Fine Music - Orchestra, Big Band, Classical and Such

[My Alter Ego]

I believe that all the "classical" music is in the public domain.

Actually not true, not all. I had to make some instructional videos for our company and thought the same thing.

I chose a classical song, Tchaikovsky, I think, and was chagrined to find that meant YouTube could place one of their annoying ads on the video, which of course wouldn't do for a 'business video'

When I saw your post, I immediately wondered if it was the "music" or the "recording." It seems that it would be the recording.

Copyrights in Public Domain music and Classical music

Why are companies such as ourselves (Lynne Publishing / Shockwave-Sound.Com) claiming copyrights in classical recordings, tracks by Mozart and the likes? Isn't this music in the Public Domain? Why can't I just take this music and use it in my film, or on my website, without having to pay anybody for a right to do that?

On the face of it, it seems odd. After all, there is a law that says music composed by a composer who has been dead for 75 years becomes Public Domain. That's why, for example, in 2008, compositions by George Gershwin became Public Domain -- in other words, they belong to the people. To everyone and no one. And of course, people like Mozart, Vivaldi, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky have all been dead much longer than 75 years, so their compositions have been in the Public Domain for a long time already.

But even so, take a piece of Mozart music from a CD and use it on your YouTube video, on your website or in your film, without first buying a license for commercial exploitation of that music -- and you risk, at best, having YouTube strip the audio track off your video, or at worst, having legal action taken against you by a company that claims copyright in that recording.

The clue is in that word: The recording. For here we come to the crux of the matter. There are in fact two copyrights that exist in every music recording. One is the right in the Composition, and the other is the right in the Recording. When we are talking about classical music rights, we are talking about the rights that exist in that recording and arrangement. The arrangement basically means someone's "interpretation" of the composition.

see full article here: http://www.shockwave-sound.com/Articles/...music.html