understanding the reprint copyright of parts etc

[Steve Martin]

Hi to the Forum,

I've recently being downloading a lot of the Bach Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe scores which are definitely Public Domain, I've been importing these into Nueratron Photoscore, and editing, and then sending to Sibelius to edit further, to make scores to playback so I can listen and hear the orchestration and study etc.

However, there are times where I've seen a publisher has published parts of a previously public domain score as a "reprint". If I use these pdf's that are reprinted [some as late as in the 1970's] because they are scans of earlier public domain scores, are they still in the public domain? I know it says they are PD, but how do you really know? What is the law about this? It's just that some of these parts are much "clearer: in quality making it easier for photoscore to read them and edit them as they have fewer mistakes in the reading due to their quality and the largeness of the notes in comparison to a full orchestral or miniature score. It would be great to use these but I just want to make sure my conscience is clear in doing so.


As for the Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe scores, there is a lot of typeset scores with creative licences such as 3 or 4.0 etc, of the same scores where the licence permits you to use and re-adapt the score. I'm not interested in using any of these for commercial use, but they'd be easier to use in Photoscore due to their typesetting, as they would be read very fast.

However, if I "learn" something great from these scores now playing back in my Sibelius notation program, and use ideas from them for my own orchestrations and compositions, do I have to acknowledge somehow, if I publish a composition, that my skills were due to my use of these particular creative commons licence scores in my study? I suppose it would be like Beethoven acknowledging on the front of his scores that he learned such and such skills from studying and making reductions etc of a Mozart opera etc.

I'm not using their actual typeset scores by readapting them, but using them as a learning tool. I just thought I would ask as I find these creative common licences a little confusing if they are not Creative commons Zero licences [or public domain as they say].

I also have some scores now playing back in my notation programs really well with Noteperformer 3. Would imslp be interested in me submitting any of these scores as .sib or .xml files for people to download and use?

thanks,

Steve Martin
Australia

[Sallen112]

As stated here: https://imslp.org/wiki/Public_domain#Reprint_Editions

Reprint editions of publications that are in public domain are not subject to copyright in Canada, the USA, the EU, and most (if not all) of the world. No copyright can be claimed on the scanning of a public domain work regardless of whether the original scanned is in printed or manuscript form.

Basically its all about the engraving itself that was done at the time, when you do a brand new engraving, then that engraving has its own copyright from the editor that made it. Although their is now an exception to this rule in the case of if you did an 99% (or as close to) identical faithful re-engraving of an existing public domain engraving, then that edition could be considered public domain also, but you would have to choose "Public domain (dedicated)" for uploading.

[Steve Martin]

Hi Sallen112,

thank you for the information and the answer, I do appreciate your help with this. So, for example, if I come across a public domain score that is reprinted by, say, Dover [or any other publisher], lets say for an hypothetical example - 2 years ago, that means Dover has the right to sell copies made of that score, but it does not allow them to claim the copyright for that score. So, that means, therefore, if am quite ok to download that score from IMSLP, scan it and make my own copy into Sibelius and make my own arrangement of that work, without breaking copyright. Is that correct? I believe it should be, as the original work, even though a very recent reprint, is still in the Public Domain?

thanks if you can clear this up for me.


Steve.

[Sallen112]

As long as the original engraving is Public Domain, you will be fine.

[Steve Martin]

Hi Sallen112,

thank you for that. I'd like to let you know that I actually did inquire/write to 2 different companies where they have reprinted a public domain collection of parts of work that were already in the public domain, and they are on IMSLP, and I asked them, even though the reprint is, for one set of parts, a reprint "n.d.(after 1997)", I wanted to check with them if it was ok for me to use these parts for my own study by importing them into Sibelius, as the reprint was not all that long ago. I have not heard back from either company, and I'm guessing they won't reply because they think that it is a strange question to ask because the site states they are PD anyway. But for me, I just merely wanted to be sure.

but, thanks for confirming that for me.

best,

Steve