Author:
Kirby Lambert
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Date Posted: 19:21:29 09/20/10 Mon
>It appears that the "Public Domain Foundation" is a
>well intentioned but confusingly named organization.
>According to their web site, they "receive and
>distribute the royalties of the Wedding Song to
>charity". But if the song and performance were really
>in the "Public Domain", there would be no royalties.
>
>One of the many ways in which the current copyright
>"system" is broken is that it can be very difficult
>and expensive to merely identify the the current
>"owner" of an old song. Hat Trick touches on this
>("clearances") but in this the gals benefited from
>better advice than the average struggling young
>musician gets, making it seem simpler than it
>sometimes is. If you read here that "The Wedding Song"
>was in the public domain (that is, owned by nobody)
>and acted is if it were, you'd be an evil pirate!
>Supposedly.
>
>>Explanation found here
>>
>>
>>href="http://www.pdfoundation.org/weddingsong.cfm">htt
>p
>>://www.pdfoundation.org/weddingsong.cfm
Another problem with copywrite is that it covers many different things. The song itself is one copywrite. Each arrangement has a seperate copywrite and each recorded performance has another seperate copywrite. The copywrite on the origanal can expire and the others still be in effect.
So the song itself can be in the public domain but the individual recorded performances may still be under copywrite.
Kirby
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