Typo on my part. Just got off the phone with my Dad who is 91.
Benjamin Arrowsmith Hegeman was president of National Railway Alliance company which became the American Metal and Manufacturing and president of Railway Supply Manufacturers Association but early on first was with the Lackawanna in Delaware then becoming eastern sales agent for American Car and Foundry and was a boss with the Republican party in New Jersey and chairman of finance for the New York Railroad Club. I got this all from the web after talking to my father who never spoke of his grandfather, only his grandmother, for the fact only that his grandmother was very tough on him. He speaks of his Grandfather Ben but I am yet to get any stories about the man.
Coincidentally, my mother's father, Gale Hunter who went to Princeton before the War, manufactured parts (I think gaskets for windows) for the American Car and Foundry in Flushing NY after surviving being gassed in the trenches in France until about the late 1950s when he moved to Essex CT.
American Car and Foundry built freight cars.
Right now I'm witnessing a blizzard in Hillsdale NY.

And thanks for the good wishes about my finding the Kurt Weill recording from Railroads On Parade. I didn't really know what Railway Preservation was all about, I joined to set the record straight that I'm interested in sharing and preserving my part of rail history too. Thank you for having me where I'm probably a bit of a gatecrasher.

So, if you don't mind, my grandfather, Lytle Gale Hunter, held 10 patents that I can find online for his company, Hunter Sash, Flushing NY, for window sashes, among them sashes for The Super Chief. I knew my grandfather well, we called him Sir, just as my Dad would. So as you can see, the discoverer of Kurt Weill's Lost Recording From Railroads On Parade (that's me) comes from families on both sides who were coincidentally but intrinsically bound and bonded by rail.

Well I'm very happy to hear that you were motivated by something other than personal gain. Myself and the others who read the article came to the same conclusion as I. We had no way of knowing that your $40,000 ebay add was a publicity stunt nor what dollar amount you received from the museum.

Since you are about preserving history and not personal gain then I'd venture a guess that you are in very good company here and will fit right in:

For example:

http://www.nyswths.org/about.htm



These are volunteer man-hours for which these people receive zero compensation - not even pennies back. All the money they raise go back into the preservation and maintenance of these precision pieces of engineering. Unlike restored music, these artifacts need perpetual maintenance and never-ending man-hours to maintain them in running order, especially steam locomotives.

The vast majority of members here have forgotten more than I will ever know about the aggravation and difficulties of restoring and maintaining equipment that can weigh hundreds of tons.

I'm a machinist and can tell you that strokes on a computer keyboard don't fix and maintain precision equipment. I've visited several railroad museums and make a point of visiting their machine shops when allowed and I've seen the old, worn out lathes, mills, and other machine tools that these museums have to suffer with to restore and maintain very large and heavy equipment.

To say that it is difficult and aggravating to hold tight tolerances on machine tools that are no longer capable of holding such tolerances is an understatement. Trying to perform operations which the tools weren't designed to do, where proper fixtures and tooling don't exist, and money is always in short supply can be a long and frustrating experiment in doing the impossible.

I've family who have volunteered at the Illinois Railroad Museum after paying for membership. They tell me that the work can be back-breaking. Track maintenance in summer heat and crawling into filthy locomotives in very tight quarters and receiving nothing in return is the norm. In fact, they lose money. Making money to compensate for effort isn't the purpose, it is to preserve history.

If you're here to preserve history I personally welcome you as a friend.

If you're here to get sympathy and seek compensation for your effort, you are barking up the wrong tree with myself. I can't speak for other members here.

I've personally spent untold hours and money researching the history of the Whitcomb locomotive, money I can ill-afford to spend. I'm financially in the hole in this project and always will be - just the nature of the work. I have a severely autistic son to pay for and my wife and I have a combined income that qualifies us for public aid to support our son which won't cover some of our doctors and tests who refuse to accept public aid. I'm doing this to give back to the community that I live in and leave behind something besides unpaid medical bills.

Again, I welcome you as a fellow preserver of history.

