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I believe some of those performances are old enough to have made it into the public domain, and some of those old masters are pretty good.

It's not 2067 yet.

It would have had to have been produced in 1922 or earlier.

Works published between 1923 and 1978 are protected for 95 years from date of publication. After 1978 it's 'Life of the longest surviving Author plus 70 years', which works out to 2049 at the earliest. Now consider for classical music that every musician in the symphony can be considered an 'author'. That can be hundreds of people, including a person in their teens. Hell, put a preschooler on the triangle or something. Still, consider that some are probably in their twenties and will survive into their 90s. That's 140 years.

Anyways, consulting the timeline of audio formats..., it looks like the 'best' recordings you'd have would be wire recordings, and the phonograph records/tubes could hold only about 4 minutes of sound.

So in order to exploit this you'd need to find an intact record produced before 1923(until next year), scan it and convert it to digital, as well as putting up with the fact that in many cases you'd be lucky to find a single song given the limitations.

It would almost be easier to pay a symphony to produce songs to be put into the public domain 'for the good of mankind'.

I believe some of those performances are old enough to have made it into the public domain, and some of those old masters are pretty good.

It's not 2067 yet.

It would have had to have been produced in 1922 or earlier.

Works published between 1923 and 1978 are protected for 95 years from date of publication. After 1978 it's 'Life of the longest surviving Author plus 70 years', which works out to 2049 at the earliest. Now consider for classical music that every musician in the symphony can be considered an 'author'. That can be hundreds of people, including a person in their teens. Hell, put a preschooler on the triangle or something. Still, consider that some are probably in their twenties and will survive into their 90s. That's 140 years.

Anyways, consulting the timeline of audio formats..., it looks like the 'best' recordings you'd have would be wire recordings, and the phonograph records/tubes could hold only about 4 minutes of sound.

So in order to exploit this you'd need to find an intact record produced before 1923(until next year), scan it and convert it to digital, as well as putting up with the fact that in many cases you'd be lucky to find a single song given the limitations.

It would almost be easier to pay a symphony to produce songs to be put into the public domain 'for the good of mankind'.

We should just listen to some public domain music!
If anyone needs me, I'll be listening to "Are You From Dixie, 'Cause I'm From Dixie Too" and "Be My Little Baby Bumblebee" until the cows come home.

The premise of this argument is that no content worth having exists in the public domain, so any use of this tool must be directed toward infilching upon proprietary content.

It is probably worth mentioning that for music recordings it is pretty much the case. The Mickey Mouse clause is a little different in the area of sound recordings, since copyrights reach farther back than Mickey Mouse. Every sound recording prior to 1972 has copyright status as though it had been copyrighted in 1972, and thus no sound recording has fallen into the public domain or is going to soon.

http://www.pdinfo.com/record.htm

Then again, there are a lot of good recordings that have been released with CC licenses and such, so the essence of your argument remains true.

if I encode the opening chords of Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord”

Many public foundations employ "copyright" and "licenses" -- also known as "legal restrictions" -- that prevent you from doing things like reproducing or distributing their works. Forget about breaking the license with a copy machine. Breaking the license is a violation of the law and could expose you to prosecution.

The EFF says:
"EFF is a nonprofit group of passionate people -- lawyers, technologists, volunteers, and visionaries -- working to protect your digital rights."

But buried in the source to this very article is the following secret code:
License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by- nc/1.0/"
requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attributi on"
permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduct ion"
permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribut ion"
permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Derivativ eWorks"
prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Commercia lUse"
requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"

This "code" restricts your rights to use the article. Even worse, each article might have a different license! Future articles might change their license at any time!

The facts: you read it, they still own it. Sounds like 1984? Read on.

Additional EFF article restrictions:
- Prohibits commercial re-use or re-mixing into a new article.
- Requires that the license and copyright be reproduced with the article.
- Requires that you credit the copyright holder and/or author.

Other articles using this same "licensing" could be even more restrictive!

Looking for alternatives? Here are some sites that don't use restrictive "copyright" and "licensing".
- Project Gutenberg http://promo.net/pg/
- Public Domain Music http://www.pdinfo.com/

http://www.pdinfo.com/record.htm
I quote:
        Records, cassettes, CD's, and other music recordings come under a general category called Sound Recordings or Phonorecords. Before 1972, sound recordings were not protected by copyright law, but by a hodge-podge tangle of state laws. This problem was fixed with the 1972 copyright act and extended by the 1998 twenty year copyright extension. Different copyright experts have offered very different complicated explanations, but all agree that all sound recordings essentially are under copyright protection until the year 2067. So here is the one sentence you need to remember:

        Sound Recording Rule of Thumb:
        There are NO sound recordings in the Public Domain.

