(Sorry, I'm late joining this discussion - christmas vacation, you know.)
Jeff Szuhay wrote: ...
70 years, actually.
The rule of thumb for printed music is that the copyright lasts for 50 years after
the composer's death.
Some international council (can't be bothered to remember its name) suggests 70 years after the originator's death for "intellectual works" (or some mumbo-jumbo like that) by identified originators and 70 years after the first publication for anonymous works.
Most countries seems to follow this recommendation, but there are some minor countries (China, USA and their likes) who prefer playing by their own weird rules.
As John mentioned, there are also copyrights for _editions_ of works. The "70 years after first publication" rule should be safe there too, although I believe the time period is actually considerably shorter.
Interestingly, the "first publication" rule means that many of the "modern" editions of classical music actually are public domain, since they tend to be just reprints of 19th and early 20th Century editions...
There's this big piano sheet music site at:
http://www.sheetmusicarchive.net/
that mainly contains scans from Fischer's "Masterpieces of Piano Music", first published in 1918 and still in print today. (Well, that partcular site is actually illegal, but only because they're located in the USA.)
Frank Nordberg
http://www.musicaviva.com
To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
