Mike Blackstock wrote:
In Canada, it's 50 years after the death of the relevant people.
In many (all?) jurisdictions, a published music manuscript - the
layout, fonts, etc. - is considered artwork, and hence falls under
copyright law, regardless of whether or not the music itself is
in the public domain.
My understanding is that you can work from a copyrighted
score to prepare a new edition as long as you restrict yourself
to using the non-copyrighted part of the score: the composer's
notes, phrasing slurs, and so on. Evidently, if you're making
a new edition with lilypond, you won't be using anyone else's
layout etc so that shouldn't be a concern I would think.
The problem is to know what originates from the composer and
what from the editor. Even in the case of "Urtext editions" where
all added slurs are dotted, it's often the case that the editor has
worked from several sources, such as handwritten manuscripts
(often more than one), the first print, ... and the decisions on
which of these to trust for each note/slur/whatever will also
belong to the editors copyright.
Search the mailing list archives for the mutopia mailing list
and the information related to copyright at the Mutopia
web page to learn more about all these troubles.
/Mats
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