Message-Id: <199810121443.KAA12687@xkey.com>
Subject: Re: minstrel: tune sources and more on copyrights
To: lnktheriot@csi.com (Ken Theriot)
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 10:43:11 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Greg Lindahl" <lindahl@pbm.com>
Cc: minstrel@pbm.com
In-Reply-To: <01BDF532.3EC7E6E0.lnktheriot@csi.com> from "Ken Theriot" at Oct 11, 98 04:14:36 pm
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> Here's another maxim of copyrights: IF IT WAS EVER IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN, IT 
> IS FOREVER.  Recordings of period music which show copyright info are for 
> the "arrangement" which includes the full musical arrangement (key 
> signature, harmonies, etc.) as well as the full orchestral arrangement 
> (parts for instruments, instruments chosen, etc.).  If the basic melody, or 
> in the case of madrigals, the basic arrangement, can be documented as 
> period, it's not copyrightable, and you may use it with impunity and wild 
> abandon.

No.

You can't tell if the melody has been changed or "interpreted". That's
why I refer to editions being "poisoned". With some period music, what
you think is the melody isn't the melody at all. Or with tunes like
Gaudete', only the chorus is in the original, and the verses were
composed by someone modern.

These are all reasons why you should go work off the facsimile.

> In fact, in the Joan Baez songbook, she lists the words and 
> music as "Laws P28" which is a citation based on a fellow who tried to do 
> for broadsides what Child did for (?) ballads (hey Greg, do you have a copy 
> of Laws?).

No -- I've never looked in that one, so it must be all post-1600
stuff. Only a small fraction of surviving broadsides are pre-1600.

>  You can copy, re-record, disseminate, etc. this song until the 
> cows come home,

But you better look in Laws first; Joan Baez may have changed it, or
Laws may have changed it and could still be in copyright.

> Any church collection will 
> have pieces from "Piae Cantiones",

Like Gaudete', which most people don't realize doesn't have verses.

I have an out-of-copyright Victorian edition of Piae Cantiones I could
scan. But I'd rather find a facsimile.

-- gb

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