[pd-discuss] PD help

Tue Mar 8 21:29:44 UTC 2011

It looks like Musopen.org is a US-based organization; the About
page says it's "a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible non-profit
charity, operating out of Palo Alto, California".

So the first copyright law to look at is that of the US.  In the US,
copyrights secured as far back as 1923 can still be in effect, as long
as any required steps to maintain them were taken.  (And under current
US law, works by non-Americans, first published outside the US, are
exempt from most maintenance requirements.)

If the work was first published in 1925, it's likely the US copyright
term starts then.  Which means that, if it meets all the applicable
maintenance requirements, it's still in force in the US.

Since I don't know the history of this piece (and since we don't
have renewal records online yet for 1925 music copyrights), I can't
say for sure that the work *is* still subject to US copyright.  But
if I were you, I'd recommend assuming that it is until you can prove
otherwise.  I would do the same for any other music you plan to record
that was published after 1922.

John Mark Ockerbloom

Aaron Dunn wrote:
> Musopen.org is about to launch a recording project to record and release 
> a substantial set of music into the public domain. One of the pieces we 
> are interested in is Lark Ascending by Vaughan Williams. I was wondering 
> if anyone can help us definitively answer whether this piece is in the 
> public domain or not. 
> 
> It seems it was composed in 1914, and published in 1925, so I would 
> think that at that time copyrights were for the life of the piece not 
> the composer, which should now have passed, yet Oxford publishing is 
> claiming a copyright on the work. Anyone know why it would still be 
> copywritten?
> 
> Sincerely,
> Aaron
> 
> 
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