On 16 Jan 2009, Barry Say wrote: > I believe the situation in > the USA is rather different, > Also, how long does copyright last? > Anyone know any good websites?
The first thing about copyright is that it's a minefield. The second is that it's different from country to country: certainly USA and UK conditions vary considerably. So, for the UK only: The copyright on a composed tune lasts through the composer's lifetime, and for 70 years after that, and to 31 December of the year in which the anniversary occurs. It exists whether the tune has been registered anywhere or not.Or whether the composer is widely known, or only composes for their own amusement. 3 examples: J. Scott Skinner died in 1926 - I don't know the exact date. So his compositions were in copyright to himself, and then to either his heirs, his assignees or whoever, until Dec 31, 1996. After that, they become "public domain" which according to some is a meaningless term legally, but in practice means that anyone can publish them (with the composers name on) T. Clough died on 3 August 1964. His compositions are now copyright to the family - his grandson at present - until either they assign them to someone else, and in any case until 31 Dec 2034. Presently anyone wishing to publish these tunes should contact the family: anyone wishing to record them goes through the usual PPL/PRS/MCPS procedure. (Bear with me, I'll get back to that.) Angus Fitchet (a Scottish fiddler, some of whose tunes are played by pipers) died somewhere between 1986 and 1991. Printing his tunes therefore requires permission: there is apparently no known contact. The procedure then is to write to the MCPS Writers Department requesting permission and asking that the request be passed on to the appropriate assignee. If they do not have a contact, the tune becomes "Copyright Control" (CC) - ie. known to be in copyright but of unknown source. This is also the safest procedure in cases of disputed copyright, of which there are at least a couple locally. When these tunes are recorded, the royalties are put into an account in CC, and if unclaimed after a certain period, are divided up between the registered artistes on MCPS books. In practice this means they go towards supporting Paul McCartney & Elton John's lifestyle since the whole thing is done on some sort of percentage basis which I don't understand. If you all haven't died of terminal boredom yet: when a recording is made in the UK, the artiste or his producer or whoever sends a track listing and a whole lot of complicated forms to MCPS (easily found on Google), and they sort out copyright charges as necessary, and distribute any royalties from subsequent airplay - and this today covers an increasingly complicated diversity of media. Current recording artistes will please correct me if I have it wrong. It rarely results in more than pence in the trad. world In practical commonsense "how it works in reality" terms - most folk /trad artistes are only too happy to allow their works to be reproduced. Some just say go ahead anyway and aren't fussed: most prefer to be asked but don't charge. A few (justifiably) get shirty if they are not asked: an even smaller few might take action, though in our field the costs/hassle would be greater than the return. I have seen this discussed on other folk forums: there is no one (or few) good sources of this information according to the lawyers who contribute. All agree it is far too complicated - and set up to favour the commercial music industry. I hope this helps Julia (who sometimes wishes she didn't have to know all this) To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
