In my last article, I looked at five audio dramas that, while copyrighted, have been effectively abandoned by the rights holders. Why does this happen?

The first reason is that audio dramas are very hard to sell commercially. There are exceptions. The BBC, Focus on the Family, Graphic Audio, and Audible have found some success that most smaller producers have not.

For those smaller producers, it can be tricky finding enough buyers so that the product can be sold at a reasonable price. This is particularly true with physical media, but can even be true for downloads where the time, effort, and expense of marketing can make selling or continuing to sell CDs or downloads onerous. Rights-holders of forgotten properties would struggle to find a new audience for their products and put a lot of time, energy, and money into making their stories available, and likely lose money in the process for at least a few years.

The second reason is that copyright protections lasts too long. In the U.S. Constitution, Congress is given the the power “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” If, as soon as someone writes a book, a play, or a song, someone else could steal it for their own purposes without payment, it would discourage creative endeavors and stifle the progress of the Arts. According to the Constitution, preventing that is the reason for copyright laws.

However, copyright laws are not written with that goal. There are writers I’ve met who honestly believe that the current copyright law term of life-plus-seventy-years will allow their heirs to collect royalties long after they are gone. The truth is that for the vast majority of writers, their work isn’t commercially viable throughout their entire life, and it certainly won’t be seventy years after their death. The life-plus-seventy-year terms ensures that most creators’ works will be forgotten, which is exactly what’s happening to so many audio dramas, even after their creators gave up on being able to make a profit from them.

Current copyright laws were not written with the average creator in mind, nor with the general goal of advancing the arts and sciences, but rather to benefit the biggest copyright holders: Disney, Warner Brothers, and the like. Of course, it’s not a uniquely American issue. Long copyright terms are present across the globe. This makes the issue impossible to solve. Thus, while the law might be creating the problem, the law won’t be able to solve it.

Solutions

Despite the inability of governments to solve the problem they’ve created, audio dramas do find ways to be successful.

Companies with larger audio drama production capabilities have options others don’t. The BBC, with its worldwide fan base, can sell a dozen hours of dramatic performances for a single Audible Credit and still come out fine on the deal, even while smaller producers struggle with what Audible pays them. The children’s radio series Adventures in Odyssey can give fans of all ages access to its entire back catalog through a monthly or annual membership.

Other companies rely on the length of the recording. It’s worth noting that many of Audible’s forays into audio drama have been book-length adventures. Most of Audible’s original scripted audios clock in at over four hours in length. Audible gets big names involved, like Paul Rudd, John Cena, and Meryl Streep, and is able to create audio dramas which are great for long flights or long commutes. Even without the big names, Graphic Audio has managed to do something similar with its popularity among over-the-road truckers and those who travel long distances.

While such expensive options aren’t practical for independent producers, there are options emerging. Crowdfunding has been a game-changer for many podcast-based audio dramas, as support from sites like Kickstarter and Patreon have allowed many productions to be able to get something for the hard work they put into making these audio dramas available.

In addition, there’s a new app called Dramafy,which features hundreds of independent audio dramas for free, with ad-supported streaming or ad-free for a monthly or annual subscription. Dramafy splits its revenue with creators. This definitely provides some exciting potential for audio drama creators to make money from their work.

What can be done for audio dramas that remain copyrighted but have been abandoned? Those that have circulated in mediocre .mp3 files will most likely continue to do so. What could offer these works a better future? If a non-profit organization was formed to purchase rights of high-quality abandoned works from their creators and release them into the public domain. It would be a complicated process. In many cases, it’s hard to figure out who the rights owners or their heirs might be. Even then, it might be hard to convince the family. Any payment would be small, certainly smaller than the months and years that were often put into audio drama productions.

But if such an effort brought audio dramas unambiguously into the public domain, it would allow wide distribution. Educational institutions, radio stations, and non-profits could freely distribute them. Some might even find new fans in such a wide release. It’s a wild idea, but one that could allow audio dramas to have a more lasting cultural impact.

I’m going to be talking about actual copyrighted radio drama series which are: 1) under copyright, and 2) appear to have been abandoned by their possible rights-holders. Before writing about this topic, I should offer two disclaimers.

