Use music for website

[greaterd]

I searched and failed to find information on these posts. What process do I need to follow in order to legally use Pachelbel's - Canon in D on a website?

Thanks for your help in advance.

[Carolus]

What exactly do you mean by "use on a website"? A score? A recording? This is sort of a complicated case, so I'll give a little background.

Pachelbel's original work was first published (facsimile of the manuscript) in 1918. The most widely performed version is the edition (with continuo realization) by Max Seiffert (1868-1948) published in 1929 by Kistner & Siegel - posted here at IMSLP. Normally, a score with a continuo realization would be subject to a full life (of the editor)-plus-70 term in the EU. However, this score might fall under the urtext provision of the copyright law in Germany despite the presence of Seiffert's realization in the score and thus be public domain there. I've noticed a few editions with continuo realizations - all over 25 years old - posted over at the Munich State Library. Perhaps someone really well-versed in the German law could enlighten us as to what exactly constitutes an urtext edition under the law's definition. The Seiffert score was published without notice and thus entered the USA public domain upon its distribution in the USA (1929 or 1930). The edition entered Canada's public domain no later than 1/1/1999.

The copyright was not restored under the GATT/TRIPs provisions of the US law - possibly because it was already PD in Germany (see above), or because the copyright claimant failed to file an NIE in the required amount of time (2 years). Kalmus still has the work in print, so its a reasonably safe bet that it is public domain in the USA. The 1918 facsimile is absolutely public domain in the USA - probably the rest of the world as well.

As for a recording of the piece, recordings have their own copyright. You therefore cannot have a copy of a sound file (recording) on your site unless you have permission from the copyright owner of the recording. There are unlikely to be any public domain recordings because the piece did not become popular until the 1960s.

[Lyle Neff]

An alternative to make use of a sound recording would be to create a MIDI file based on a PD edition of the score (or use Pachelbel's 4 written parts and add your own continuo), record the MIDI playback as audio, and use that sound file.

[Yagan Kiely]

Or, the best option is to not use any audio at all. Audio on a website is the most annoying thing - thank god for web 2.0.