Since I started playing the flute a few years back I’ve been collecting tunes in ABC format to learn and archive in order to refresh my memory. Recently I’ve looked into the idea of making these tunes available at cost via a print on demand service for myself and others who may want to learn the tunes played at the local session.
However, the issue of copyright seems to be a bit difficult to resolve, or at least difficult enough that it may not be worth the effort given that this will be done in my spare time.
So my question is, for anyone who’s looked into this, what’s the best way of dividing tunes into those that are old enough to be out of copyright and that I can publish in booklet form versus those that are still covered and that I would owe royalties on?
Is this even possible without a great deal of research, or should I just forget the whole thing and let the folks who know what they are doing publish books?
There are sites such has http://irishtune.info that list the earliest known source for a tune, is there a cut off date, say 1925 for example, I could use and be reasonably sure I’m in the clear?
I’ve found several good articles on IP law and ITM, it seems the issue is a sticky one and far from resolved. Thanks for any suggestions or ideas.
Um, no. Obviously a tune composed in 1970’s cannot be published without permission, but I’m asking about tunes from the 1870’s assuming it’s history can be established.
If the answer is “no freakin’ way”, so be it, but it’s an honest question.
print on demand at cost? seems kinda fishy to me. i wouldn’t touch a book like that with somebody else’s ten-foot-pole. if a book doesn’t have a copyright date inside it, I won’t pay for it. not only that, why would i pay for something that is available free of charge at thesession.org and jc’s?
ITM should be learned aurally, played aurally, and taught aurally. A simple list of tunes and the key each is played in is a better alternative.
If you want to make your tunes available ‘at cost’ it’s probably better to make the ABC files available for download like the Norbeck and other collections. I would not consider buying such a collection in print but I would certainly download it and at least look it over.
There are SO many online collections that I can’t see how it would be worth your time and trouble to do the webwork to set up such an apparatus. If you want your local session to have a database, make it up and post it. When I was first trying to find different versions of the same tune, I churned through many session lists online.. To do so for cost will raise a fair bit of animus. Most are either in pdfs or online ABCs. If you want to go whole hog, publish a paper book of tunes. You can put a picture of yourself on every page and claim arranger status, like Alan Lerwick. But those would have to be trad only…
There are numerous copyright violations online already, but the key is that nobody is trying to profiteer. It is my impression that there are some well-known neo-trad tunes, Scots piping and fiddle tunes as well as contradances that pop up on different sites that would be technically under copyright protection, if their creators had bothered to publish them for profit to begin with. Aren’t Jig of Slurs, Dinky’s Reel and Tamlinn within copyright era, for example? I know John McCusker’s name pops up on ABCs..
The spirit of the trad is to share. God knows there is little money in it. And frankly, no, nobody cares how much time you put into it, because everybody pours their time and effort into it. I guess the only true profiteers in Irish music are the publicans and mebbe former Green Linneteers…
Ceolas’ Fiddler’s Companion is usually pretty good about mentioning who composed a tune, if it’s known.
G. S. MacLennan is reported to have composed Jig of Slurs.
He died in 1928, so it’s conceivable that many of this tunes were composed prior to 1923. I don’t have a specific date for Jig of Slurs.
Even if he composed it the year he passed away, in 1928 the copyright would have expired 28 years later, which was 1956. If it was renewed (which was possible at the time) for 47 years, the copyright would have expired in 2003. Congress extended the renewal for 20 additional years, though, so it’s entirely possible the tune is under copyright until 2023. But that’s only if it were registerd at the US Copyright office.
Copyright rules have changed over the years and at one time you had to register for protection. That is no longer the case.
If you’re going to sell a tune book, you probably should do that kind of research with each tune, as well as a copyright search if it looks like it may be close. For instance, a search for “MacLennan, George” at the copyright office produces no hits, so probably all of his works are in the public domain.
A search at the copyright office should be done regardless, because I think your legal protections are different whether or not the work is actually registered, regardless of whether it’s actually within copyright.
Print-on-demand is a good technology, but not very suitable for tune books, unless you can find a printer who can give you ring binding or spiral binding. Perfect bound POD books don’t open as wide as other perfect bound PBs, and most people would want to put the book on a music stand or flat on a desk to read the tunes.
