Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Copyrights discussed!

The plaintiffs are all of us. Excellent choice for example as Happy Birthday represents what is probably the most egregious copyright abuse in this country. If Warner/Chappell is permitted continuance of their public theft nothing will stop them and other huge conglomerates from stealing other treasures from the public domain.

I can think of a half dozen films based on the life of Beethoven over the last 20 years. All music presented in those films could easily become the "valid" version. Repeat this, ad infinitum until all music is "owned" in perpetuity by big media.

It is public domain in the US, not in all countries.

This couldn't actually happen, because copyright on a composition is distinct from copyright on a recorded performance. Beethoven's compositions are all in the public domain. Performers and/or their record labels own the copyrights on their recordings. A performance used in a movie could be copyrighted, and the movie could be copyrighted, but that doesn't imply copyright on the composition.

And yet it has happened: (Taken from TechDirt)
"Irrefutable documentary evidence, some dating back to 1893, s hows that the copyright to Happy Birthday to You, if there ever was a valid copyright to any part of the song expired no later than 1921 and that if defendant Warner/Chappell owns any rights to Happy Birthday to You, those rights are limited to the extremely narrow right to reproduce and distribute specific piano arrangements for the song published in 1935. Significantly, no court has ever adjudicated the validity or scope of the defendant's claimed interest in Happy Birthday to You, nor in the song's melody or lyrics, which are themselves independent works."

So with Happy Birthday to You it is quite obviously a case where the original composition has been removed from public domain based on copyright of a much later derivative version.

If the court rules in favor of Warner/Chappell, and correct me if I'm out of line with my reasoning, it seems the decision would further strengthen big Media's grip on performance backwards onto original compositions. What if a publishing house was the only modern distributor for a lesser known, long gone composer's work? Could they claim copyright ownership over these works based on some trivial evidence that someone at sometime forfeited the rights to them by not challenging the later publication and copyright claim in court?

Copyright for the protection of artists is invaluable to ensure creation of new art. What the likes of Warner/Chappell are doing is true piracy.

It also wouldn't happen with Beethoven's works because their provenance is clear, unlike "Happy Birthday".

On the other hand, you can still copyright Beethoven's piano compositions simply by producing an edition with your own fingerings or other editorial matter. An interesting question is whether a performer, when they are preparing a performance or a recording, is using an edition that is under copyright should pay royalties for that performance or recording.

Yup. Again, the important thing in law isn't so much truth or reality or stuff like that. What matters is whether somebody thinks they have grounds to sue.

When it was published, 1914, the "28 + 28" rule was in effect. It went into PD here under that rule. The change to "Life Plus" only applied to new copyrights from 1979 onward.

Other countries had different rules, so it could well be under copyright in most other countries.

Here's another instance of an artist being stolen from by Google/YouTube/BMG, Warner/Chappell, and Universal Music Publishing Group.

http://adamthealien.com/2013/12/youtubes-content-id-system-brings-humbug-to-the-holidays/

YouTube is dead to me. I'm sick of hearing of Google's continued support of criminals.

"The duration of copyrights vary from country to country, but in general it's either 50 or 70 years AFTER the death of the artist! Which, in other words means that Prokofiev, Ligeti, Messiaen, Stravinsky and their works are not copyright free. But Beethoven, Brahms, Bach, Chopin and their works are."

I think that the "70 years after death" rule may be the law of the land, but this is immoral and unethical. Can you imagine if there were similar laws for drugs or other inventions? We would not have any technological progress.

Why on God's green earth should artistic works be given this level of protection? Especially when the role of the copyright owner (which is usually a corporation) does not spend the effort to promote or distribute the work?

Well...

As I said in my first post, there's every reason, for a publisher to hope for a work of a recently deceased composer will "grab more light" exactly because of the death of the composer.

That alone is enough commercial reason to protect the copyrights for quite some time after the artist's death.

BUT, there is, I think, an ethical side to it: Many artists take aspiration and inspiration (both are true I think) to family members, many of which may be many years younger. So, I'd hate to see a work dedicated to my grandson being turned into rubbish because the copyrights have expired... Or something...

I think it would drive publishers away from older living composers if copyright didn't extend past the death of the composer.

One might argue that shorter copyright periods would speed the acceptance of more modern works by the concert going public. But that public is allegedly conservative, and not open to programs consisting of a high percentage of modern works---hence the emphasis on the three Bs.

To me, life plus 50 seems on the generous side. Acceptable but generous, especially when compared to copyright duration when copyright was first introduced (something like 10 or 12 years). Does a composer actually benefit from the longer term, or is it only corporations?

It is hard for me to restrain myself on this response.
If the law was changed from 70 years to 25, the publisher will still enjoy the "death benefit" from the composer. heck, there's a 50/50 chance that the publisher won't outlive the composer anyway. Why do they need to be guaranteed a monopoly on the work for 70 years after the composer's death???

As far as family members are concerned- it is one thing for a descendant to inherit past earnings from a work. Why should they be entitled to all future earnings for the work? One of the reasons America broke away from Britain was to break free from the monarchy, where there is a birthright to riches. We then turned around and created the same system, for descendants of creative people.

