IMSLP Forums

http://imslp.org/wiki/IMSLP:Copyright_Made_Simple says: A work first published after the death of the last surviving author/editor/librettist is subject to copyright protection of at least 25 years after first publication.

What is the upper limit? Isn't there an error? Is it distinct from an Urtext edition?

Has to do with authors whos works were never published during their lifetime, hence "Posthumous Works".

Yes. At least the work I am interested on.

coulonnus wrote:What is the upper limit? Isn't there an error? Is it distinct from an Urtext edition?

details are provided here.

Thank. I'll add a see also link to your page into the copyrignt_made_simple page.

This rule primarily applies to the EU and countries whose copyright laws are inspired by those of the EU. Thanks to the Motezuma decision of 2005, the person or entity making the claim basically has to prove the item was never copied or distributed before. There is no limitation on the age of the item but the older something is the more difficult it becomes to prove no publication (used here in the strict legal definition) took place.

Canada has a version of editio princeps as well but the bar is even higher. Although the term is 50 years, authors who died before 1949 are not eligible at all, and for those who died 1949 and later the work cannot have been "performed, recorded, broadcast or delivered" before. The 50 clock starts running with the first incidence of any of the above. As you can imagine, those cases are quite rare.

The US, as usual, is chaos. Items first published between 1923 and 1977 are potentially protected for 95 years from publication date, while those first published betwen 1978 and 2002 are posibly protected until 2048. As of January 1, 2003 all unpublished works of authors dead over 70 years entered the US public domain, so all such works of those who died in 1946 entered the public domain on January 1 of this year.

Carolus wrote:This rule primarily applies to the EU and countries whose copyright laws are inspired by those of the EU. Thanks to the Motezuma decision of 2005, the person or entity making the claim basically has to prove the item was never copied or distributed before. There is no limitation on the age of the item but the older something is the more difficult it becomes to prove no publication (used here in the strict legal definition) took place.

Then if the item is a manuscript from ca. 1600 in a cathedral or monastery library, we can guess a number of readers have consulted it, copied it and made public performances thereof in the past years. Then the publisher of the 20th C. edition we find now can't claim anything?