        There are, of course, exceptions to everything, and there really are some PD sound recordings. However, the federal and state laws are so tangled and complicated, it is extremely difficult to do confident sound recording PD research. There are several U.S. web sites claiming that sound recordings made in the United States prior to February 15, 1972, are in the public domain, and there are links to U.S. Copyright Office publications stating: "Sound recordings fixed before February 15, 1972, are not eligible for Federal copyright protection." We have had this reviewed independently by several attorneys across the U.S. Each has confidently and independently told us that between federal and state copyright protection, virtually all sound recordings are protected until the year 2067.

>DO NOT PURCHASE SONGS BACKED BY THE RIAA

I could not agree with this more! These people are driven by money. Their motive is money. They want more money. Hit them where it counts. It is time for a major boycott. And why not? There are thousands and thousands of unsigned and even signed musicians on small labels and its all out there for you to listen to. Do something novel today and find a non-RIAA musician to listen to. Try 15megsoffame for starters. Listen to music in the public domain music. Check out artists making music under the creative commons. In fact, don't even STEAL RIAA music. Just drop it and them.

Take that non-RIAA music that you find and like and burn it to a CD. Give it to a friend. Tell your friend why they should think about boycotting the RIAA.

This is the only way that the RIAA will ever think about their own problems and their overpricing. It's the ONLY way because it hits them in the pocketbook.

But there's no silent movies ("not mass market"), or movies that aren't "family friendly".

Playback of silent movies on a DVD player needs a soundtrack. All sound recordings published from the invention of the phonograph until February 15, 1972, are restricted under state law copyright until December 31, 2067 (second source), and a bargain-basement DVD distributor such as DigiView doesn't have the resources to do its own dub job.

"It was. It was called fair use."

Interesting, I haven't heard that. Do you have a citation?

"I think it's still legal to take a cassette tape and copy somebody else's CD , tape or record, but I'm not sure if it's legal to make a copy digitally, like make an mp3 of somebody else's CD (or even tape or record) anymore. I suspect it still is, though I'm sure the RIAA wouldn't agree."

Also interesting. Do you have anything to back that up? If you would like to see what US law says about "fair use" (as opposed to the common Slashdot misunderstandings), Here's the link. Ivan Hoffman also has an excellent article about Napster's failed attempt to defend their actions as fair use. pdinfo.com addresses the specific issue of music and fair use here ; they write "We have attempted to do find specific details and examples of Fair Use of music. The rumors that it is OK to use so many notes or so many bars are just not true. There is little doubt that, other than private in-home listening and playing, Fair Use of music is extremely limited."

So, if you've found a law that makes it okay to copy my friend's CDs onto cassette tapes, please post the links. In either case, there's an important difference between "under the radar" copyright violation (making copies of your friends CDs in small quantities) for which nobody will get on your case, vs. activities which are truly "fair use."

"Of course, the RIAA IS getting paid. If you copy a CD onto an Audio CD, the RIAA gets a cut. (It's called the `DAT tax'. Google is your friend if you've never heard of it.) I guess they're just not getting paid enough ..."

That's counter to the popular understanding of how it works. It's explained here (Google is indeed great for finding instances of that retarded "the RIAA gets a cut" meme, but for stuff like this, just going to the actual law book will save a lot of wasted time). The vast majority of the money goes to artists, composers and musicians -- who, I should add, generally aren't paid enough. A small percentage goes to record companies. None goes directly to the RIAA.

One solution would be to find software that is free for commercial use. I'd suggest looking through the Internet Archive:

http://archive.org/audio

I think some of the stuff in there might be free even for commercial purposes, at least in some countries. They have recordings made from really old records (1927, for instance), and there might be some newer public domain stuff in there.

I did find this:

http://www.pdinfo.com/source/TtlRFree.htm

Music you can license for a one-time only fee.

steveha

"Making an MP3 of a small portion of a song to use as an example of that song is also fair use (in the more traditional sense). In fact, making a cassette tape of a CD and giving it to someone you know (without money exchaning hands) is also fair use."

Do you have a citation for this? Are these covered in copyright law, or are they more in the realm of not needing backup because everybody knows they're true?

Googling on "fair use music" gives me the following:

http://www.musiclibraryassoc.org/Copyright/guidemu s.htm

http://www.serve.com/marbeth/music_fair_use.html

http://www.pdinfo.com/fairuse.htm states: "We have attempted to do find specific details and examples of Fair Use of music. The rumors that it is OK to use so many notes or so many bars are just not true. There is little doubt that, other than private in-home listening and playing, Fair Use of music is extremely limited."

http://www.eff.org/cafe/gross1.html states that one can make a "mix tape" for one's own personal enjoyment (their words). There's nothing on the EFF page which gives one blanket authorization to make a copy of a CD and give it to a friend, whether cash is exchanged or not. Nor in this article, which was written by a lawyer.