In the strongest possible terms, I discourage the unauthorized use, copying, or distribution of modern radio dramas wherever rights-holders are known and are selling the work. Beyond any legal ramifications or reasoning, there’s a simple fact that it is very difficult for audio drama producers to turn a profit and thus produce the materials we love. If we want to see more audio dramas produced, we’d better buy what we listen to, or listen to an authorized source that pays them a royalty, like Spotify, BBC Radio 4 extra, or the Dramafy app.

Secondly, I’m not a lawyer and I possess no inside information. While it appears that the owners have abandoned these projects, they could theoretically be reclaimed at any time by copyright owners, as the copyright is active. So I’m not encouraging any action whatsoever based on my speculation. Rather, these are observations and opinions, and should not be taken as legal advice.

Protected but Abandoned

While old-time radio enthusiasts love to debate old-time radio copyrights, the issue of copyright for newer radio programs of all sorts is pretty clear. Radio programs made between 1972 and 1978 are under copyright for 95 years, and after 1978, all radio programs are copyrighted for the life of the author plus seventy years.

There are several audio dramas that are being actively sold and marketed, such as the Star Wars audio dramas, the Louie L’Amour audio dramas, and The Adventures of Harry Nile. But there are several series that have fallen into neglect and are getting no official releases, and leaving fans to find the shows where they can.

Alien Worlds 

This thirty-episode sci-fi series about the International Space Authority (ISA) defending the planet was a huge hit in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand in 1979 and 1980. Later, the series had a presence online and promised to turn the radio programs into 3D animations, but these plans appear to have fallen through, as the website disappeared without a trace. Someone call the ISA.

The Sears Radio Theater

While its successor series The Mutual Radio Theater has received releases through Radio Archives and Radio Spirits, this 1979 series, which featured five nights a week of radio dramas in different genres with a different host each night, has languished, leading to a lot of recordings of variable quality appearing online.

CBS Radio Mystery Theater 

This series was emblematic of the 1970s radio revival and ran for eight seasons, producing 1,399 episodes. The series had a bit of revival and a series of reruns in the late 1990s. But it never had an official home release. Radio legend Himan Brown was frustrated in his later years by the proliferation of cheap recordings of his project, and in the mid-2000s tried to get fans to sign up to express interest in a subscription service for home audio releases. Of course, by then, Brown was trying to close the barn door after the horse had run away, as there were already far more collectors and sellers selling copies of his work. Since he died, none of his heirs have tried to cash in on the series, and the 1,399 episodes are available in multiple places on the Internet.

Seeing Ear Theatre

Seeing Ear Theatre is proof that production doesn’t have to have been on the radio in the 1970s or even more broadcast radio. In the late 1990s, the SciFi channel (not yet renamed the SyFy Channel by the kewl* kids), the Sci-Fi channel decided to experiment with bringing back science fiction audio dramas on their website. I remember being excited, and, like millions of other science fiction fans, clicking the link to listen. Most of us had the same experience. We were reminded that this was the 1990s and Internet was not really good for much other than Instant Messaging and reading web pages with pixelated images because we had dial-up modems and even streaming a real audio file was too much for it to handle.

To be fair, the Sci-Fi channel did try to make some of the audio dramas available beyond the few people able to actually stream them via the most advanced technology of the day … double-sided audio cassettes. (Not even CDs?)

However, the audio tapes are out of print, although you might find one on eBay. The series was saved from being totally forgotten by a few fans who managed to listen to them.

2000x

2000x (also known as Beyond 2000) was a prestige audio drama series for NPR broadcast at the turn of the 21st Century. It was a 26-episode series containing hour-long episodes, with a total of 49 stories, featuring stars of the day like Richard Dreyfuss and Robin Williams, and even tossing in an appearance from Golden Age radio legend Jackson Beck. There was a CD release of several episodes that has long since gone out of print and no indication that anything is being done to make the series broadly available.

We could list more series but I think the point’s made that quite a few really interesting audio dramas are technically copyrighted but not being officially cared for. Next week, we’ll take a look at why this is.

*Ironic and intentional misspelling.