Can you think of any jazz standards that are in the public domain and not subject to copyright laws? There are a couple such tunes in the old Real Book ( "Dear Old Stockholm", "Limehouse Blues")

rintincop:

I think that tunes prior to the 1920s or 1930s are in the public domain. I saw a thread on this in a jazz guitar newsgroup once. If I can find the site that has this information (including a complete song list), I will post it in this thread for you.

Tony

rintincop:

Here are a couple of pieces of information:

http://www.melodylane.net/songlist.html

These Irving Berlin tunes are in the public domain:

After You Get What You Want, You Don't Want It (1920)
Alexander's Ragtime Band (1911)

A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody (1919)

Christmas Time Seems Years and Years Away (Ted Snyder, 1909)

Crinoline Days - (my own favorite Irving Berlin song, 1922)

Do Your Duty Doctor (1909)

Dreams, Just Dreams (With Ted Snyder, 1910)

Everybody's Doing It Now (1911)

Girl On The Magazine Cover, The (1915)

Homesick (1922)

If You Don't Want Me, Why Do You Hang Around? (1913)

I Love A Piano (1915)

I Love You More Each Day (1910)

Is There Anything Else I Can Do For You? (1910)

I Want To Go Back To Michigan (1914)

Just Like The Rose (My Love's Dying) (1909)

Lead Me To That Beautiful Band (1912)

Mandy (1919)

Oh! How I Hate To Get Up In The Morning (1918)

Play A Simple Melody (1914)

Ragtime Violin, The (1911)

Say It With Music (1921)

Snookey Ookums (1913)

Someone Just Like You Dear (1909)

Spanish Love (1911)

Stop! Stop! Stop! (Come Over And Love Me Some More) (1910)

Thank You, Kind Sir! (1910)

That Mesmerizing Mendelssohn Tune (1909)

Try It On Your Piano (1910)

When I Leave The World Behind (1915)

When I Lost You (1912)

When The Midnight Choo Choo Leaves For Alabam' (1912)

When You Kiss An Italian Girl (1911)

You'd Be Surprised (1919)


Regards,

Tony

.

Public Domain songs ???

After You've Gone
All By Myself
Avalon
Back Home Again in Indiana
Dear Old Stockholm
Indian Summer
Limehouse Blues
Look For The Silver Lining
My Buddy
Poor Butterfly
Rose Room
Royal Garden Blues
The Sheik of Araby
St. Louis Blues
Whispering
You Made Me Love You

rintincop:

It looks like you have a really good handle on this already.

Tony

.

rintincop:

Here is a link that might help:

http://www.unc.edu/%7Eunclng/public-d.htm

I don't have any good answers myself, and it seems there is a lot of information on the net about this, but sorting through it to the point of actually knowing for sure that a particular piece of music is in the public domain seems a bit of work.

Tony

.

The Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) of 1998 – alternatively known as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, Sonny Bono Act, or pejoratively as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act – extended copyright terms in the United States by 20 years. Before the Act (under the Copyright Act of 1976), copyright would last for the life of the author plus 50 years, or 75 years for a work of corporate authorship; the Act extended these terms to life of the author plus 70 years and for works of corporate authorship to 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever endpoint is earlier.[1] The Act also affected copyright terms for copyrighted works published prior to January 1, 1978, also increasing their term of protection by 20 years, to a total of 95 years from publication.

This law effectively 'froze' the advancement date of the public domain in the United States for works covered by the older fixed term copyright rules. Under this Act, additional works made in 1923 or afterwards that were still copyrighted in 1998 will not enter the public domain until 2019 or afterwards (depending on the date of the product) unless the owner of the copyright releases them into the public domain prior to that or if the copyright gets extended again. Unlike copyright extension legislation in the European Union, the Sonny Bono Act did not revive copyrights that had already expired.[/b] The Act did extend the terms of protection set for works that were already copyrighted, and is retroactive in that sense. However, works created before January 1, 1978 but not published or registered for copyright until recently are addressed in a special section (17 U.S.C. § 303) and may remain protected until 2047. The Act became Public Law 105-298 on October 27, 1998.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Bono_Copyright_Term_Extension

rintincop:

Yes, I saw reference to that too. There is a lot of information around the net on these copyright laws. It certainly does appear that you have your hands on all the information you need already, unless there is some part of all this that would require interpretation by a copyright lawyer. When I was playing in a road band, the clubs paid an annual fee to ASCAP and BMIto allow performers to play copyrighted tunes in their club. I don't know if all clubs did that, but we were in the AF of M, and it seemed that all the places we played that hired union musicians did this. But if you were intending to publish your own arrangement of a tune, then you would need to determine what you need to do to cover yourself. It seems to me that you already know about all this, and certainly a lot more than I do.

Tony

rintincop:

After rereading your original post, I realize that I never answered your original question. Though I have the original Real Book(5th Edition) among others, I don't know which tunes are in the public domain. The lists that you have found should provide that information.

Tony