Re: [ARSCLIST] Hyperion Records Fails At Appeal, or the disease is spreading to the UK

[Mike Richter <mrichter@xxxxxxx>]

At 01:02 PM 5/26/2005 -0400, David Lennick wrote:
> Ver-r-r-y interesting..I can just see Stokowski's heirs claiming for his Bach
> transcriptions. So if I transcribe a song off a Burl Ives record and "arrange"
> it for synthesizer, drum machine or tuned beer bottles, have I created a new
> "edition"?

That will surely vary depending on jurisdiction as well as on the knowledge
of the judges.

In classical music, there are cases of immediate interest. Puccini's last
opera, Turandot, was left unfinished at his death. His pupil, Alfano,
composed a completion at the widow's request. As the copyrights on the
opera and the completion were about to expire, the publisher (Ricordi)
commissioned a new completion from a contemporary composer. It is of
substantial length and clearly earns a fresh copyright. Similar cases apply
to Mahler's Tenth Symphony and Berg's Lulu. There have also been attempts
to finish Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony, though most scholars believe it
was never intended that there be a final movement.

At the opposite extreme are correction of copyist errors, substitution of
one instrument for another and similar trivia. Somewhere between those
extremes lies any case likely to go before a court, but neither this ruling
nor any other is likely to settle the general question.


Mike
--
mrichter@xxxxxxx
http://www.mrichter.com/