Another potentially sticky aspect might be “who’s version” of a tune you publish, e.g. if I change part of a trad tune, claiming the version as my own, and you go and publish it without my permission … well, I guess you can see where it might go.
I wasn’t so much trying to find you wrong as to show that if you make a tune book, you should probably research each individual tune in just such a way.
Actually, even the post-1923 rule is getting dicey. Estates, trusts, etc. seem to be making things even more complicated than they were say, 10 years ago.
Basically, any time “for profit” gets involved, it’s best to be very, very careful. Infringement suits can be expensive. And then there’s the whole question of mechanical vs. performance rights/licensing, which will come into play if you offer audio.
I’m not sure if there’s a counterpart in the U.K. or Ireland. The BBC holds much licensed stuff, but you may not want to alert them at this point … Could CCE be of help?
Thanks for the replies, I’m going to break my comments up…
Learning By Ear vs Print is a big argument I’m not qualified to argue. While I prefer learning by ear, I’ve got hours of sessions recordings I’m still working through, I find I need a refresher every once in a while and having a book or set of abc files to glance at is helpful. And sometimes there’s a note I can’t quite make out over the accordian or the pipes.
Print on demand is an interesting area, Sturgeon’s Revelation applies, “Ninety percent of everything is crud”. Most of the stuff available is at about that level. However, it is useful for projects for friends and family (say a photo book) and every once in a while something of quality pops out. However, almost all authors could use a good editor, book designer, and marketing department which these POD companies don’t provide.
I try to avoid perfect bound books, I can’t bring myself to cut pages out and trying to clip them to a music stand is a pain in the behind! POD companies like cafepress and lulu do provide spiral bindings for certain page counts.
One concept that seems interesting is POD kiosks in bookstores. The idea being that if a book isn’t in stock or out of print, you can pay a little more and have one printed for you right there. So far the price for each machine is a bit excessive and getting the rights resolved may be too burdensome, but it’s an interesting thought that no book need ever be truly out of print.
Thanks for the links for copyright and licensing information. It seems to be as difficult of an issue as I had originally thought. Perhaps I could over time audit each tune and try to establish it’s origin, but this sounds more like a project for a doctorate thesis than a part-part-time hobby. It may be an interesting intellectual challenge, but I’d probably be better off just playing more.
Too bad there’s not a Project Gutenberg for ITM where the tunes have already been vetted.
The Happy Birthday song is a great example of how tangle some of these can be. The Butterfly seems to be another difficult example where part is based on an old slip jig and part is new by (Sean or Tommy, I forget) Potts. Is the whole thing covered? Just the new? How about the variations I’ve learned over the years.
“You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike …”
I’m currently providing a set list and a set of ABC files, this is certainly no worse than many other sites are doing. Taking the step to providing an option to ordering product, even at cost, seems to be over the line so I’ll probably just forget about it.
That should work for the local folks! Not sure what ABC program you used, but you can put in articulations (those little slur marks) instead of writin’ out tied triplets for rolls (now that you’ve already gone through the trouble, he says).. But really, the point is that the tunes, in their basic form, are there and that’s what counts. Anybody that plays the music can deduce what they have to do from the dots. Loaded and displayed quickly, too. Good effort, offering printing options!
Thought I’d just add another yes definitely to this. Everyone I contacted was incredibly helpful and supportive. But it did take awhile. Quite a lot of time was taken up with tune research and composer permissions, and inserting the requests of some publishers who wanted tunes credited in specific ways.
Thanks. As I’ve been editing the tunes I’ve been removing as much articulation as possible, dotted quarter notes for rolls etc, because I don’t want to imply that’s the only way to play a tune. Mainly because I know if I see it written a certain way, it will become easy to only play it that way.
Lesl, I’m glad you posted because it reminded me that I’ve been meaning to order your book. I was lucky enough to have dinner with Mike Rafferty a few times in East Durham this summer due to limited seating in the dinning room. Several folks asked him about the book and he said what a good job you did. I’ve been wanting to get a copy since but kept forgetting.
I may spend some time researching the history of the tunes just to expand my knowledge. If one day in the far far future I have enough tunes in the clear to feel comfortable offering them via a POD service I may.
