At 6:02 PM -0800 1/12/10, Mark D Lew wrote:
What's the story on Russian copyrights? I remember that a lot of 20th century Russian works were in the public domain long before they otherwise would have been, on account of the fact that the United States did not recognize Soviet copyrights.
I believe it was the Soviet Union that did not recognize copyrights--ANY copyrights. Everything in theory belonged to "The People."
I also remember that some time in the mid-1990s, after the Soviet Union had ceased to exist, the United States began to recognize Russian copyrights again, as a result of some trade agreement, and a whole lot of Russian works that had been available were pulled from the shelves and went out of print.
They just went back into copyright, as I recall. But that affected the price, which affected the availability. I remember at the time that it was made clear that any copies that had been sold while they were public domain remained legal, but that any newly-sold copies (or rentals, I assume) were now protected by copyright as of when they COULD have been copyrighted. It wasn't that they went out of print, the prices just went up. But I also remember that the re-copyrighting was NOT automatic, and it had to be specifically requested for each work involved.
So what does that mean for something like Peter and the Wolf? Is it truly in the public domain? Or is it just easily available but technically under protection now?
I would assume that it is now under copyright protection under U.S. law, based on the dates you gave. Nothing technical about it. I note that "Peter" is not listed in either the Luck's or Kalmus catalogs, which suggests that it may now be available only from the publisher. The previous poster--I've lost track of who it was--assumed that it was PD, but that's not necessarily true. We performed it last November and I know we didn't rent it, but our conductor may have had it in his library from when it was PD.
As an American, I'm mostly interested in U.S. law but presumably the same questions apply to Europe and elsewhere.
Yes, but under the applicable copyright law of each country. A 1936 copyright would still be under copyright in the U.S. under the 1909 law, a 1953 death would affect European and other copyright laws that at the time were based on death plus 50 years or death plus 70 years, depending on what the current laws read.
Peter and the Wolf was published in 1936 and Prokofiev died in 1953, so it seems to me that the work ought to be protected under either the American or European rules.
Depends on how the EU rules now read. 1953 plus 50 years would be a 2003 expiration. But if it's figured as plus 70 years it would be 2023. What I don't know is whether any of those works got "credit" added for the years in which they were public domain.
(But I hope I'm wrong, because there's a certain Shostakovich prelude I'd love to arrange....)
You can ask the publisher, but you KNOW what they'll say!!! John -- John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music Virginia Tech Department of Music College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:john.how...@vt.edu) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html "We never play anything the same way once." Shelly Manne's definition of jazz musicians. _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
