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Happy Public Domain Day: Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” Is Copyright Free
- TruffleLabs 7y agoHugh Lofting, Doctor Dolittle’s Circus is public domain! I read that (and many other Lofting books) when I was 12ish. :)
- bbanyc 7y agoThe Gershwin estate was the other big force lobbying for the 1998 copyright extension, besides Disney of course. I guess United Airlines doesn't have to pay royalties for its theme song anymore.
- cma 7y agoIs anything currently working its way through congress to extend it again? Anything we can try and get ahead of?
- slg 7y agoConsidering the public domain is up to 1924 and Steamboat Willie is from 1928, Disney is certainly going to start pushing for an extension soon if they haven't already started lobbying for specific legislation on the issue.
- cortesoft 7y agoI bet they try something different this time than just an extension... maybe some sort of "brand icon" exemption that exempts any character who is strongly associated with a brand from copyright expiration. They probably sense that continuous extension isn't going to work forever.
- PBnFlash 7y agoDisney recently released some special edition gold fish crackers with the Steamboat Willie design. They are pushing for something.
- lonelappde 7y ago"copywashing". Stealing content from the public domain by creating new copyrighted works that are substantially similar to old copyrighted works.
- anonymfus 7y agoThat would probably be a violation of Berne Convention because brands are national constructs and require registration and convention requires copyright to exists independently of national borders and without registration.
- TylerE 7y agoThat'd fall under trademark law, no?
- bbanyc 7y agoThe logo for Disney Animation before their movies is a clip of a few seconds of Steamboat Willie. I expect them to lean even more heavily on trademark protection once the copyright expires. Besides, it's not like the copyright on the old theatrical shorts is that valuable. The real interesting stuff will be in the 2030s when the feature-length films start entering the public domain...of course by that point you probably won't be able to find any non-DRM video, if current trends continue.
- bluGill 7y agoAs long as we are watching Disney won't try. Votes are more powerful than money in politics when the voters are paying attention. Thus so long as we are paying attention Disney won't try anything. If we ignore the issue though...
- WorldMaker 7y agoDisney themselves according to shareholder reports also believe that Trademark law is in a strong enough position today that they aren't officially concerned about further copyright extensions when they can use the power of Trademark lawsuits to protect their IP. The copyright term is just one moat in their strategy, and they may indeed feel (as they've told shareholders) like they've made that copyright moat big enough they can focus on the next moat.
- Ronnie76er 7y agoI remember this article from a while ago (beginning of 2018), saying the RIAA and MPAA was not actively pursuing anything to extend it again: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/01/hollywood-says-its-not-planning-another-copyright-extension-push/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/01/hollywood-says-i... I didn't see anything refuting that in a short look around, but maybe that's changed.
- Donald 7y agoBeginning of 2018? Later that same year the CLASSICS Act was signed into law, which extended copyright for many older recordings to 144 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLASSICS_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLASSICS_Act
- pkaye 7y agoSeems like the EU preceded the US in this copyright extension and the pressure was on the US to harmonize per terms of the Berne convention. I wonder why the EU increased the copyright terms Disney was the main lobbying force? > After the United States' accession to the Berne convention, a number of copyright owners successfully lobbied the U.S. Congress for another extension of the term of copyright, to provide for the same term of protection that exists in Europe. Since the 1993 Directive on harmonising the term of copyright protection, member states of the European Union implemented protection for a term of the author's life plus seventy years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act
- lonelappde 7y ago"Harmonization" is PR propaganda for corporate interests. "Harmonization" is a rachet that gives cover to corrupt politicians extending copyright for one nation under cover of another's action. It's also a sick irony that the word "harmonization" is used to mean "preventing music from being played".
- incompatible 7y agoThe Berne convention doesn't go beyond lifetime + 50 years.
- lern_too_spel 7y agoThe Berne convention means that the US must respect copyrights held by authors in other countries according to the copyright laws in those other countries. If authors in other countries get longer copyright protection, their works can be monetized longer, leading to a trade imbalance in IP. Countries with laws that offer shorter copyright protection will be incentivized to increase the duration of copyright protection as a result.
- incompatible 7y agoNo, I believe it means that the US must protect copyrights of qualifying foreign works under its own laws. This is lex loci protectionis. A foreign work may even be expired in its own country, but still protected in the US if the US provides longer terms. The US doesn't actually have to do that, but it hasn't implemented the "rule of the shorter term".
