[URGENT] List of composers affected by GATT/TRIPS

[imslp]

IMSLP will be filing an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court case Golan v. Holder, which challenges copyright restoration via GATT/TRIPS as unconstitutional. A group of Harvard Law School students supervised by Professor Charles Nesson will be representing IMSLP.

However, they need the help of IMSLP copyright reviewers. In particular, they would like a list of composers who were affected by the copyright restoration, which we can include in the brief.

Unfortunately there was a misunderstanding regarding the deadline for filing. The original deadline given to us by the clerk of the Supreme Court was August 10th, but that has now accelerated to June 20th, hence the urgency.

[KGill]

I am not at all certain Stravinsky would be included in this - since he emigrated permanently (well, except for the 1962 visit) from Russia before 1923, the only editions that would be freed by a victory for our side in this case would be those Muzyka published in the 1970s and 1980s of earlier works. In other words, I would imagine nothing of his was originally published by the Soviet government, and so would be dependent on the copyright status of the European or American publications anyway.
Other composers that most likely would be affected by this: (partial list only, there must be hundreds more)
-Sergey Prokofiev (1891-1953)
-Aram Khachaturyan (1903-1978)
-Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
-Grigory Krein (1879-1955)
-Vladimir Deshevov (1889-1955)
-Gavriil Popov (1904-1972)
-Aleksandr Mosolov (1900-1973)
-Alexander Goedicke (1877-1957)
-Mikhail Gnesin (1883-1957)
-Galina Ustvolskaya (1919-2006)? (at least some of her works were published by the USSR)
-Oleg Eiges (1905-1992)
-Sergei Protopopov (1893-1954)
-Alexander Goldenweiser (1875-1961)
-Anatoly Alexandrov (1888-1962)
-Boris Lyatoshynsky (1895-1968)
-Samuil Feinberg (1890-1962)

Just wondering, Feldmahler - do you think this case will prompt a closer look at some of those NIE filings in the late '90s? For instance, PWM filed an NIE for a bunch of their Chopin editions, none of which were even subject to copyright in Poland by 1996, much less the US. The same may well apply to other Soviet satellite government publications (Supraphon et al.).

[Carolus]

That's an excellent list KGill. I would add that Stravinsky is indeed afflicted by GATT. There were quite a few works from the 1920s which were free in the USA because of Stravinsky's citizenship status (technically Russia/USSR until 1931). Sibelius' Symphony No.6 is locked up thanks to GATT (previously available from Kalmus) along with the sad case of Nikolai Myaskovsky (1881-1950) whose work was at least somewhat available back in the pre-GATT days and is now mostly unavailable. There's also Reinhold Glière (1875-1956), some of whose most famous works (The Red Poppy, for example) are likewise now locked up. Let's not forget Dmitri Kabalevsky (1904-1987) and Georgy Sviridov (1915-1998) either.

[Eric]

Myaskovsky's case may also be complicated by all the revision history, with early works often really being later versions of earlier works (to be confusingly brief about it), but I suspect that's the slightest part of it and that the decision to publish a selection of his work in a Selected Works edition in the years soon after his death may have been a larger part - etc. (though that did have the positive advantage of making his work more available through libraries that purchased the edition, not denying; just thinking of the consequences for this issue, pardon grammar. I am not sure I know that of which I speak- as usual! And hope to learn.)

[imslp]

Excellent posts!

The Harvard team asks us to give facts to prove Myaskovsky's decline (i.e. what publications was available before GATT that is not available now).

[KGill]

Well, that shouldn't be too hard - there are three NIE listings available from copyright.gov:
-1 - Opp.3, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 30, 31, 32, 37, 39, 44, 46, 48, 51, 54, 63, 66, 69, 71, 85
-2 - Opp.10, 14, 17, 33, 34, 35, 36, 41, 42, 47, 49, 50, 53, 55, 56, 57, 59, 61, 62, 64, 67, 68, 70, 73, 74, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 86
-3 - selections from Op.4
I note that a pretty decent amount of these were published before 1923 and thus should have been ineligible for an NIE filing...

