On 21 August 2015 at 14:08, Chuck Guzis <ccl...@sydex.com> wrote: > This leads to some interesting situations. Archibald Joyce wrote his > "Autumn Dreams" waltz in 1908 and it has been reported to be the tune the > orchestra was playing as the Titanic sank in 1912 (contrary to popular > belief, it is extremely unlikely that the band played "Nearer My God to > Thee" as they would not have been familiar with the hymn). > They might have been familiar with a different arrangement of the hymn tune; though no one really knows what was played during the sinking of the Titanic.
> As Joyce lived to a ripe old age and died in 1963, the work is still very > much under copyright protection in the UK. However, the same work was > published in 1921 in the USA, so it is public domain there. > You want fun with music copyrights? Please go look at the IMSLP project. Here's their page on how copyrights work with regards to the sheet music/scores they are archiving: <http://imslp.org/wiki/Public_domain> > As mentioned before, works of Soviet writers and composers were considered > to be PD (unless copyright was obtained outside of the USSR) by the US > during the Cold War--similarly, the USSR did not recognize foreign > copyright. So you could purchase the sheet music of Shostakovitch for a > pittance. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the US moved to "restore" > Soviet copyright and so removed works back into copyright status. If you > want to publish Shostakovitch, you now must deal with his estate--and > copyright will endure to about 2050. > > --Chuck > 2026 is when IMSLP will allow you to start uploading works by Shostakovitch to their archive. (Canadian servers only! The US and EU need to wait.) Regards, Christian -- Christian M. Gauger-Cosgrove STCKON08DS0 Contact information available upon request.