Klarinet Archive - Posting 000534.txt from 2001/06

From: Oliver Seely <oliver-seely@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Copyright
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 03:44:58 -0400

Thanks for the good information, Mark. I'd really like to nail down the
1923 date. Several years ago when I belonged to the FLUTE group, someone
asked the rhetorical question if Syrinx for unaccompanied flute by Debussy
is still covered by U.S. Copyright. So just for the fun of it I wrote a
letter in French to the putative French copyright holder which referred me
(I think) to J.J. Presser as its agent. Presser took a while to answer my
query (hence the earlier reference to making "emergency fair use copies"
while waiting for a reply) but finally I got the answer that it is covered
by U.S. Copyright. I'm not so sure. Here is what I got from Presser:

1911: Syrinx first performed.
1918: Debussy dies
1929: Performer of work in 1911 applies for French copyright using
argument that the sheet music was a personal gift from the composer.
Some time after that, U.S. copyright was obtained by J.J. Presser (I'll
have to check my notes at work on the identity of the U.S. publisher -- it
might not be Presser).

Anyway, it makes an intriguing question. I don't play the flute, the piece
is about 40 measures long, I have a MIDI file of it which I got off the Web
when it was available (don't know now, maybe it still is), it is short
enough to be easily memorized, so who needs the sheet music? Still, it
retains a certain fascination for me. If I were a member of the idle rich
I might try to make a test case out of it.

Oliver

At 02:12 PM 6/18/01 -0400, Mark wrote, in part:

>All music that has been produced before 1923 and published in the US is
not longer covered by copyright.

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