[Eric]

with Myaskovsky, that depends on the version. it's pretty rare to turn up a score of the first version of the opus 12 cello sonata (the version we have at IMSLP is the challenged 2nd version, near as I can tell, likewise for op13 and several other early but later signif. revised works) (neither version of the opus 3 symphony, I think, was published before 1923 though the first was written in 1908, and the later version, in the case of op3, was really significantly different...), and the later version (iirc, may be using a bad example off the top of my head) differs significantly enough that copyright revision in the 1940s was warranted; and when the 1950s collected (not complete) works came out, there were all those prefaces and perhaps minor editing (this last I doubt- I suspect the earlier scores were just reprinted within, but suspect is the key word, I guess), that depending on how loose the copyright law requirements were for renewal - etc.
Erf, I need to write that more clearly. There's a recentish book on Myaskovsky's symphonies translated into German, I gather, which I haven't read but which may cover this in sufficient detail - van Rijen's Myaskovsky page is imperfect but better than I am on these points though doesn't always mention publication dates that sometimes need to be sought elsewhere (the Wikipedia dates on the symphony pages when there are any - eg that on symphony 1 - sometimes have this information)
anyhow, that list contains a lot of material which was sort of published before 1923- but basically, as I understand it, not really, for the reasons above.

[imslp]

Very interesting. Are there specific examples of publications (e.g. Kalmus, Dover) of Myaskovsky that were pulled because of GATT?

[daphnis]

As far as I can tell, and I could be overlooking something, all of Myaskovsky's works were only published by the Russian government (i.e., Muzyka). I found no reference of any of his works having been published or reprinted by either Kalmus, Dover, or other notable reprinters.

[vinteuil]

Partly due to his being relatively lesser-known until recently.

[Carolus]

Here's a small number hit list I found searching under Kalmus imprints:

Symphony No.1, Op.3
Serenata, Op.32 No.1
Sinfonietta in B minor, Op.32 No.2
Symphony No.11, Op.34
Symphony no. 21 in F minor, Op.51
Symphony no. 22, Op.54
Symphony No.27, Op.85 (1949-50)

The only item presently available of his at Sheet Music Plus is:

Military March No.1
in a reprint from Kalmus - apparently a 'theater-orchestra' type of arrangement for
1, 1, 2, 1 - 2, 2, 1, 0, perc, strs, pf-cond score
(guess they didn't file an NIE for that one)

[Carolus]

Another great example I can think of is the full ballet score for Prokofiev's Romeo & Juliet. This was once available from Kalmus (my copy is presently with Daphnis) but is now unavailable anywhere (except on rental from Schirmer, at the going rate of two arms, a leg, and any future children). I think you can purchase a piano reduction for the ballet - for around 100 USD.

[imslp]

Carolus, do you happen to have the exact pricing for the Schirmer rental of Romeo & Juliet?

[daphnis]

Anything less than one million dollars would be charity

[Carolus]

Rental fees are variable - a small, community orchestra will typically pay less than an organization like the NYC Ballet. They are also charged per performance. While I am not privy to G. Schirmer's rates for Romeo & Juliet, I recall some posts a few years ago on Orchestralist, a mailing list comprised mainly of smaller community and regional orchestras, mentioning fees of around $750-1000 per performance. Opera rentals are similar. When I was working as US agent for Baerenreiter back in the 1980s, it was not uncommon for us to charge the Metropolitan Opera $35,000 to $50,000 for a run of performances of the Mozart operas using material from the Neue Mozart Ausgabe. Those kind of fees went down abruptly (to about one tenth) when the Met's lawyers called up with their chief librarian to point out that the NMA score of Idomeneo was essentially a re-engraving of the old Breitkopf score reprinted by Kalmus. The prospect of a direct legal challenge to their copyright claims on the critical editions caused the powers in Kassel to blink. I have heard tales of rental fees in excess of $100,000 for operas by composers like Britten, John Adams, Philip Glass.

I would not be at all surprised if Schimer is charging tens of thousands for a run of performances of Romeo & Juliet by a professional ballet company. In an era when numerous orchestras and other performing organizations are suffering reduced budgets and even going bankrupt, the so-called "restoration" of works like the above render them unaffordable by anyone but the largest groups. Back when scores and parts were available for sale as reprints, $2500 would have provided all the material you could conceivably need - for an unlimited number of performances. The argument one encounters that such copyright protections encourage the creation of new works is particularly nonsensical in the case of composers like Prokofiev, who will not be creating any new works on this planet for the forseeable future.