IMSLP Forums

The section on the German copyright law in Historical Publication Info (http://www.imslp.org/wiki/Historical_Publication_Info) is very interesting for IMSLP. But I have some reservations. First, how can you identify Scholarly or critical edtions ? What are the criteria to fall in this category?
Secondly, I think we should not systematically accept these as public domain because then we would become a serious pain in the * for several publishers. This law is so unique for this country and the copyright term is so extremely short that you could start questioning international internet law. The last thing I want for IMSLP is legal problems.[/i]

This all stems from a discussion about Han Gal as editor of the Brahms Gessamtausgabe. In a nutshell, I initially mentioned that the volumes edited by Gal (who died in 1987) might be protected under Canadian law even though they are all free in the US (for several reasons) despite having been published in 1927. Feldmahler and I both did a bit more investigating and found that the German law grants only a limited term of protection for urtext editions of public domain works, which was 25 years when Dover won its case before the German court about 20 years ago. (It may have been upped to 50 in the meantime.)

Canada applies the "rule of the shorter term," a Berne Treaty provision whereby a signatory country is not obligated to grant protection to works that have entered the public domain in their country of origin. Since both Dover and Kalmus reprints of the Brahms Gesammtausgabe are freely sold right now in both Canada and in the EU, we have to assume that this edition is public domain, since there's no way Breitkopf would stand for it if they were not public domain.

So, just to be on the safe side, we can fairly assume that urtext editions that are more than 50 years old are most likely free in Canada if they were first issued in Germany. Even then, I am looking at these on a case by case basis as I see them posted. FYI, as for US status, a fair number of works from both the Neue Mozart Ausgabe and the Neue Bach Ausgabe, plus nearly all of the Dvorak complete edition published by Supraphon, are PD and available in reprints from Kalmus.

I wanted to add that Germany has not lengthened the copyright term for "scientific" editions (see http://www.iuscomp.org/gla/statutes/UrhG.htm#70), and it is still publication + 25 years.

I understand your restlessness about this Peter, but many countries (Canada and the US at least) have the Berne Rule of the Shorter Term... so it is safe as long as we observe the "scientific" edition requirement; in cases such as these we will more closely examine the edition, but I think it is fine as long as there is clear indication of "scholarliness" or that another publisher is reprinting the score.

Good thing is that this is not a widespread occurrence, so we can afford to deal it on a per-score basis...

And a question: Does Barenreiter publish only Urtext editions? That was my impression (I have yet to see a non-urtext Barenreiter edition), but I'm not sure.

The short answer to your question about Baerenreiter is "yes." They publish new works by German composers and have done so since their founding in the late 1920s. As for editions (as opposed to arrangements) of PD works, the answer would be "no." Evrything they issued, from the series Hortus Musicus and Nagels Musik Archiv to the Neue Berlioz Ausgabe are definitely urtext or "scientific" editions entitled to a 25-year term in Germany, which means that they enjoy the same limited term in the EU, Canada and most other countries. Their copyright status in the USA is considerably less clear if they lived up to the notice and renewal requirements or were issued after 1963.

Oddly, the USA has not adapted its laws to apply the "rule of the shorter term." The primary reason so many of these works are PD in the USA is 1) they were published without a proper notice before 1978; 2) those works published before 1964 were not renewed after 28 years; and 3) they were published by a government entity or in a country not entitled to copyright protection. Nothing that was first published in East Germany, for example, was entitled to any sort of copyright protection in the USA. That's why you see all of Mendelssohn's early string symphonies in the Kalmus catalog: They were all first published by the East German concern Deutsche Verlag für Musik in the 1960s and 1970s.

This 25-year term also explains much about Baerenreiter's sudden fit of generosity in allowing the Mozarteum to post volumes from the NMA for download. The Neue Mozart Ausgabe commenced in 1954. There are also not a few Henle issues that are more than 25 years old.

Thanks for clearing up the Rule of the Shorter Term issue in the US! I had assumed that US also has a similar rule due to a Wikipedia article which hinted at this; but now I know its wrong.