Duties/Powers of Musical Executor

[DaveF]

Dear all,

Some advice would be really helpful here: three years ago I was appointed Musical Executor to my friend Mark Edgley Smith (1955-2008), who left behind a small but interesting body of unpublished music, mainly for instrumental ensembles and vocal groups. I've been trying, off and on, to interest commercial publishers in it but without any success, so thought I would make a start on posting the scores here. Under the terms of Mark's will I have "powers as full as those of an absolute beneficial owner" in administering the estate, so I take that to mean that I would be free to post the scores at IMSLP. But could anyone help with a few questions:

- What sort of copyright would I post them under - Creative Commons?
- What copyright notice should appear on the scores - © (the estate of) Mark Edgley Smith, © me, or nothing at all?
- Mark's two best-known works (the only two to have been commercially recorded) are the 5 madrigals to poems of e e cummings and the Vancouver Songbook, both of which set poems that are still in copyright. Mark sought the copyright holders' permission to set the texts, and paid fees at the time, but would extra permissions need to be sought to post the scores?
- Would any admins need to see documentary proof of my executorship (which can be easily provided)?
- And anything else I need to know...

Many thanks in advance for what I know will be expert opinions,

DF

[pml]

Hi Dave!

I'll take them in order.

1) The two preferred options (to prevent commercial looting by people who sell collections of scores on eBay without any return to owners) are:
* Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 3.0 (cc-nc-nd)
* Performance Restricted Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives 1.0 (an IMSLP special)
If Mark had been affiliated with the Performing Rights Society in the UK you would go for the latter licence in order to collect royalties from performances/broadcasts; the CC licences are anathema to the collectors of performance royalties.

2) I think the Copyright remains “© (the estate of) MES” however, given your position as musical executor you could legally qualify that as “© (the estate of) MES c/o DF”.

3) e e cummings is still in ©, so you would probably have to find out from Mark’s paper work whether he had permission to publish the works in addition to setting the texts. My assumption is that Mark would have had to accept an agreement to return some percentage of the proceeds from sale of the cummings setting to the author (or now, his estate).

As for the Vancouver Songbook: I don’t know which poets contributed to that, but similar arguments may apply there. The worst case is that you would have to reapply to the authors’ estates, because I doubt they would bother to examine their paperwork to see whether the extra allowances for publication had been made: this would mean they have little reason to not charge an arm and a leg for the privilege.

4) It might be an idea to do something like that, just to be all proper and official about it. Feel free to send me a scan of the executorship document if you can easily take a scan or a snap of it.

5) It will be nice to have another, larger setting of Jabberwocky!

More will probably occur to other admins.

Thanks Dave!

PS Looking at the worklist on Wikipedia, there will be one other © issue with the setting of Robert Graves (†1985) in opus 18, unless it’s a really early poem (pre–1923), which could mean it might be uploadable to IMSLP·US (but not by you!).

[DaveF]

Thank you, Philip - really helpful as always. I'm holding off doing anything at the moment while waiting for a "no" (sorry, I mean "decision") from the latest publisher on my list. But everything you suggest will be useful if/when the time comes to post stuff here. In any case, even if a commercial outfit does accept something (and the e e cummings madrigals really ought to be published - have a listen to the Children of Our Time CD, Hyperion CDA67575, if you can; no.3 especially is lovely), it's unlikely they'll want the whole Edgley Smith œuvre, in which case the remainder could go out here on the Performance Restricted licence.

Best wishes,
DF

[Carolus]

The only thing the Performance Restricted license effects directly is the manner in which copies of the score for a work are distributed. For example, if Edgley Smith's œuvre were posted here under that license, there would be no restriction on a publisher accepting a given work into its catalogue apart from the fact that the score for that work has to remain freely available at IMSLP (not anywhere else). A copyright owner or publisher remains free to a) print and sell copies via the normal trade network; b) collect royalties due for any live or broadcast performances; and c) control the creation and distribution of any derivative work, including recordings. The only thing they cannot do is demand that IMSLP take the work down. We'd be perfectly happy to link to the printed copies at either Amazon or Sheet Music Plus, and likewise to any commercial recordings.

[MHN]

These are old posts - wondering if the EE Cummings Madrigals are yet available for use? Thanks. If so, let me know how to obtain copies.

[pml]

From Dave’s posts, I gather he was offering the works to commercial publishers first, before looking to upload any remaining works (not of commercial interest) to IMSLP.

So no e e cummings pieces yet.

Cheers P.