Klarinet Archive - Posting 000192.txt from 2010/07

From: Michael Nichols <mrn.clarinet@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Nielsen Concerto Copyright
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2010 00:56:16 -0400

On Sat, Jul 10, 2010 at 2:25 PM, Lora Crighton <lcrighton@-----.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 10, 2010 at 1:55 PM, Michael Nichols <mrn.clarinet@-----.com> wrote:
> It is public domain in Canada and Europe, but IMSLP shows it as public
> domain in the US as well, which surprised me - even if it ended up in
> the public domain because of improper notice or other problems with
> the formalities, would the copyright not have been restored in 1995?
> US copyright law quite complicated, and it can be difficult to
> determine the status of some works.

I think the reason why it would not have been restored in the U.S. was
that by 1995 the Danish copyright in the work would have already
expired. One of the prerequisites to having copyright restored in the
U.S. in 1996 under TRIPS/Uruguay Rounds was that the work had to still
be under copyright in the home country. Prior to 1995, the copyright
term in Denmark was life of the author plus 50 years. Since Nielsen
died in 1931, that meant that his Danish copyright should have expired
in 1981. The Danes did modify their copyright term in 1995 to life+70
(which is what it is now), but that would have been too late for
Nielsen's works.

The reason why so many Soviet-era works were "restored" as to
copyright in 1996 was that they were still under copyright in Russia.
Shostakovich, for example, died in 1975, so all of his works were
still under copyright in Russia--same thing with Prokofieff.
(although Prokofieff's earliest works [those pre-1923] are in the
public domain in the U.S.). They didn't already enjoy copyright in
the U.S. because at the time they were written, the U.S. did not have
a copyright treaty with the Soviets.

Mike
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