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Stravinsky - Rite of Spring Manuscripts

Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2021 5:40 pm
by Oboeboy
Since I'm on the topic of learning more about copyright, I thought I would ask about this one, too:

For the centennial of the premiere of Rite of Spring, Boosey released a facsimile edition of handwritten full and piano reduction scores in his and his copyists handwriting. I borrowed a copy of this from my university's library a long while back, but now I'm curious the copyright limitations here--especially for scanning and uploading.

Obviously: Rite of Spring is public domain in the US. And one could argue that this is a new edition published by Boosey in 2013 would not be--since I'm sure they intended to make a profit on it. But it was also published posthumously, so wouldn't these manuscripts, even if they were scanned and published by Boosey still be under public domain? Can copyright extensions be bought and made on manuscripts? Is there a difference between a manuscript and a published scan of a manuscript? Obviously no real changes/corrections, etc. were performed on the manuscripts for release, so would it just be a reprint of a public domain piece?

My head is spinning. Copyright law is weird...hahaha

Taylor

Re: Stravinsky - Rite of Spring Manuscripts

Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2021 1:11 pm
by Melodia
The fact they 'intended to make profit on it' has no bearing on if something is PD or not. The beauty of PD is that ANYONE is allowed to profit off it.

Re: Stravinsky - Rite of Spring Manuscripts

Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2021 4:06 pm
by Oboeboy
Melodia wrote: Sat Jan 23, 2021 1:11 pm The fact they 'intended to make profit on it' has no bearing on if something is PD or not. The beauty of PD is that ANYONE is allowed to profit off it.
Very good point.