Steve

Steve, I'm not sure who the "others" you speak of are, but your reply indicates that you feel it would be unjust for someone or some institution to pocket $40,000 from Mr. Weill's recording.
Let's take myself as an example of a small business who makes it their interest to provide the common good with copies of the recording. In my case, I was motivated by the fact that there would be no release of Railroads On Parade if I did not hire a lawyer to obtain the copyright after employing a sound technician then compensating all mechanical licensing fees constructed by a publisher who's house members also were not born at the time of Mr. Weill's composing this, and finally finding the right graphic designer, paying them to produce the packaging and then finding the money and the right printer to manufacture the fair program in offset AND digital reproduction from both years of the production. If my record company nets $40,000 from the sales of this music, are you saying that is wrong?
What if Stanford did it, or another institution of learning sold that many and pocketed $40,000, is that wrong then? What if Polygram made a deal with the publisher instead of my new company, Transcription Records, Inc., would that be the right thing?
Now let me propose to you one more equation. Let's say someone paid that exorbitant amount on ebay (the NY Times reporter John Leland made it clear nobody did) and this party who buys the music has bigger selling potential and experience to get this recording out there to more people, even though I'd be making $40,000 (before taxes) wouldn't THAT be the right thing to do because they were getting more music out?
I have successfully started a small business, been in The NY Times, on TV and radio by working day and night on this. Do you really think $40,000 is an obscene figure?
Let's just be clear on one basic fact: no institution who was going to get the music, whether I gave it to them or sold it to them was going to release the music to the general public. Do you realize how many Kurt Weill scholars and enthusiasts as well as musicians and artist have and will benefit from my work? If I walked up and gave the discs to The New York Public Library it would be as much as auctioning the discs at Southeby's. They'd never see the light of day. If you read the article carefully you would have noted I spent 5 years of my life working to get this out.

Would you find it just if Stanford or Polygram or myself take Mr. Weill's recordings and do the same process? Since you did not create the music nor the record that you did possess, you should have no copyright and no objection to some one else making the same effort as you and making money just as you, correct?

Why should you or Stanford, or Polygram or myself have any right to claim copyright on Mr. Weill's creation? Since Mr. Weill is dead and apparently he didn't specify any will to leave copyright authority to anyone why shouldn't his work become public domain?

I fully support you and everyone else who creates a product and sells it to support themselves - we all have to earn money some how. But how can you, or me, or anyone claim copyright on another person's work?

Steve

Steve, I did not copyright the music. That is why I paid for the mechanical licensing. I was able to copyright a restored copy of the recording. Anybody else could have done that, but, nobody else wanted to. You might want to hit the books or consult with a copyright attorney to understand publishing rights a little better than you do. I'd be happy to recommend one.
Mr. Weill set up the Foundation to protect the copyrights of his work, and if there is one thing I'm absolutely sure about, it is that he would shake my hand and thank me for the effort and care I put into getting his recording out there.
Exactly what your personal problem is with making a return on a publishing venture (I wonder if you'd turn down money for your preservation work?) I don't know, but be assured, the arts community as well as The Kurt Weill Foundation are quite thankful of my work. Please find the published review that The Kurt Weill Foundation will print in their newsletter this year.

Ahhhh, you have a copyright on YOUR restored version. I'm 100% fine with that.

I have heard of people who have taken out copyrights on other people's creations who never bothered to do so with the goal of making money off of another person's work.

That is what I thought you were doing. I was wrong and I apologize for the error.



I have nothing against making a return on publishing ventures. Books would never be published if there were no return. I am in the process of writing a book on the history of the Whitcomb locomotive and hope to publish it. I know some people who are willing to pay for one.

I have to go, my 1993 car just broke its suspension and I have to find another car to get to work. Life styles of the poor and unknown.

Steve

Steve, you are talking about plagiarism. It's against the law. Didn't you see in The Times article I was working closely with The Kurt Weill Foundation? Your closer attention in this matter will hopefully help avoid the kind of accusations against my person or others in the future, please.

Guy, I had no idea that the Kurt Weill Foundation had copyrights to anything. It's my understanding that people can get a copyright for other works if no copyright exists. People infringe on copyrights and patents with great regularity - see what the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, etc . . and pirating have done in the international trade arena.

I'm certainly glad that you're not that kind of person.

Back to my car search.

Steve

Steve, that is precisely what a Foundation does, maintain royalties from copyrights. People do break the law and copyrights are maintained in different fashions internationally, depending on agreements between countries, but what I hope you see now is a very simple agreement between me and the Weill Foundation and their publishers that has nothing to do with what you have a accused me of on these pages in terms of which I am glad you and the Railway moderators now understand to cease and desist. May this note here end communication on the subject, please.