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I searched for scores edited by Adolf Ruthardt on IMSLP and I found two different death dates, 1915 and 1934. In the list with publishers/editors and so on I found the death date 1934. When I looked at the publishers page of Edition Peters subpage Edition Numbers I saw with the editions edited by Adolf Ruthardt the year <1915 coming back.

Can somebody tell me where the year 1915 is coming from? He died in 1934 as far as I understand.

Wikipedia says he died in 1935.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Ruthardt

I don't if Wikipedia is right.

worov wrote:Wikipedia says he died in 1935.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Ruthardt

I don't if Wikipedia is right.

I gave the name "Adolf Ruthardt" and not "Friedrich Ruthardt" so I'm not surprised that the Wikipedia gives another deathdate.
There doesn't seem to exist a separate page for Adolf Ruthardt but the same deathdate 1934 appears on the page where his father is mentioned.
That's not the only thing, you gave a link for a page where the year 1935 isn't mentioned so I don't know where you looked?

Somebody else who knows what I stated in the first post?

Ruthardt, Adolf; b. Feb. 9, 1849, Stuttgart, d. Sept. 12, 1934, Leipzig; German piano pedagogue, composer, and music editor (from http://authorites.lov.gov))

Davydov wrote:Ruthardt, Adolf; b. Feb. 9, 1849, Stuttgart, d. Sept. 12, 1934, Leipzig; German piano pedagogue, composer, and music editor (from http://authorites.lov.gov))

Thank you very much Davydov, but I already knew this, and that wasn't my question. Can you please look again or somebody else at my first post?

Sorry, but the meaning of your first post isn't very clear. It looks like someone made a mistake when they added Adolf Ruthardt's dates to several pages on IMSLP. Please feel free to edit those pages and change the dates yourself, if you wish.

Davydov wrote:Sorry, but the meaning of your first post isn't very clear. It looks like someone made a mistake when they added Adolf Ruthardt's dates to several pages on IMSLP. Please feel free to edit those pages and change the dates yourself, if you wish.

Thanks Davydov, but does it have any consequences too for the USA-copyrights of the scores with the wrong death-dates?

I don't know what's not clear about my question in my first post, but maybe I can clearify it a little:

If the date on the publishers page of IMSLP is wrong too - that means based on the wrong death-date - and it has consequences for the
copyright status of the scores, than it needs a change on that page too. But it's also possible that the date on that page for example is based on
the period that Adolf Ruthardt worked for the publisher 'Peters'. And that's why I asked where the year 1915 is coming from and I still don't know.

I have no clue where 1915 came from, but what I do know is that it should have no bearing on the copyright status of works edited or arranged by him. 1934 is more than 70 years ago, so he's PD everywhere except Mexico. It wouldn't affect US status anyway since that was based on date of publication until 1978, not date of death.

KGill wrote:I have no clue where 1915 came from, but what I do know is that it should have no bearing on the copyright status of works edited or arranged by him. 1934 is more than 70 years ago, so he's PD everywhere except Mexico. It wouldn't affect US status anyway since that was based on date of publication until 1978, not date of death.

Allright KGill, thank you very much (again ), that's what I wanted to know.

Maybe some users used that date as the death date. I'm already changing the death dates 1915 into 1934 on IMSLP but I don't know if it needs to be changed on the publishers page too. A bit boring to do, but a nice way to learn editing.

I just though that if you don't know the date a certain piece is published in (for the USA), it's possible that users base the copyright status of a certain piece edited by Adolf Ruthardt on the year that is mentioned on the publishers page and that is 1915 (and that's before 1923). But now you write 1978 for the USA, why is that? Why not before 1923?

Well, the thing about US copyright law is that it's changed multiple times over the decades. Basically, anything published in the years 1923 to 1977 is protected for 95 years from date of publication. From 1978 to present, it's date of death plus 70 years, like Europe, Russia, Brazil, etc. (This is kind of a huge oversimplification, you can read in more detail on the public domain page on the wiki.) So it doesn't really matter what year he died in for US status here (well, it could, but that's only if we were making an otherwise blind guess at what years he was active), because if we have reason to think it was published in 1915 or whenever (i.e. before 1923), it's public domain there in any case. So apart from editing the pages to correct the date (thanks for doing that, by the way), no change needs to be made. Especially for an edition like Peters, who for a long time didn't even put copyright notices on their scores but for whom we have a lot of dated plate numbers, it's almost public domain in the US by default if it can be identified as being from that period.

Thanks for the information. I can't say that I completely understand but if I ever have doubts or question about a specific score I will just ask in 'the copyright status requests'.
BTW the corrections are made, I hope I didn't forget anything. One of the files was a template, maybe that one caused the wrong death date.

http://www.artes.ufpr.br/material/banco ... s%20piano/

I think this is the Ruthardt edition of Beethoven sonatas. Could anyone confirm or infirm this ?

Thank you.