An American Big Band leader (no names here due to legal reasons) did a tour of Australia with his band in (I think) the late 60s/early 1970’s, and one of the shows was broadcast on television. A friend of mine, who was a great fan of the band, hooked up his reel to reel tape recorder to the TV and recorded the concert.

Many years later, he found the old tape and put it onto a CD, and the quality was quite good. He contacted various radio stations here and also the television station that had originally broadcast the show, and he found out that all copies of the video (film??) & audio had been lost or destroyed, and it seemed that he had the only copy left in existence.

In what he considered to be a goodwill gesture, he contacted the estate of the band leader, who had died many years earlier and explained the story and asked if they would like him to send a copy to the family or for the archives.
Instead of a reply from the family, he received a threatening letter from the estate’s lawyers demanding that every copy be sent to them, or he would face legal action and the full force of the law.

Yes, I understand copyright, and I know what he did was legally wrong, but given the rarity of the recording, and the greatness of the music, one would think that the lawyers approach may have been a little more cordial.
Needless to say, he still has the only copy in existence.

Except for one....

And you don’t think he was silly enough to give his real name & address do you?

Cheers,
Keith