- ggm 7y agoKing porter stomp! (*composed by Jelly Roll Morton) Mind you, I like the Benny Goodman version better and it's still bound in ipr
- lifeisstillgood 7y agoSo, just intellectual curiosity, is there a software program that could accept the original notes (arrangement?) for Rhapsody in Blue and produce a passable rendition that I could then use on my (non existent) YouTube documentary and I would not have to pay Gherswin nor an orchestra for the audio recording? I think I am looking for a whirlwind tour of audio copyright
- wolfgang42 7y agoYes, a MIDI synthesizer can take the score and convert it to audio. (The discerning ear—or even an untrained one, if it's a poor quality sythesizer—could tell the difference between that and a live orchestra, of course, but that may not be a concern for you.) However, unless you transcribed the original sheet music to MIDI yourself, the file may constitute an “original work” for which there is a separate copyright[0], in which case you'd still need an appropriate license for that. You'd also want to make sure that the sound fonts the synthesizer is using are OK as well. Now that the original work is in the public domain, though, I would expect that sooner or later there will be a CC-licensed version of it on Wikimedia Commons or the YouTube Audio Library, and you may want to just wait for that. [0]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikilegal/MIDI_Files https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikilegal/MIDI_Files
- daniel_iversen 7y agoYou can apparently use real recorded instrument sounds with midi and music software, it’s used for professional artists too and some of the “instruments” are many GBs in size - don’t think a living soul could tell the difference.
- squeaky-clean 7y agoIt depends on how much effort you put into the midi transcription, but a trained musician could probably still tell the difference, especially during the transitions in between notes, and certain dynamics. Some sample libraries go as far as to record entire phrases played by a musician but then you're limited to what musical phrases those recordings include and how they were played (pitch shifting has gotten very good, but let's say you want a violin melody to sound softer, or plucked instead of bowed). Instruments where notes/hits are isolated from other notes/hits like a piano or drumkit work wonderfully with sample libraries. But things like a guitar, violin, or trombone are still challenges. Even the orchestral libraries that are hundreds of gigs and thousands of dollars don't get it perfectly on their own. You definitely can make recordings that trick a trained musician, but not without tons of effort customizing your midi transcription to that specific sample library and you may have to compromise and avoid certain techniques that still don't translate to sampling well. This is just talking about trained musicians though. Taking a midi transcription of something, spending 10 minutes adjusting velocity, and then loading up some EastWest samples would probably fool the average person. Also quick edit but many people would consider something using samples of recorded instruments to still be a midi synthesizer because you're synthesizing a performance from samples, as opposed to recording entire phrases or even longer sections with a real musician and then arranging samples to create a recording. Not everyone would agree, but I'd guess the original commenter also had sample software in mind along with more traditional electronic synthesizers.
- zozbot234 7y agoMore about Public Domain Day 2020 in the U.S.: https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2020/ https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2020/ (discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21926233 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21926233 )
- jancsika 7y agoGershwin's original version, or the version everyone knows that was arranged by Grofe? If it's only the original version, it'd be kind of fun to see AA start using that instead. IIRC it's got an extra piano in the rhythm section and a banjo chugging away, too.
- aaron695 7y agoI get it's a principal thing but in a era of sequel/remake/reboot people being happy about the ability do it even more is pretty messed up. Are we really running out of song writers? I don't want more Mickey Mouse. It's destroyed enough culture as it is.
- wolfgang42 7y agoThe thing about remakes and sequels is that they're being done by the copyright owners, who are generally trying to play it at least somewhat safe and milk the IP for all it's worth. Once a work falls out of copyright, anyone can do whatever they like with it. Yes, there's likely to be a lot of drivel, but there's also an opportunity for new and creative things, some of which may be considered even better than the original work. (See fan fiction/fan art for examples of this sort of thing happening now, with varying degrees of legality.)
- giantrobot 7y agoOr, you know, most of Disney's feature length animated features.
- fortran77 7y agoI don't understand. What's a "principal thing?"
- JJMcJ 7y agoI would assume you might say "as a matter of principle", but that's just my guess.
- phendrenad2 7y agoJust googled Rhapsody in Blue and this interesting related story came up: Gershwin's Family Doesn't Want Rappers Sampling "Rhapsody in Blue" https://www.popdust.com/public-domain-2020-2643146445.html https://www.popdust.com/public-domain-2020-2643146445.html
- shmerl 7y ago> 95 years This term is insane. It should be rolled back to something sensible.
- incompatible 7y agoYes, but it's not as bad as it gets. That's the date from publication. Unpublished works get 120 years. More recent works get lifetime + 70 years, which can be far longer.
