Public Domain and Copyrights list

[49410enrique]

not all inclusive but a good place to start, hopefully we can add and ammend and it can help folks to reference if they have a question before asking for a free PDF attached score in the sheets board.

i left some jibber jabber of it out since it really didn't pertain to the list, so i just copied and am pasting here. as i learn of more or get correctins or updates i will also follow up



 Originaly law stipulated a period of 50 years after the death of a composer/author as an extention of the copyright. However the French, after the second world war, have succeeded in extending this period is most countries to an insane 70 years...

Some of the very many modern composers that are GNU, Public Domain or otherwize not copyrighted and whose music can be freely performed and reproduced, given credit: Godfried-Willem Raes, Charles Ives (1), Yvan Vander Sanden, Hans Roels, Hans G.Helms, Davide Mosconi, Kristof Lauwers, Thomas Smetryns, Moniek Darge, Sebastian Bradt, Joachim Brackx, Kris De Baerdemacker, Barbara Buchowiec, Xavier Verhelst, Francesca Verbauwhede, ... (help us out adding more names...)

This is a short list of composers who are or have become public domain, because they died 70 years or longer ago. Obviously we only mention composers that died after 1900. All composers that died earlier than 1942 are in the public domain anyway.

1971: Guiseppe Verdi

1972:Filippo Marchetti, Karl Piutti
1973: Hugo Wolff
1974: Antonin Dvorak, Antonio Lopez Almagro
1975: Franz Strauss
1976:Paul Dresser, Heinrich Reimann
1977: Edvard Grieg
1978: Nicolas Rimski-Korsakof
1979: Isaac Albeniz
1980: Mili Balakiref
1981: Gustav Mahler
1982: Jules Massenet
1983: Christian Bernekow
1984: Anatoly Lyadov, Giovanni Sgambati, Ivan Zajc, Joham Amberg
1985: Alexander Scriabin
1986: Max Reger, Enrique Granados
1987: Scott Joplin
1988: Claude Debussy, Arrigo Boito, Cesar Cui, Rudolf Tobias
1989: Angel Gregorio Villoldo
1990: Charles Tomlinson Griffes
1991: Camille Saint-Saens
1992: Felipe Pedrell
1993: Giuseppi Gallignani, Claude Terrasse, Asger Hamerik, Tomas Breton, Camille Chevillard, Dora Pejacevic, Jeronimo Gimenez y Bellido
1994: Vicente Greco, Ferrucio Busoni, Giacomo Puccini, Eduardo Arolas, Gabriel Faure
1995: Erik Satie, Enrico Bossi, Paquita Bernardo
1996: Herman Suter, Charles Wood, Edmund Jenkins, Hans von Koessler
1997: Arpad Doppler, Wilhelm Harteveld, Wilhelm Stenhammar, Robert Fuchs, Jesse Shepard, Luise Adolpha Le Beau
1998: Leos Janacek
1999: Hendrik de Vries
2000: Leopold Auer
2001: Carl Nielsen, Vincent d'Indy, Waldemar von Baussnern
2002: John Philip Sousa
2003: Henri Duparc, Sigfrid Karg-Elert
2004: Edward Elgar, Fredericq Delius, Gustav Holst, Franz Schreker
2005: Alban Berg, Paul Dukas, Carlos Gardel, Cornelis de Wolf
2006: George Gerschwin, Alexander Glazunov, Ottorino Respighi
2007: Maurice Ravel, Karol Szymanowsky, Albert Roussel, Charles Marie Widor, Gabriel Pierne, August De Boeck
2008: 'King' Oliver, Ben Harney
2009: Charles Tournemire, Franz Schmidt, John Foulds, Jimmy Yancey
2010: Silvestre Revueltas, Jehan Alain
2011: Frank Bridge, Ignacy Paderewski, Jerry Roll Morton, Christian Sinding, Jef Denijn, Siegfried Alkan, Johan Wagenaar, Henry Walford Davies, Primo Riccitelli, Enrique Saborido, Agustin Bardi
2012: Alexander Zemlinksy, Hugo Distler. Also, this year writer James Joyce has fallen into the public domain!