Again, the parallels for patents are reasonable. Patents expire after a reasonable time, upon which they enter the public domain for everyone to benefit. This is regardless of the financial investment that the company (or individual)made to bring the product to market. Expenses for creative works pale in comparison to the expenses related for patents.

And another reason just might be that on the website created by his son, most of his work is available for free.
Due to public domain or the graciousness of son of Ornstein?

http://poonhill.com/list_of_works.htm

The latter. From Orstein's IMSLP page:
Miscellaneous information

Mr. Severo Ornstein, the composer's son and copyright owner, has graciously granted permission for Leo Ornstein's works to be posted at IMSLP.

Oh please... Don't restrain yourself. Why feel restrained? Say what you will.

It doesn't concern me and my position in this matter is very clear. It is unfortunate that you don't seem to have noticed, but...

BTW, the publisher is a corporation and a legal entity, not a living person!

But as I said earlier and you didn't notice, I agree that it is ridiculous to have copyrights lasting THAT long!

Oh well...

Nikolas,
My comments were not directed at you. It was part of the general dialog that you internet forums are made for.

Thanks for the scolding, though.

Piano39: In this forum, there's a re: someone above the post, and it seemed that you were directing your comments to me. It didn't seem general.

In any case sorry, though I don't think my post was overly aggressive or scolding... :-/

I saw the title of this thread and thought it would make a great topic. But very early on when you laid out the terms of "copyright" I thought I noticed a sharp reduction in the scope of the topic - leaving aside all notions and effects of copyright securing a process or commercialization - this made me suspicious the writer might further reduce the scope as the question progressed. And indeed that is what is born out when I returned to type a reply. You seem to be focused on copyright as it relates to the composer and I answered in that spirit but with some gaps in knowledge.

Though were pretty similar in our views of open source (you mention above using open source software) by the time we get to the end of your long essay I find we've diverged quite a bit. You reveal me to be quite a radical open source believer for one. Not so much in software, but I'm a big believer and user of creative commons licences. I've just come to accept we live in a digital remix culture and I'm not going to fight it. And this makes me a big believer in one more thing: myself. That I'm up for the challenge.

I think for the next little while one will see both systems co-exist (commercial walled gardens versus YT) and also hybrid systems (such as itunes selling DRM-free mp3s). Working from the premise music wants to be free I argue the creative commons model in many ways can capture some of that momentum. The personal advantages I appreciate most from the creative commons model is the corresponding reduction in overhead because of the lack of middlemen. This leaves me with enough energy and creative spark to tackle projects which do pay the bills. The negatives for the moment I am mostly happy to work through. I'm working from the premise people need to play it, hear it, etc., before they buy it.

I will agree that this thread started out exactly because of a disagreement I have with another composer (and I did mention his name, though it doesn't really matter and I DO understand what he's doing). So, yes, my point of view, is certainly that of the composer, and I think that in pianoworld it's not a widely known position... :-/ I think.

I do hope, however, that I did present both cases equally and I also hope that I'm very clear that I'm not happy with the current copyright laws, and even more unhappy with any DRM product!

I'm certainly up for a challenge myself and I'm pretty sure that most here who notice my posts will confirm that I offer recordings, some times scores, videos, etc just like that.

And as I said my whole thesis was done with Open Office, but I remain solid that with very few exceptions open source or freeware software are (still) no match to commercial products. At least not yet and with the very valid exceptions, I repeat that.

Now, the Creative Commons licenses are fine as they are, but I find that there's something disturbing in there: They cannot be revoked, and last time I checked every license includes a "free to redistribute" clause.

(4.0 seems to be the "stricter" yet it allows redistribution: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.en_GB).

This simply means that anything you attach a CC license on is "gone for good". You can't stop people from sharing it... :-/

The lack of middlemen is not because of CC licenses, but because of the Internet by large I think.

Finally, just in case, I'm assuming your post was referring to me, otherwise I'm really sorry!

For those that suggest copyright law is static and not evolving, I don't think that is the case. Current copyright law is the result of substantial changes, most of them in relatively recent history. Indeed, I think most of the recent "reforms", like extending copyright beyond the life of the author, are the most problematical. Because the stated purpose of creating this unreal property right is to reward the creators and hopefully allow them to afford to keep up the good work for the benefit of all. The problem is that the reforms extending copyright beyond the limited terms of years that used to be the practice, were never intended to do that.

I think Sonny Bono's strongest argument when he spearheaded extensions, was that it would be nice for composers to leave more to their relatives. Not sure how that relates to encouraging or supporting creativity unless he was thinking about their possible composing genes. Perhaps in Gershwin descendants. If that's at all the case, I'm sure its the exception, not the rule. In any event, the biggest benefit was to music publishers who previously bought the copyrights and reaped a windfall without having to share anything with the original creators or their descendants anywhere.

Its curious that patents did not experience similar extensions. Well, not extensions in time, anyway. They seem to have gotten an expansion in what can be patented instead. You can probably patent scratching your head (or any other body part) if you claim it to be part of a new process. Consider doing that while composing. Just don't forget to mail me my check.

Howard