I think it would be a fun exercise to have some experts weigh in on the situation because we are dealing with definitely different levels of copyright law here. I can only speak to a few of the things that I studied in college and outside of college, but here are some US truths (mind you international is entirely different).
All works created 1923 and earlier are in the public domain and have no copyright protections. January 1st, barring no new extensions, 1924 works will enter.
In order for a public domain work to have copyright protections, you will have to make changes to the original and then only your changes are protected under copyright. For instance, if I make an arrangement of a public domain piece, lets say for mandolin ensemble, the arrangement can achieve copyright protections because it is a new work. Flip side, if I create a mandolin book and include facsimile copies of public domain works, the non-copied parts of the book would be copyright protectable but the facsimiles would not because there was no transformation of the work. The grey area comes when doing your own typesetting of works. I think most copyright offices would say if you typeset a public domain work, it would create a new work and would be protectable.
Either way, there is also fair use which does give you certain rights to use copyrighted works, so that goes along with it.
If you want the honest truth about what happens with copyright, I can dilute it down to very simple economics. If someone is trying to profit off of a work, or if you’re impeding on someone trying to profit off of a work, you’re probably going to get into trouble using that work. Legally, good luck with most of this music figuring out who owns the copyright, but even then, if you use it improperly and make a bunch of money, they will let you know
Bookmarks