More on manuals plus rescue

[Chuck Guzis]

On 08/21/2015 10:41 AM, Rod Smallwood wrote:
> Excellent! EEC (Europe) is 70 years from the death of a known author
> or 70 years from publication if the author is unknown

This leads to some interesting situations.  Archibald Joyce wrote his 
"Autumn Dreams" waltz in 1908 and it has been reported to be the tune 
the orchestra was playing as the Titanic sank in 1912 (contrary to 
popular belief, it is extremely unlikely that the band played "Nearer My 
God to Thee" as they would not have been familiar with the hymn).

As Joyce lived to a ripe old age and died in 1963, the work is still 
very much under copyright protection in the UK.  However, the same work 
was published in 1921 in the USA, so it is public domain there.

On the other hand, George Butterworth, who set A.E. Houseman's "A 
Shropshire Lad" to music (1912) was born 12 years after Joyce, but 
killed in 1916 at the battle of the Somme, had his copyright protection 
expire in 1986.

Laws vary from country to country.  George Orwell's "1984" is PD in 
Australia, but protected in the UK.

Iran, on the other hand, recognizes no foreign copyright.

As mentioned before, works of Soviet writers and composers were 
considered to be PD (unless copyright was obtained outside of the USSR) 
by the US during the Cold War--similarly, the USSR did not recognize 
foreign copyright.  So you could purchase the sheet music of 
Shostakovitch for a pittance.  After the fall of the Soviet Union, the 
US moved to "restore" Soviet copyright and so removed works back into 
copyright status.  If you want to publish Shostakovitch, you now must 
deal with his estate--and copyright will endure to about 2050.

--Chuck