A common point found in many articles I've read is the impact on the market. If the copying is done to avoid buying another copy, then it's not fair use. While making a copy of a CD for a friend -- cassette, MD, DAT, CD or otherwise -- might be solely so he can "sample" it or "try before he buys" or "evaluate it for consideration of purchasing it," in most cases it's not -- you are making a copy for a friend because he'd rather get a copy from you for free than to buy his own. Not a huge crime -- but not fair use.

There are legal uses: Here at Slashdot

Yes, there is Public Domain Music

[This is my own story. In case kuro5hin is 404, for convenience I am reposting it in reply to your reference.]

Exposing the Happy Birthday story:
An editorial by J. Byron, May 2003, rev. June 2003

In this article, I attempt to answer three questions: 1 - What is that song Good Morning to All, and how does it relate to Happy Birthday to You? 2 - Is the melody to Happy Birthday to You public domain? 3 - Are the lyrics to Happy Birthday to You also public domain? There are many references to Happy Birthday on the Web. Most warn you of the copyright claim on it, and that the current owners rabidly defend it. Many of these "editorials" do not tell you about the song Good Morning to All - and the few that do, don't tell you about its undeniable legal status. Is this deliberate, or just ignorance of the facts? I don't know. Two such examples are an article at Attaché Magazine and the commonly cited article at snopes.com. In addition, some articles may unintentionally present inaccurate information. An article posted at lawyers.com incorrectly states that Good Morning to All was written in 1895 but unpublished. That assertion is untrue, and makes an important legal difference.

There is a 1935 copyright registration for Happy Birthday, but the melody Good Morning to All was formally published in 1893 as part of a collection, registered in October 1893, and is public domain by U. S. statute. (you just can't use the "Happy Birthday" lyrics in public without paying) However, one site listed in this editorial claims possession of some early publications that nullify the copyright to even the lyrics.

Good Morning to All [a.k.a. the birthday melody] included in:
Song Stories for the Kindergarten, pub. 1893
Song Stories for the Kindergarten, revised ed., pub. 1896
[and apparently other pre-1923 editions]
Words: Patty Hill (-1946) Music: Mildred Hill (-1916)

Good morning to you,
Good morning to you,
Good morning, dear children,
Good morning to all.

The song Good Morning to All - from which Happy Birthday was allegedly derived - is free to use (words and music) by U. S. federal statute. (Published before 1923, and furthermore published before 1909) Take a look at Lolly Gasaway's PD chart, or Cornell University's expanded chart. That version of the birthday melody may suffice for some people - instrumentalists in particular. Also note that titles cannot be protected by copyright, and no unique or proper names are involved. Naming an instrumental CD track Good Morning to All a.k.a. Happy Birthday to You should be legal. (The law of other countries might affect the song's status outside the U. S.)

Allegedly, after the publication of Good Morning to All in the Hill's songbook Song Stories for the Kindergarten, Robert Coleman, and others, published the "birthday" lyrics with the Good Morning to All melody. In the 1930's, the "Happy Birthday" lyrics combined with the Hill's published melody showed up on stage and in singing telegrams. The Hill family allegedly won a 1934 lawsuit for infringement. In 1935 the Hill family registered the "Happy Birthday" copyright mentioned endlessly on the Web. (Which does not affect today's public domain status of Good Morning to All.) Two sources for Good Morning to All sheet music are PD Info (a small studio, that also sells sheet music reprints) and

Sorry, only the sheet music copyright has expired; for audio recordings the situation in the US is much worse (and NYT neglects to mention it). From the Public Domain Music site: "Different copyright experts have offered very different complicated explanations, but all agree that all sound recordings essentially are under copyright protection until the year 2067. So here is the one sentence you need to remember: Sound Recording Rule of Thumb: There are NO sound recordings in the Public Domain."

Unfortunately you are wrong. From Music Recordings and Public Domain Music:

Records, cassettes, CD's, and other music recordings come under a general category called Sound Recordings or Phonorecords. Before 1978, sound recordings were not protected by copyright law, but by a hodge-podge tangle of state laws. This problem was fixed with the 1978 copyright act and extended by the 1998 twenty year copyright extension. Different copyright experts have offered very different complicated explanations, but all agree that all sound recordings essentially are under copyright protection until the year 2067. So here is the one sentence you need to remember:

Sound Recording Rule of Thumb: There are NO sound recordings in the Public Domain.

Check out the Public Domain Information Project for information on copyright and public domain issues as they pertain to music.

The difference is that Strauss' music is in the public domain.

Check out PD Info for answers to most of your questions about public domain music.

In particular, notice that Strauss is listed under s .

The difference is that Strauss' music is in the public domain.

Check out PD Info for answers to most of your questions about public domain music.

In particular, notice that Strauss is listed under s .