The Hatto Hoax

February 16, 2007 6:52 PM

The Hatto Hoax.Joyce Hatto has been described as "the greatest living pianist that almost no one has ever heard of." Her performances of piano works by Liszt, Schubert, and Rachmaninov were praised by classical afficionados for their "addictively beautiful sonority, cultured musicianship, and total instrumental mastery." Since she died in June 2006, however, Hatto has been at the center of one of the stranger scandals to hit classical music in years. It's starting to look like some or all of her treasured, hard-to-find recordings made since 1990 are not her playing at all. [Via]
posted by gottabefunky (52 comments total)

Interesting post. The examples provided on the page are pretty convincing. Odd that there's no mention of the scandal on her Wikipedia page. I may have to remedy that. It is suspicious that a woman who purportedly stopped touring because of her illness was able to devote so much time to rehearsal and 'recording'.
posted by inoculatedcities at 7:13 PM on February 16, 2007

Joyce Hatto is People!!
posted by facetious at 7:18 PM on February 16, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Amazing that nobody suspected the recordings with credits like "Réné Kohler and the National Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra". The National Philharmonic Symphony of where?
posted by inoculatedcities at 7:18 PM on February 16, 2007

Nora is the real deal.
posted by homunculus at 7:21 PM on February 16, 2007 [3 favorites has favorites]

I love the investigative process, and I can't decide if I love that more than I love the fact the no one caught on for all those years.
posted by maxwelton at 7:21 PM on February 16, 2007

Hoaxes make me so angry and depressed, I'm gonna go eat a box of Noka to cheer me up.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 7:24 PM on February 16, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Odd that there's no mention of the scandal on her Wikipedia page.

If you look at the history page, there's an ongoing edit war about this. A poorly-written section named 'The Hatto Hoax' was added and removed, and now there's just a short paragraph talking about the accusation.
posted by boaz at 7:25 PM on February 16, 2007

I guess this is a copyright violation then and the actually pianists and their agents can now sue to recover the proceeds?
posted by bhouston at 7:27 PM on February 16, 2007

Well, it's not really an edit war, more a friendly game of edit ping-pong.
posted by boaz at 7:28 PM on February 16, 2007

Hey! Now the classical music world has it's own Milli Vanilli!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:34 PM on February 16, 2007

Fascinating. If this is breaking just now, I wonder how many more recordings will be found to be hoaxes?

This 2005 article is tremendous, in retrospect:

After his wife has left the room, Barrington-Coupe says, 'She doesn't want to play in public because she never knows when the pain will start, or when it will stop, and she refuses to take drugs. Nothing has stopped her, and I believe the illness has added a third dimension to her playing; she gets at what is inside the music, what lies behind it."

There's a very weird feeling to it all—you wonder how complicit she was in the whole thing, whether she was actively hoaxing and, if not, if she was in on it at all.

And, tangentially, the side-by-sides in the last link of the post reminded me of this post about Nickleback writing the same song twice.

I guess this is a copyright violation then and the actually pianists and their agents can now sue to recover the proceeds?

Is there a statue of limitations on that sort of thing?

The National Philharmonic Symphony of where?

Of Ny, clearly. The National Philharmonic Symph. o' Ny.
posted by cortex at 7:38 PM on February 16, 2007

The "statute of limitations" would be when the original copyright runs out. Performances from the 1980's are definitely still under copyright, and I think it's pretty certain there's going to be plagiarism suits out the wazoo.

That last link is to me absolutely convincing. There's an MP3 there, where the right channel comes from a recording by Laszlo Simon and the left channel is a time-corrected recording "by" Hatto. They are absolutely identical. In fact, it makes a decent stereo recording. Simon unquestionably has grounds for suit.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 7:47 PM on February 16, 2007

The "statute of limitations" would be when the original copyright runs out.

My totally unschooled legal question is this: is there a maximum period of time after the infringement was committed (that is, the disc released? or perhaps a given copy of the disc actually sold by the infringer?), after which they cannot be prosecuted for the infringement? I know jack about law, but I was under the impression that statute of limitations exist in this sense for a wide variety of lesser offenses.
posted by cortex at 8:00 PM on February 16, 2007

Cortex, you can't be "prosecuted" for this at all. It's not a crime. Copyright violation is civil law, not criminal law. (There are some criminal laws regarding copyright violation but none of the ones I know about apply in cases like this.)
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 8:03 PM on February 16, 2007

Another post to make me love MeFi. Thanks gottabefunky.

By the way, she really knows how to steal, there is some great music in that post.
posted by caddis at 8:06 PM on February 16, 2007

I see that she stopped performing in 1980, but continued to record. It's those post-1980 recordings that are supposedly hoaxes. She obviously was a piano player who was well-known enough to perform publicly.

