IMSLP Forums

In light of today's bloodbath - where I had to delete a fair number of Gershwin titles due to copyright violations, I thought the following might be worth a mention:

1. For songs, don't forget the lyricist's dates. George Gershwin's older brother Ira lived until 1983, to give a single example.

2. Transcriptions by others - like Ferde Grofe (d. 1972), Artis Wodehouse (still alive) are still under copyright, even if Gershwin's original is free in Canada (and soon to be in the EU - on Jan. 1 of next year).

3. There are a number of Gershwin items that were not published until long after he died. In Canada, such items are protected for 50 years after the date of first publication.

An article written in 2015 on the UK-based site scoreexchange.com http://www.scoreexchange.com/help/notab ... e-gershwin goes into detail about the issues, including the lack of absolute clarity, in the EU especially since the Amendments in 2011 to the EU copyright directive (2006/116/EC) http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/cop ... dex_en.htm

It suggests that co-written pieces like The Man I Love would no longer be PD in the EU since 2011 because of Ira's death in 1983.

That's a very strange interpretation. The term in the EU is life plus 70 years of the last surviving contributor. 1983 plus 70 years = January 1, 2054. How they came up with 2011 is quite a mystery. A work with text by Ira first published before 1923 in the US might be free in some EU states, but that's it. They would have been free since 1998 as that's when the law froze things in the USA.

The year 2011 is just the date that the amendment was made. Since that date one assumes that some sheet music in the EU has gone from PD back into copyright to comply with the amendment.
Is The Man I Love piano solo by George Gershwin valid as PD in the EU after all?

I know the piece has been on the IMSLP site since 2007 in George Gershwin's Songbook http://imslp.org/wiki/George_Gershwin's ... _George%29
and since 2011 on its own http://imslp.org/wiki/The_Man_I_Love_%2 ... _George%29

But why is this? Obviously no one who holds the rights for it has forced it down from IMSLP. Is this because the sheet music was first published as piano solo arrangement in the USA, thus the co-writer Ira is no longer acknowledged for that arrangement and this also carries over the EU?

You will note that the song itself is not on the page - only instrumental arrangements. The text by Ira is not to be found.