Here are the years from which on the named composers will become public domain:


2013: Joseph Schillinger, Sergei Rachmaninov
2014: Cor Kint
2015: Anton Webern, Bela Bartok
2016: Manuel De Falla
2017: Alfredo Casella
2018: Ermanno Wolf Ferrari
2019: Joaquin Turina, Nikos Skalkottas, Richard Strauss
2020: Kurt Weill, Charles Koechlin
2021: Arnold Schoenberg, Enrique Santos Discepolo
2022: Fletcher Henderson, Artur Kapp
2023: Sergej Prokofjew
2024: Charles Ives (1), Nikolay Obukhov
2025: Arthur Honegger
2026: Sergei Vasilenko, Reinhold Gliere, Gustave Charpentier
2027: Jean Sibelius, Erich Korngold
2028: Joseph Holbrooke, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gerard Bunk
2029: Bohuslav Martinu, [Boguslav Martinu], George Antheil, Heitor Villa Lobos, Ernest Bloch
2030: Matthias Seiber, Jacob Van Domselaer
2031: Percy Grainger
2032: Hans Eisler, Fritz Kreisler
2033: Edith Piaf, Jacob Gade, Francis Poulenc, Tristan Tzara
2034: Alma Mahler-Werfel, George Dyson
2035: Edgar Varese, Henry Cowell, Frieso Moolenaar
2036: Arthur Lourie, Quincy Porter
2037: Soltan Kodaly [Zoltan Kodaly]
2038: Gerardo Matos Rodriguez
2039: Constantin Silvestri, Richard Maxfield
2040: Jani Christou, Andre Souris, Kees Van Baaren
2041: Igor Strawinsky, Jim Morrison
2042: Stefan Wolpe
2043: Alois Haba, Frank Zappa
2044: Harry Partch, Darius Milhaud, Rudolf Wuerthner
2045: Dmitri Sjostakowitsj, Aníbal Troilo, Herman Van San, Norbert Rosseau
2046: Walter Piston
2047: Elvis Presley
2048:
2049: Yvan Vyshnegradsky [Wiesnegradski]
2050: Louis De Meester, John Lennon
2051:
2052: Carl Orff, Tudor Ciortea
2053: Claude Vivier, Pintin Castellanos, Alberto Ginastera
2054:
2055: Giacinto Scelsi
2056:
2057: Morton Feldman
2058: Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji
2059:
2060: Aaron Copland, Julius Eastman
2061: Jean Langlais, Louis Saguer
2062: John Cage, Olivier Messiaen, Astor Piazzolla, Arthur Russell
2063: Jerry Hunt, Karel Goeyvaerts, Joe Jones
2064: Roman Haubenstock-Ramati
2065: Salvatore Martirano, Osvaldo Pugliese
2066: David Tudor, Tristan Keuris
2067: Francisco Guerrero, Jean Francais
2068: Earle Brown, Gerard Grisey, William Albright, Frank Sinatra, Ton Bruynel, Dick Higgins
2069: Huub Kerstens, Peter Cabus, Niek Verkruisen
2070: Friedrich Gulda, Barney Childs, Bengt Hambraeus
2071: Iannis Xenakis, Yoritsune Matsudaira
2072: Lou Harrison, Peter Schat, Arne Mellnas, Leo Ornstein
2073: Luciano Berio, Gofredo Petrasi
2074: Fausto Romitelli, Marius Constant
2075: Luigi Nono, Eladia Blazquez
2076: Nam Yun Paik, Lucien Goethals, Galina Oestvolskaja, Gyorgy Ligeti, James Tenney , Jacques Wildberger, Malcolm Arnold, Jan Koetsier
2077: Karlheinz Stockhausen, Hans Otte, Harald Genzmer, Giancarlo Menotti, Emmett Williams, Leroy Jenkins, Isidore Isou, Oscar Peterson
2078: Henri Chopin, Alan Strange, Bebe Barron, Tristram Cary, Henry Brant, Frank Michael Beyer, Michel Waisvisz, Mauricio Kagel, Marc Moulin, Horatio Radulescu, Josef Tal, Wannes Vandevelde, Terry Fox, Juan Pedro Blanco Rodriguez, George Brecht
2079: Andre Almuro, Charles Camilleri, Lukas Foss, Henri Pousseur, Louis Toebosch, Robert Heppener, Maryanne Amacher, Alvaro Guimaraes
2080: Frans Evers, James Brody, Franz Kamin, Johannes Fritsch, Arne Nordheim, Henryck Gorecki, Ariel Ramirez
2081: Rolf Julius, Milton Babbitt, John Barry, Aldo Clementi, Max Mathews, Daniel Charles, Hector Fiore, Stefano Scodanibbio, David Bedford, Richard Lainhart
2082: Barbara Buchholz