- fortran77 7y agoThis will save United Airlines a _lot_ of money!
- imjustsaying 7y agoAs an American public school student who was forced to listen to this arrangement in multiple music and history classes, over the years I've begun to find this startling and anxiety-producing piece suspect on multiple levels. The copyright squabble is kind of funny though, they just couldn't help themselves.
- lamby 7y ago> over the years I've begun to find this startling and anxiety-producing piece suspect on multiple levels As an amateur string player, the opening triggers me in that there is invariably one blow-hard clarinetist playing the glissando opening too loudly whilst everyone is warming up their instruments prior to tuning. Just.. yeah, we get it, please shut up. :(
- herodotus 7y agoThe music is in the public domain, but the copyright status of recordings of music in the US is very complex. For example: "In 2005 the landmark case of Capitol v. Naxos pitted a distributor of 1930s foreign classical recordings (Naxos) against the putative holder of the U.S. rights to those recordings. The judges of the New York State Court of Appeals ruled against Naxos, but they used the opportunity to go much further than that. They declared that since New York State had not passed explicit statutes dealing with recording copyright, it was in fact governed by “common law” (i.e., law declared by judges in their rulings). In their opinion sound recording copyright in New York derived from the laws of seventeenth-century English kings. It was absolute and perpetual. The rights holders have all rights, forever, and the public has none." (Capitol Records, Inc., v. Naxos of America, Inc., 830 N.E. 2d 250 (N.Y. App. 2005).) See: https://recordingcopyright.org/pdf/AMuscop_fnl.pdf https://recordingcopyright.org/pdf/AMuscop_fnl.pdf Therefore, it is illegal to copy and distribute an old recording of Rhapsody in Blue if the recording was made in the US.
- lonelappde 7y agoAh, New York Court of Appeals. Where can I buy a copy 17th Century English sound recording? And since this is common law, why haven't any other courts given their own alternate common law? Deferring to English law is bizarre, considering that the Constitution was written specifically to replace English law, including a specific Copyright clause, and backed by a war against England.
- HeWhoLurksLate 7y agoHas me wondering, too. What?
- herodotus 7y agoMy understanding is that copyright of US sound recordings are governed at the state rather than federal level. Say you wanted to create an App or website for classic early recordings - you would have to get permission from all 50 states plus DC, and other territories in oder to proceed! Good luck with that. However, recordings made in Europe prior to 1961 are in the public domain. In 2011, EU copyright was extended from 50 years to 70 years, but this did not apply to any recording that was already in the public domain.
- BelleOfTheBall 7y agoThe cool thing about this for me is that list of the 'worst of 1924'. It highlights that we're trying to preserve ALL media. Not the best of the best, not some cherry-picked list made up by a bunch of critics. Every single flat comedy, ever unoriginal love song, every boring book, it's all being preserved, if found. Because even bad art matters and, besides, it's not bad to everyone. It's important to keep this attitude for the upcoming years of works, where there'll be much more stuff to save. Let's not just take care of Hitchcock's and Chaplin's and so on. Ed Woods of the world deserve remembrance as well.
- lonelappde 7y agoThere is a difference between bad (which may be interesting) and boring. As good as production tools and archival media get, human attention is finite. It does no good to drown in dross. Remembering everything is a curse, and leads to madness in the humans who have a memory disability and cannot forget even their own personal last.
- est31 7y agoI agree with you that at the individual level, forgetting things is important for sanity and wellbeing. When it comes to the culture of a country though, I don't think we should only preserve what we currently consider interesting. The purpose of an archive is to preserve things which may become interesting in the future. Consider a society of philosophers, poets and artists who create amazing pieces of art. Then, consider a change in that society where the populace is more interested in horse races instead. Now all their writings become about horse races, the biographies of those horse racers, etc. They dismiss the old stuff as uninteresting. Should they destroy the books written by those philosophers and instead recycle the paper for printing stories about racing horses onto it? For us in the future, such a destruction would be quite sad. It would be silly to assume that we don't have present biases either. Maybe back then, everyone was familiar with the poets so there was no need to preserve their art as everyone already knew it. And why teach it to children when they are more interested in horse races? Many archaeologic sites have been visited by pillagers again and again over the centuries (continues until today [1]). What are they taking? The interesting stuff they can sell. Too often, only the "boring" stuff remains to contemporary archaeologists. How happy they are when they find a receipt written into a clay tablet! For decades, no piece of Bach was performed publicly. Now he's considered as one of the greatest musicians of all times. People could have tossed away his manuscripts as uninteresting yet they didn't. Another example is how many scenes of the Metropolis movie were cut during distribution and the original version only survived thanks to an Argentinian museum. It gets even worse when political or religious arguments come into play. Greek art was considered heathen lore and only survived thanks to muslims preserving it. Mayan books were burned by missionaries. IS has been bombing many ancient sites it had control over. All these folks consider the stuff they destroy to be harmful and uninteresting. After all, a good muslim is only interested in qran, a good christian only in the bible. Fortunately we at least preserve the writings of the past centuries that we consider politically incorrect today instead of destroying them, but there are stories of british archives even in the present day "misplacing" evidence of crimes committed during colonization. [1]: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-21/egypts-3-billion-dollar-smuggling-problem/10388394 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-21/egypts-3-billion-doll...
