Musical Works and Sound Recordings
A Musical Work and a Sound Recording of a Musical Work have separate and extremely different copyright protection.
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Musical Work- Song, Sheet Music Composition
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Lyrics, Melody, and Musical Arrangement of Notes that Define a Song or Musical Composition |
| Sound Recording-CD, Record, MP3, WAV |
The Process of Fixing Music or Sound on a Medium that can Reproduce and Play Back the Music upon Demand |
For example, The children's song, "Mary Had A Little Lamb" is absolutely in the public domain worldwide, and it can be freely used by anyone. However, in the USA, no sound recordings of "Mary Had A Little Lamb" are in the public domain. It is imperative that you understand the difference between a musical work and a sound recording when using public domain music.
Rule of Thumb for Public Domain Music and Sound Recordings
- Musical Works published with a valid Copyright Notice of 1922 or Earlier are in the public domain in the United States.
- Essentially ALL Sound Recordings are under copyright protection until 2067 in the United States.
- Copyright protection outside the USA is determined by the laws of the country where you wish to use a work. Copyright protection maybe 50 to 70 years after the death of the last surviving author, 95 years from the publication date, or other copyright protection terms.
- taken from Public Domain Information Project, Copyright Law.
