On Aug 23, 2007, at 10:11 AM, Noel Stoutenburg wrote:
Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
The 1994 law included "restored copyright" for many works in the
public domain. It's a minefield for composers.
I concede that the issue of "restored copyright" has caused problems
for composers, but for the most part, unless one is dealing with
material from the former Soviet Union, or from countries in its sphere
of influence, "restored copyright" provisions do not constitute a
major issue, as the number of affected composers and affected works is
relatively small.
Not true. The "restored copyright" provision applied to all works whose
copyright had run out due to failure to renew, and automatically
extended their terms to what they would have been had the renewal taken
place. Since, in turn, such a hypothetical renewal would take the
work's copyright into the jurisdictional period of the current law (and
its later ammendments) the actual copyright period for *anything*
published after 1923 is life plus 70. The one exception would be if
the creator deliberately placed the work in the public domain. That is,
when pigs fly.
If I had the opportunity to ask one question of any of the presidential
candidates, it would be this:
"Under current US copyright law, if someone writes a pop song at the
age of 20, and then lives to be 80 years old, the song would remain
under copyright for a total of 130 years. Do you think this is
appropriate, and if not, what would you do about it?"
Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://www.kallistimusic.com/
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
