[Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia-l Digest, Vol 7, Issue 44

Tue Feb 24 02:56:31 UTC 2004

Optim wrote:

> In the past I had this dicsussion:
>
>Someone told me: - "Wow, your new classical music
>CDs are very nice."
>
>I said: - "Yeap.."
>
>He said: - "Classical music is old. so there is
>no copyright and I can copy and play this music
>as I like. Nobody can sue me."
>
>I said: - "No, you cannot do whatever you want.
>Beethoven has no copyright rights over this work,
>but the ORCHESTRA which played the work, the
>COMPANY which recorded and published the work,
>ETC, have rights over their work. You will be
>sued NOT because you copied Beethoven's music, but
>because you copied this particular
>orchestra/music company's version of the music"
>
>IANAL - I am not a lawyer
>
>Am I right?
>
With the NOT inserted, you are correct. Works that are based on public 
domain material can still have a copyright based on the added 
contributions of their authors. The implications are significant. For 
example, it effectively means that no decent-quality sound recordings 
have passed into the public domain due to age, even if the recorded work 
is in the public domain.

--Michael Snow