Public domain music

Music is in the public domain if like with any other work in the public domain:

• all rights have expired or
• the authors have explicitly put a work into the public domain
• there never were copyrights

Copyrights

For music the involved rights are:

• authors (composers, lyricists) - e.g. CISAC members, AR:SADAIC DE:GEMA GB:PRS US:SESAC BMI ASCAP
• performer
  • mechanical rights e.g. BIEM members (mechanical rights collecting societies) AR:SADAIC DE:GEMA GB:MCPS US:HARRY-FOX
    • BIEM is the international organisation representing mechanical rights societies. Mechanical rights societies exist in most countries. They license the reproduction of songs (including musical, literary and dramatic works). Their members are composers, authors and publishers and their clients are record companies and other users of recorded music. They also license mechanical aspects of the downloading of music via the Internet
  • live performance DE:de:GVL
• publisher e.g. IFPI members AR:CAPIF, US:RIAA

See also

• List of public domain tangos
• Copyright Term Extension Act
• Wikipedia:Sound/list (not all pd)

• Copyright collective
• performance rights organisation

External links

• Sheet music
  • http://www.musopen.org/sheetmusic
  • http://www.mutopiaproject.org/index.html
  • http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:The_Sheet_Music_Project
  • http://www.imslp.org/