Re: Copyrights (was Re: No time/no bars)

[Mike Blackstock]

In Canada, it's 50 years after the death of the relevant people.

In many (all?) jurisdictions, a published music manuscript - the
layout, fonts, etc. - is considered artwork, and hence falls under
copyright law, regardless of whether or not the music itself  is
in the public domain.

My understanding is that you can work from a copyrighted
score to prepare a new edition as long as you restrict yourself
to using the non-copyrighted part of the score: the composer's
notes, phrasing slurs, and so on. Evidently, if you're making
a new edition with lilypond, you won't be using anyone else's
layout etc so that shouldn't be a  concern  I would think.

Editorial fingerings, phrasing slurs and so on are a grey area:
can one really 'copyright' a fingering solution to a technical problem?
That would seem to me to be an area outside of copyright law but
who knows; I myself don't include fingerings in the stuff I publish
so I haven't looked into  that issue. (I generally use out-of-copyright
editions, or work from a copyrighted edition until I can find a non-
copyrighted one to check).

Anyway, that's just my two cents on  what it means to claim a copyright
on an edition of music that is itself in the public domain.

-Mike




>  
>
> > > Good Luck
> > >      
> > Yeah. I'm now half through Part three of Danses de travers. But I'm not 
> > sure about the copyright, Satie is dead long enough, but my score is 
> > marked with (c) 1978.
> >    
>
>
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