:52,440 --> 00:42:55,279 Speaker 1: sure about that. Meanwhile, if you guys want to get 729 00:42:55,320 --> 00:42:56,680 Speaker 1: in touch with me, you can send me an email 730 00:42:56,760 --> 00:43:00,120 Speaker 1: the addresses tech stuff at how stuff works dot com, 731 00:43:00,239 --> 00:43:02,479 Speaker 1: or you can pop on over to our website that's 732 00:43:02,520 --> 00:43:05,319 Speaker 1: tech stuff podcast dot com. You'll find links to our 733 00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:09,279 Speaker 1: social media presence as well as to the store and 734 00:43:09,400 --> 00:43:12,120 Speaker 1: an archive of all of our past episodes. I hope 735 00:43:12,120 --> 00:43:14,160 Speaker 1: you guys can go check that out. I look forward 736 00:43:14,160 --> 00:43:17,040 Speaker 1: to hearing from you, and I'll talk to you again 737 00:43:17,760 --> 00:43:24,080 Speaker 1: really soon. Y tech Stuff is a production of I 738 00:43:24,160 --> 00:43:27,120 Speaker 1: Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my 739 00:43:27,239 --> 00:43:30,879 Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 740 00:43:30,960 --> 00:43:32,960 Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.