At cortex's link I see she apparently remarks that her records were for sale in Sam Goody, back in the 1970s. Are those hoaxes, too? I'm having trouble matching dates with the albums that have already been revealed to be likely hoaxes.
posted by smashingstars at 8:20 PM on February 16, 2007

Good point. s/prosecuted/sued/, or whatever the proper verb would be. See previous IANAL.
posted by cortex at 8:21 PM on February 16, 2007

Steven,

Fraud.
posted by effugas at 8:36 PM on February 16, 2007

Cortex, IANAL too. I'm not aware of any equivalent in civil law to the Statute of Limitations. Civil law is different. (For instance, in a civil suit you can be compelled to testify against yourself.)

Effugas, I doubt this falls under fraud.

On the other hand, I'm talking about US law, and it seems that this all happened in the UK. British law isn't the same, and it may well be a criminal matter there. But it's unquestionably a civil matter and since one of the plagiarized recordings dates to 2001, there's no chance that any sunset law about copyright violation has kicked in (even if there is such a thing).
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 8:51 PM on February 16, 2007

Cool. Thanks, Steven.
posted by cortex at 8:58 PM on February 16, 2007

The statute of limitations for civil copyright infringement is three years. 17 USC Section 507.
posted by caddis at 9:19 PM on February 16, 2007

Steven--

If I knowingly sell fool's gold as the real thing, that's fraud. At some point, someone did.
posted by effugas at 9:55 PM on February 16, 2007

After following the link to the Nickelback discussion mentioned in this thread, wanted to throw out the fact that Gwen Stefani's song Crash from the album Love. Angel. Music. Baby. (2006) can be sped up somewhat without changing the pitch, then combined with Mr. Xcitement by They Might Be Giants (feat. Mike Doughty of Soul Coughing fame) on the album Mink Car (2001) to produce a much, much better song than either one is individually.

That is all.
posted by davejay at 10:02 PM on February 16, 2007

caddis, the interesting part of 17 USC §507(b) is the phrase "within three years after the claim accrued." The question is, "when does a claim accrue?" Historically most courts have ruled that a copyright claim accrues when the aggrieved knew or should have known about the infringement. However, some recent decisions have gone the other way, ruling that a claim accrues at the time of the infringement.
posted by RichardP at 10:25 PM on February 16, 2007

Wow, great post and a fascinating story; can't wait to see how it unfolds from here. And homonculus, that piano-playing cat is hilarious and wonderful and made my day. Thanks to you both.
posted by mediareport at 10:47 PM on February 16, 2007

davejay - mp3? I have to hear that!
posted by tomble at 11:15 PM on February 16, 2007

The question is, "when does a claim accrue?"

These questions keep lawyers fully employed, and in a geeky way are really, really interesting. They recently moved the limit from three to five years on the criminal side, but left it at three for civil infractions. I can only guess that music rights holders were responsible. Three years of damages seems a bit short to me on the civil side, although there five years seems just about right. Of course, you have some crazies who want to strip away all limits, you know copyright is for eternity after the artist's death plus eternity, and why have the statute of limitations interfere (which is such a misunderstanding of why we have a statute of limitations for most things other than murder).
posted by caddis at 11:50 PM on February 16, 2007

I heart Nora. Thanks homonculus.
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 12:12 AM on February 17, 2007

The amazing thing to me is that the fraud would have been obvious to anyone checking the disc ID. Anyone playing this on a computer or many CD players would have known something was wrong right away (as did the guy who broke the story). So producer/husband could shift timing but didn't know to re-write the ID?

And there is probably another side of this, too. Concert Artists was a cottage industry recording outfit and I can't imagine they sold great volumes of CDs. What with the expense of cancer treatment (even under the National Health) I suspect a case of genteel poverty driven to desperate measures. Not excusing it, just saying.
posted by CCBC at 12:21 AM on February 17, 2007

Statutory limitations don't usually work when the villain has deliberately and effectively concealed their wrongdoing (at least, not where I live).
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 12:22 AM on February 17, 2007

she's a flake hurf durf
posted by Evstar at 12:36 AM on February 17, 2007

One wonders if her name wasn't used as a kind of malicious equivalent to George Spelvin, a way to publish and sell good recordings while denying credit to the original performers.
posted by ikkyu2 at 2:27 AM on February 17, 2007

Wow, what a story. Thanks for posting this, gottabefunky. I love this:

Contacted for his comments, Barrington-Coupe — who acknowledged that he produced well-nigh all of his wife's recordings — was at a loss to explain the similarity.

Self-linkers Cheats are all the same! "I don't know how this happened, and it wasn't me, it was three other guys, and if it was me, I was drunk at the time, please don't sue me!"

What with the expense of cancer treatment (even under the National Health) I suspect a case of genteel poverty driven to desperate measures. Not excusing it, just saying.

Yeah, that's what keeps me from enjoying this to the full. I'd definitely do this for my wife, under the circumstances. (Of course, I'd have to conceal it from her or she'd rip me from stem to stern, honesty being a big thing with her. "Gramophone? No, honey, our subscription ran out long ago. You shouldn't waste your strength reading record reviews anyway.")
posted by languagehat at 5:07 AM on February 17, 2007

Statutory limitations don't usually work when the villain has deliberately and effectively concealed their wrongdoing (at least, not where I live).

