Please interpret the following in terms of US copyright law except
where treaty with the United Kingdom is binding: Does public
performance of a work of music during the composer's lifetime mean
that even if the full score is never published, the performing rights
fall into the public domain 50 years after the composer's death?
Specifically, I am wondering about a few works of Arthur Sullivan.
Most of his music is in the public domain now, with only the various
bits of editing copyrighted. However, there are a few works which
have only had their full score published in recent years.
The full scores to these works have only recently been transcribed
from Sullivan's unpublished autograph score. However, unlike some
unpublished scores by other composers, the full scores of these works
had many public performances in Sullivan's lifetime, and often the
vocal score to the work had been published in Sullivan's lifetime, now
being public domain. A specific example would be "The
Contrabandista." It was first publically performed in 1867 and had
several performances. A vocal score was published by Boosey & Co.
around 1870. Along with the rest of Sullivan's published music, the
vocal score has entered the public domain. However, it was not until
recently that some private publishers have obtained copies of
Sullivan's original unpublished scores, typesetting and publishing
them under a copyright to themselves. I am not concerned with their
general copyright claims, as I have no qualms against purchasing
additional copies of music if necessary from these publishers.
However, do I really have to obtain performing rights from the
publisher as their copyright page claims? Some of the full scores are
reconstructions, but the ones I am asking about are copied from fully
intact autograph scores.
I suppose that the heart of my inquiry is: What effect(s) the prior
publication of the vocal scores and the many public performances of
these works have on the copyright and performing rights statuses of
the recently published full scores? |
