IMSLP Forums

Hello,

I've noticed that a number of scanned scores have an unknown date of publication. In most (if not all) of these cases, the composer's death is far enough in the past to make their work public domain. But how can we have confidence that a particular score of a composer's work is itself in the public domain if we don't know the date of its publication?

Thanks!

Jon Parks

I am not an expert, but I suspect our reasoning is thus: since Publication date (Copyright date) is more important for U.S. Copyright law (i.e. must be before 1925), it would seem that few publishers in the 20th century would be careless enough to not put a copyright date on their [new] publication. Some publishers, however, are notorious for not doing so for old engravings, even with scores you would purchase new today (C. F. Peters, for example). Then it takes a little detective work; you can use the plate numbers at the bottom of the page to estimate approximately what year it was probably engraved; and certainly the style, clarity, and other details of engraving will help you decide an approximate era. I suppose also, if something is published without a copyright notice at all, how does the publisher claim any right to it, anyway? (in the U.S.). If the publisher could later prove that it WAS first printed in 1927 or something, I suppose it would have to be taken out of Public Domain for the U.S. But I think this never happens.

Items published without a date were automatically injected into the US public domain upon publication if first published before 1978. If published 1978-1988 the public domain injection was not automatic, but copyright owners had to file a claim of copyright and the certify that the publication without notice only applied to a small number of copies and was corrected. The notice requirements were abolished in 1989. There is the matter of GATT restoration but in order for a copyright to be restored it has to be under copyright in the country of origin (urtext type editions over 25 years old fail this test if published in the EU), must have been first published outside the USA by a non-US resident, the NIE must be filed, etc. Obviously fraudulent claims of copyright (reprinting a work and sticking a bogus claim on it) certainly don't qualify and are actually illegal under the US statute - though never prosecuted unfortunately.

Carolus wrote: ↑Mon Nov 16, 2020 3:57 am Items published without a date were automatically injected into the US public domain upon publication if first published before 1978. If published 1978-1988 the public domain injection was not automatic, but copyright owners had to file a claim of copyright and the certify that the publication without notice only applied to a small number of copies and was corrected. The notice requirements were abolished in 1989. There is the matter of GATT restoration but in order for a copyright to be restored it has to be under copyright in the country of origin (urtext type editions over 25 years old fail this test if published in the EU), must have been first published outside the USA by a non-US resident, the NIE must be filed, etc. Obviously fraudulent claims of copyright (reprinting a work and sticking a bogus claim on it) certainly don't qualify and are actually illegal under the US statute - though never prosecuted unfortunately.

Just to clarify, this only applies to works originally published in the US, right? Per this guide, whether a work published without notice outside the US is PD crucially depends on whether it was also published in the US within 30 days and whether it was PD in its home country on 1/1/1996. Is that right?

Yes: this is because of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act, which you can read about here. To show that a work first published between 1929 (currently) and 1989 was not URAA-eligible and thus in the US public domain, one of the following must exist for the relevant work:

1. Evidence the work was in the public domain in its source country on the restoration date (usually 1 January 1996)
2. Evidence the work was first published in the US, or, if first published in a foreign country, the first US publication having taken place within 30 days of that publication in a foreign country.
3. Evidence the work's authors were ineligible at the time of the work's creation (US citizens not domiciled in a foreign country).

Darn, that’s what I figured. I guess now I have to hope that this was not the first publication, and that the actual first publication was in 1928 or earlier. (My attempt to figure this out is what my other thread is about.)