- JoeyJoJoJunior 7y agoAre his prior compositions also Copyright free?
- dehrmann 7y agoTake that, United! But seriously, their marketing team for the past 30 years deserve mad props for making this song synonymous with United. I can't name many brands with songs as associated with them as this.
- Rochus 7y agoThe copyright in this case is a joke anyway because Gershwin died very young and childless, so the right people didn't benefit from it anyway. Now we can at least perform the work without stuffing any publishers and collecting societies with unearned money.
- elfexec 7y agoIf I'm understanding this correctly, something that was created in 1924 was still copyright protected until 2020? Nearly 100 years of copyright - most of it under the family of the creator who died in 1937? How can it be legal? At what point can we say it is bad for society and hinders creativity and art? Honestly, isn't it purely rent seeking at a certain point?
- incompatible 7y agoThe US Supreme Court said it's fine as long as Congress only extends copyright for a "limited time". Anything less than infinity is "limited". * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldred_v._Ashcroft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldred_v._Ashcroft
- chrismcb 7y agoYour understanding is correct. And this is the point that we can say it is bad for society. The Constitution says "a limited time" and that time should be relatively short. I'm saying 25 years. Perhaps you can extend it for a large fee. But currently the limit is 95 years longer than the average human life. While it is limited, it is unlimited as far as a person goes, and in my opinion goes against the spirit of the Constitution. Problem is, people with more money than me say otherwise.
- tony 7y agoI thought today would the public domain day for the Wilhelm-Baynes translation of the Yi Jing (Book of Changes). According to https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/public-domain/welcome/ https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/public-domain/welcome/, no. The first edition was published 1950. I hear two different stories. It's 70 years after date of publishing, other times it's 70 years after date of the last surviving author. But - the translator Cary F Baynes, died 1977. https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/32102443?q&versionId=38994288 https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/32102443?q&versionId=38994288 Does that mean Jan 1st, 2048 is the year the book would be public domain? Aside: Cary F. Baynes was a student of Carl Jung. I didn't know that until now. Jung did a preface to the english translation of Wilhelm's Yi Jing.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- thenewnewguy 7y agoNeither of those answers are right because it was published in 1950. For works published in 1950 the copyright was 28 years, and if the copyright was renewed with the US Copyright Office they got another 67 years. This leaves two possibilities: The copyright holder didn't renew, in which case the work already is (and has been for awhile) in the public domain. The copyright holder did renew, and the copyright lasts until 2045.
- mikorym 7y agoThis is probably one of the best representative songs from the Jazz era. It is to me kind of like the "soundtrack before soundtracks". Music from the 1920s to 1940s are largely lost on anyone today (below the age of 80). But I have to say that there are some true gems from that time. My grandmother had handwritten sheet music for something like 8–10 folios of at least 30 songs each of music from that time. (None were as difficult as Rhapsody in Blue though.) The melodies from that time are very delicate and well thought out.
- kristopolous 7y agoSherlock jr is mentioned in the lede, go watch it, really, it's good.
- dogweather 7y agoAnybody know of public domain piano sheet music? I think it'll be hard to find: Any arrangments made after 1924 will be protected works.
- zozbot234 7y agohttps://imslp.org/wiki/Rhapsody_in_Blue_(Gershwin%2C_George) https://imslp.org/wiki/Rhapsody_in_Blue_(Gershwin%2C_George) scroll down to For Piano (Gershwin) and make sure to choose an edition that's not copywritten in the U.S.
- ljw1001 7y agoThis is terrible. With this kind of weak copyright protection killing his financial incentives, I guess we kiss goodbye the chance that Gershwin will create anymore musical works for us.