IMSLP Forums

Hi there,
There are many works of composers that died more than 70 years ago and they are retypeset and republished recently (EU). I have a difficulty in believing I can just legally upload this to IMSLP. The publisher did a lot of work in typesetting and make it accessible for public. Also publishers of these works adds a copyright date.
Can you confirm that this is legal? Is there no protection for this kind of published works? Maybe you got this question 1000 times, but I could not find a answer to it.
Antoon

You have to consider both copyright on the work itself, and copyright on the specific edition of that work. Recent editions where the editor(s) made no significant contributions in an effort to replicate the author's intentions are called "Scientific" or "Urtext" editions. Copyright terms on Urtext editions vary a lot depending on the country. See details at https://imslp.org/wiki/IMSLP:Copyright_Made_Simple under "Urtext Editions".

Recent editions where the editor(s) added significant original contributions are copyrighted like new original works. The borderline between "significant and "non significant" contributions is called "minimum threshold of originality". It also varies depending on the country, and is sometimes debatable.

Max