Concealed? For Christ sake, she sold thousands of these things openly! (see why this is the lawyer full employment act?)
posted by caddis at 5:10 AM on February 17, 2007

cortex : "I know jack about law, but I was under the impression that statute of limitations exist in this sense for a wide variety of lesser offenses."

Keep in mind that, if these CDs are still being released, the crime/infringement is still in progress, so the statute of limitations would not be worn out yet. If I punched my neighbor 10 years ago, he probably couldn't get me arrested today. But if I'm still punching him, then he could.
posted by Bugbread at 5:34 AM on February 17, 2007

caddis : "Concealed? For Christ sake, she sold thousands of these things openly!"

She sold them openly as copies of other artists?

No.

"concealed their wrongdoing" doesn't mean "concealed the products of their wrongdoing", it means "concealed the wrongdoing itself". If I murder someone in plain daylight in front of spectators, I haven't concealed my wrongdoing. If I poison someone secretly and they die in plain daylight in front of spectators, I've concealed my wrongdoing, even though the dead body is there for everyone to see.
posted by Bugbread at 5:37 AM on February 17, 2007

It's not concealed. Her recordings were publicly available. The other recordings were publicly available. She lied about who was playing, but everything was done out in the open without concealment. :)
posted by caddis at 6:06 AM on February 17, 2007

The really astonishing feat here is coming up with cover art that looks worse than even BIS manages.
posted by Wolfdog at 6:46 AM on February 17, 2007

caddis : "It's not concealed...She lied about who was playing"

Eh? Are you being obtuse, or am I being dense?
posted by Bugbread at 6:58 AM on February 17, 2007

I've heard that as several of these pieces were racing to their conclusion she was spotted on the subway.
posted by StickyCarpet at 7:07 AM on February 17, 2007

My point is that these things are not black and white. You can easily argue both sides.
posted by caddis at 7:46 AM on February 17, 2007

It's not concealed. Her recordings were publicly available. The other recordings were publicly available. She lied about who was playing,

this is where it was CONCEALED BY HER. that is the point bugbread is trying to make. yes the recordings were public, but the deceit was not public.

this is a great post BTW, and I hope at least the recording get pulled and the proper people get the credit they deserve.
posted by PugAchev at 8:21 AM on February 17, 2007

caddis : "My point is that these things are not black and white. You can easily argue both sides."

Well, then, certainly go ahead and do so. Your arguments aren't arguing both sides, any more than it is arguing both sides for me to say "my username starts with a 'b'. It does not start with a consonant."

By that argument, any time you can find two ways to express something, you can argue that it is both true and not true. "Metafilter is run by mathowie. Thus, it is not run by Matthew Haughey." "Metafilter has a pair of moderators. Therefore, it does not have two moderators." "MetaFilter contains comments. Therefore, it does not contain things that people have written."
posted by Bugbread at 9:13 AM on February 17, 2007

You can easily argue both sides.

Wasn't that the philosophy of the Sophists?
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 1:00 PM on February 17, 2007

NYTimes story on the topic.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 1:29 PM on February 17, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

The way the NYT refers to everyone as "Mr. Foo" rather than just "Foo" is both charming and disconcerting. It starts to feel like Reservoir Dogs after a while.
posted by cortex at 2:02 PM on February 17, 2007

Wow. Just checked the Wikipedia history, and it looks like quite the revert war broke out a while after I made my edits. Luckily, my edits all stayed in ^_^

(They were the ones where I changed all instances like "she continued to make recordings" to "she may or may not have continued to make recordings", et al)
posted by Bugbread at 4:00 PM on February 17, 2007

Fave quote at the end of today's NYT story:

“As far as I know, the classical music world has never known a scandal like this. The art world has, but not classical music.”
posted by mediareport at 4:25 PM on February 17, 2007

The amazing thing to me is that the fraud would have been obvious to anyone checking the disc ID.
Actually, under CDDB, tracks are identified only by their length and CDs by this in combination with track order. The Wikipedia article mentions that this is inadequate to identifiy classical recordings. Even independent recordings of the same work will sometimes have the same length.
posted by exogenous at 7:52 AM on February 19, 2007

exogenous: The fraud was spotted by someone who noticed that the phony Hattos were identified as being work by someone else. So, in this instance, the CD ID (be it CDDB or not) was adequate. And it still makes me ask: why didn't the guy monkey with the ID? He stretched or compressed numbers on several CDs. If times are the important identifier, why not add a second to each track, thus gaining a unique ID?
posted by CCBC at 3:48 PM on February 19, 2007

exogenous writes "Actually, under CDDB, tracks are identified only by their length and CDs by this in combination with track order."

Yes. And, in this case, the CD was identified (correctly) as being the works of another artist, despite time-stretching. We can therefore conclude that the CD ID which is being spoken of is not the CDDB ID, because the CDDB ID would not have identified the CD as being identical with the original artist's CD, because the track lengths differ. So we're talking non-CDDB ID.
posted by Bugbread at 5:49 PM on February 19, 2007

The husband has confessed to the fraud.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 7:36 AM on February 27, 2007