Footnotes:

(1) Charles Ives refused to copyright his music, insisting that anyone be able to use it, and scared off publishers by demanding that they make free copies available upon request. However, some publishers after Ives died claimed the copyright on his music! The question of user (as opposed to listener) accessibility to the recording is a bit complicated, and the answer varies from country to country. Recordings fixed before 1972 are not protected by federal copyright in the U.S., but in some cases are protected under common law and state anti-piracy statutes. Symphony #3 was published and copyrighted in 1947 by Arrow Music Press. That the copyright was assigned to the publisher instead of the composers was the result of Ives' disdain for copyright in relation to his own work, and his desire to have his music distributed as widely as possible. At first, he self-published and distributed volumes of his music free of charge. In the postscript of 114 Songs, he refers to the possessor as the "gentle borrower." Sometime following these offerings, Ives granted permission for the publication of his music in the periodical New Music with the condition that he pay all the costs.

[49410enrique]

[ahinton]

OK, you've gone to an immense amount of trouble to compile this list which will, I'm sure, be very useful to anyone with questions on such matters. There are exceptions, however; for example, much of the music written in Russia in the Soviet era may be in the public domain even though its composers have not yet been dead for 70 years. There are also exceptions in Mexico and elsewhere, so the 70-year rule, whilst now widely applicable, is not a catch-all and does not apply to all music everywhere. The moral of this is there fore tghat whoever's responsible needs to check to be absolutely certain in each case.

It's also worth bearing in mind that composers' copyrights are one thing but publishers' another - and that's a mater of especialy importance as a counter to Ives because, whatever he himself might have sought or desired in this regard, publishers still have to invest money in publishing his work.

One composer whose works are all in the public domain but who died only a decade ago is Ornstein, whose son has placed them there.

Finally, one might be forgiven for wondering if the music of Elliott Carter will ever go out of copyright; even if the composer were to die today (which God forbid!), his earliest known extant work, a setting of Joyce's My Love is in a Light Attire, will eventually come to have enjoyed copyright status for 154 years!...

Best,

Alistair

[49410enrique]

OK, you've gone to an immense amount of trouble to compile this list which will, I'm sure, be very useful to anyone with questions on such matters. There are exceptions, however; for example, much of the music written in Russia in the Soviet era may be in the public domain even though its composers have not yet been dead for 70 years. There are also exceptions in Mexico and elsewhere, so the 70-year rule, whilst now widely applicable, is not a catch-all and does not apply to all music everywhere. The moral of this is there fore tghat whoever's responsible needs to check to be absolutely certain in each case.

It's also worth bearing in mind that composers' copyrights are one thing but publishers' another - and that's a mater of especialy importance as a counter to Ives because, whatever he himself might have sought or desired in this regard, publishers still have to invest money in publishing his work.

One composer whose works are all in the public domain but who died only a decade ago is Ornstein, whose son has placed them there.

Finally, one might be forgiven for wondering if the music of Elliott Carter will ever go out of copyright; even if the composer were to die today (which God forbid!), his earliest known extant work, a setting of Joyce's My Love is in a Light Attire, will eventually come to have enjoyed copyright status for 154 years!...

Best,

Alistair

thanks so much for expanding upon that. alas though you give me far too much credit, someone much smarter than I (and with a longer attention span and more patience) put that dilley together,I simply 'repurposed' the main parts of it (i suppose i should have cited/credited but since it wasn't really an academic paper or anything like that i just let it fly and can't remember for the life of me know my source on it).

still, it is all great info and your input really helps bring the topic of discussion to the fore and gives us some important things to consider especially the composition vs. edition copyright issue, etc (i.e. somone must have invested time and money to asses and analyze and check for accuracy against acceted historical authoritative documents, etc. all of which I am learning affect the question of whether it is 'free' or not).

thanks again for the details as i know far less about this than i wish i did but i am slowly 'catching up'

[davidjosepha]

I'm hoping that next year, when Rachmaninoff goes into the public domain, we'll finally see a Henle edition...wishful thinking, I guess.