Status of Unauthorized Publications

[Allan]

I've been reading "Selim Palmgren, His Life and Work", Barbara Blanchard Hong's doctorate dissertation (1977 Indiana University), and just came across an interesting paragraph on page 99.

"Arriving in New York, they were greeted by journalists from Musical Courier and Musical America. It appeared that Palmgren's compositions were already well-known in America because both the Boston Music Co. and G. Schirmer had published many Finnish compositions which had no copyright mark. Some time later, Palmgren tried to fight this in court, but lost his case."

So, it appears that the editions of Palmgren, and other Finnish composers, published by Boston Music Co. and G. Schirmer were unauthorized. I curious as to what effect, if any, that has on the copyright status of those editions?

[Carolus]

None at all for anything published before 1929, since Finland had no copyright relations with the USA before that year. This is also why one encounters "Edited by Julia A. Burt" on a number of Sibelius scores issued before 1929. It was an attempt to secure protection in the USA by listing an American as "editor."

P.S.: This is for the USA status only, as everything published before 1960 is already free in Canada (as mentioned below by Daphnis).

[daphnis]

Palmgren is already public domain in Canada, so those works published in the US with faulty or no copyright indications would only be public domain there. And even then, I seem to remember that they caught their mistake and later correctly printed them. If that's the case, the status of his works would have to be determined on a case-by-case basis to examine the title pages.