Re: Excellent paper on 'Copyfraud'

[Olivier Biot]

On Sat, Mar 9, 2013 at 6:31 PM, Urs Liska <address@hidden> wrote:

May I suggest a concrete example for consideration (because it's a tricky constellation and I'd appreciate any opinion)?

Given a musical work that is clearly in the public domain (1820s).
The autograph score is in private possession (in Switzerland).
The contents of this autograph have been brought to the public through a 'private print' (by a renowned scholar) in 1967.
I don't know how many copies there are from this private print, but some of them are available through public libraries (where I had the opportunity to take digital photographs).

If I now would want to make an edition of that work, and explicitely the version of that manuscript, would I have to ask the owner of the manuscript, or could I argue that the music is in the public domain and the manuscript has already been made public?

I didn't know that buying an out-of-copyright work suddenly makes it fall under copyright. However (and this may be a gray area - I am not a lawyer) the new owner of a work may decide what you're allowed to do with it - up to a certain extent.

Would a claim of the owners of the manuscript to either charge royalties or prohibit the project be a valid cause or would you consider that copyfraud?

Imagine I have the possibility to acquire a manuscript by Bach. If I buy said manuscript, I can only make a claim about the material object I bought, not about the music it contains. Unless I conceal the work and am assured that nobody has a copy from before I acquired the manuscript.

I am myself confronted with a similar issue - Opus 125 from F. A. Kummer got lost in the wars, I have no idea if the manuscript even exists, and the work was engraved a _very_ long time ago making it public domain. If I make it publishable, and add my own remarks, what then? I think I know the answer.

Best regards,

Olivier