Klarinet Archive - Posting 000118.txt from 2008/06

From: "Mark Charette" <charette@-----.org>
Subj: Re: [kl] Copyright Law (Again) - was Mutopia project and Cavallini
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 09:54:30 -0400

> I'm confused again (as usual when copyright laws are the subject). Did the
> U.S. recognize international copyrights as part of G.A.T.T., which was
> replaced in 1995 by the World Trade Organization? Are our own domestic
> copyright laws (last revised in the 1970s?) still in effect for U.S.
> publications, meaning that Bernstein's compositions are subject to a
> different copyright expiration from those of, say, Holst or Sibelius?

See http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/public_domain/ for a chart of what
and when.

> I
> was
> recently told by a music vendor that a certain Soviet composer's work -
> not
> one of the major ones that would immediately come to everyone's mind -
> might
> not be available in this country because of G.A.T.T., although it turned
> out
> the piece I was looking for was available in an apparently legal American
> publication (by International Music Co.).

A number of the International Music volumes were pulled from sale in the
US because of Russian copyright violation when Section 514 of the Uruguay
Round Agreements Act was enforced (restoring copyright to works previously
not copyrighted becasue of the lack of reciprocity). See
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/attachments/LucksMusicOpinion.pdf
for the decision.

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