IMSLP Forums

Hi,

I was wondering if Erwin Schulhoff's (1894-1942) works are in public domain.

I have an edition by Ries & Erler, Berlin (1991) of some of his works and I was wondering - if I typeset them myself and I released the typesets under a CC license, would it be legal to upload them to places such as IMSLP?

in Copyright Made Simple (http://imslp.org/wiki/IMSLP:Copyright_Made_Simple) is says that for EU, If a composer died before 1943 his works are in public domain. However, assuming the 1991 publication is the first one after his death (I have no data on this), that's less than 70 years after his death. Does it still have protection for 25 years after the publication, or would a typeset of these scores be public domain?

Thanks for the help!

-Laonikos

IMSLP voluntarily observes a publication-date-plus-25-years rule for all editions across the board that we don't have permission to upload, so it wouldn't be permitted here at all until 1 Jan. 2017 anyway. Aside from that, it depends on the publication status of each individual piece as well as each separate jurisdiction we look at. For the EU, assuming there were no original contributions from the editor, it would in fact be PD as it was published within the 70-year term of copyright on all of Schulhoff's works (as you correctly point out). For Canada, the works in the volume could be public domain if they received either publication or public performance more than 50 years ago (from the present day, that is); otherwise, they'd be under copyright for another few decades. And in the US, if it's the first publication of the work then it would be protected until 1 Jan. 2048.

I think, as a first edition it is PD in the EU after 25 years of this edition, that means in 1.1.2017.

Yes, you're right. That's what comes of going completely from memory after several months of inactivity. Probably shouldn't have attempted to answer in the first place.

cool guys, thanks a lot! seems like I have to wait a few more years before I upload them, but it's ok, I'm in no hurry

also, I have a Schott 1993 edition of some of his other works, where it is mentioned the work was performed first by Schulhoff himself - would that count as a public performance for canadian copyright?

jujimufu wrote:... the work was performed first by Schulhoff himself - would that count as a public performance for canadian copyright?

Yes, probably, if it was anything much less private than just playing it in front of friends in his house or something. If it was performed at anything resembling an actual concert then it should be fine, though I do remember Carolus saying that the text of the law is rather vague here.