As far as I could tell, Jim wasn't talking about law, but about publisher's willingness to allow someone else to arrange one of their works. And his experience seemed to agree with mine, too. Things have changed in attitudes among publishers in the last 20 years or so. When I first started doing this, I dutifully called up publishers asking for permission to arrange, and when they found out that I was writing one arrangement for one band, they politely told me to go ahead and stop bothering them, but don't sell any copies of it. The only outright refusal I got was from the Gershwins.
Thanks for that clarification, Christopher. I can certainly accept that there are trends in the publishing industry, just as there are in any industry, and that they may not always follow the letter of the law.
Nowadays the response ranges from the reasonable (Quincy Jones' guy said go ahead for free for any tune in their library, but send a note saying what I am doing, Warner Bros. wanted about $100 and told me not to sell the arrangement) to the outrageous (the publishers of April In Paris wanted $1000 for ONE tune (!) and Valando, handling Sondheim's music, wanted 10% of the concert gross for permission to write ONE arrangement! And then he wanted me to send HIM the arrangement so that HE could sell it!)
Because, under U.S. law, he DOES own any derivative work based on that copyrighted work. (Don't know about Canada or Europe.) But this simply points out that it is, indeed, up to the individual copyright owners whether to give permission and whether to charge for that permission. That's what the law says. It also sounds, from what you're saying, as if the more tightly-held or family-owned copyrights, as opposed to publisher-owned copyrights, are much less likely to be given permission. I'm certainly not surprised to add Sondheim and the Gershwin estate to John Williams and Irving Berlin Music. Their copyrights are money in the bank.
True story: One of our choral conductors here wanted to put on "An Evening of Irving Berlin" program, and called I.B. Music to ask about the availability of choral arrangements. He was put on hold for a while, and when the person came back he was told, "Mr. Berlin does not approve of your proposal." Mr. Berlin, at that time, had been dead for about two years!
John
-- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
