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https://tomlehrersongs.com/ https://tomlehrersongs.com/ I, Tom Lehrer, individually and as trustee of the Tom Lehrer Trust 2007, hereby grant the following per
by jakedata 1y ago
https://tomlehrersongs.com/ https://tomlehrersongs.com/
I, Tom Lehrer, individually and as trustee of the Tom Lehrer Trust 2007, hereby grant the following permissions:
All copyrights to lyrics or music written or composed by me have been permanently and irrevocably relinquished, and therefore such songs are now in the public domain. All of my songs that have never been copyrighted, having been available for free for so long, are now also in the public domain. In other words, I have abandoned, surrendered and disclaimed all right, title and interest in and to my work and have injected any and all copyrights into the public domain.
The permission granted includes all lyrics which I have written to music by others, although the music to such parodies, if copyrighted by their composers, are of course not included without permission of their copyright owners. The translated songs on this website may be found on YouTube in their original languages.
Performing and recording rights to all of my songs are included in this permission. Translation rights are also included.
In particular, permission is hereby granted to anyone to set any of these lyrics to their own music, or to set any of this music to their own lyrics, and to publish or perform their parodies or distortions of these songs without payment or fear of legal action.
Some recording, movie, and television rights to songs written by me are merely licensed non-exclusively by me to recording, movie, or TV companies. All such rights are now released herewith and therefore do not require any permission from me or from Maelstrom Music, which is merely me in another hat, nor from the recording, movie, or TV companies involved.
In short, I no longer retain any rights to any of my songs.
So help yourselves, and don’t send me any money.
NOTICE:
THIS WEBSITE WILL BE SHUT DOWN AT SOME DATE IN THE NOT TOO DISTANT FUTURE, SO IF YOU WANT TO DOWNLOAD ANYTHING, DON’T WAIT TOO LONG.
Tom Lehrer
November 26, 2022
- jcalvinowens 1y agoI made a git archive of everything a little over a year ago: https://github.com/jcalvinowens/tomlehrer-archive https://github.com/jcalvinowens/tomlehrer-archive You can help out by hosting a copy somewhere!
- reactordev 1y agoDoing the lords work… It’s sad that these things will eventually be lost to centralization and digital aging. Make physical copies as well. How long does the USB standard last? Think about the music that has been lost to time/death/natural disaster/RIAA
- weinzierl 1y agoAren't his songs owned by a label? Did he really keep all the rights, so he was able to do what the text above says? If not, do we know which subset of his work is free? EDIT: His Wikipedia page lists the following labels: - TransRadio - Lehrer - Reprise/Warner Bros. - Rhino/Atlantic - Shout! Factory - Needlejuice Records His sheet music was published by Crown Publishers Inc. His public domain dedication is a noble gesture, but legally it probably doesn't mean much.
- SoftTalker 1y agoSounds like maybe he self-published: "All such rights are now released herewith and therefore do not require any permission from me or from Maelstrom Music, which is merely me in another hat"
- justin66 1y agoHis work was self-published.
- AStonesThrow 1y ago[dead]
- walterbell 1y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24833683#24834514 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24833683#24834514 > As a souvenir for [his graduate student friends], Lehrer decided in 1953 to make a record of the songs he had written at Harvard. He recorded Songs by Tom Lehrer in one session at Trans Radio studios in Boston on a 10-inch LP.. bought the rights to the record from Trans Radio, and began selling it by mail order.. By 1954.. he had sold 10,000 records.. By the end of the decade, he had sold 370,000 records.
- smugma 1y agoSongs are never owned by labels, only recordings. The songs aka compositions/lyrics may be controlled by publishers
- jama211 1y agoThat’s awesome, more people should do this
- knorker 1y agoThat was… abundantly clear. We are thankful.