Several recent postings about copyright issues prompts this reply.

 [ Editor's Note: refer to
 [
 [ Digest 961121, Andy LaTorre
 [ Digest 961122, Angelo Rulli
 [ Digest 961125, Bill Jelen

These points do not apply to anything created after December 31, 1977.
They do apply to musical compositions (as well as other copyrightable
creations), which would have been fixed for registration in the form of
sheet music.  They do not apply to the performances of music fixed in
any medium, whether phonograph record, music roll, or tape recording.

Federal copyright protection was never extended to sound recordings
until the Copyright Act of 1976 gave such protection to sound
recordings as separate from the underlying musical composition.  Most
provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976 went into effect January 1,
1978, though there was some interim protection given to creations
meeting certain conditions prior to that date.  But keeping it simple,
the first fact to remember is that any tune written before January 1,
1921, is currently and unequivocally in the public domain.

So on January 1, l997, anything created before January 1, 1922 will be
in the public domain -- and so on, year by year, until in the year 2053
there will be no valid copyrights left which were granted under the old
copyright laws, only those secured under the Copyright Act of 1976,
where the duration of copyright is more complicated than it was under
prior acts.  (I can outline be interested in the current duration
provisions, but I hope no one is.)

The 75-year duration for works created before January 1, 1978, applied
only if a work was properly copyrighted AND the 26-year original
copyright term was renewed by the copyright holder in the 26th year of
the original term for a second and final 26-year term.  If that was not
done, the work entered the public domain at the end of the first
26-year term.  So there are many tunes composed well after 1921 which
are in the public domain because they did not enjoy enough commercial
success to warrant the trouble of renewing copyright.  The only sure
way to know is to search copyright records.

Angelo Rulli's suggestion to use the Harry Fox Office is a clever one.
But anyone can go to the Copyright Office in the Library of Congress
and do his own checking.  Or have the Copyright Office do it.  The fee
may seem high but it takes the office only 10 minutes or so to do the
search.  I can search a limited number of tunes for anyone needing help
at no charge.  (What am I letting myself in for?!  My office is one
floor above the Copyright Office, but ...!)  There are also published
sets of copyright registrations deposited in various large libraries
around the country; but due to the nature of the indexing, they are
often not handy to use for searching musical compositions.

The 1898-1937 musical composition card file is much easier to use if one
knows the exact tune title.  Millions of tunes were copyrighted, making
Andy's idea of a central registry of public- domain musical compositions
an absolute impossibility.

As said, sound recordings are a whole different kettle of fish.  Does
anyone need to know about them?  Very complex issues there.

Matthew Caulfield¶
Library of Congress