The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #170421   Message #4121413
Posted By: Nigel Parsons
30-Sep-21 - 05:53 AM
Thread Name: Cecil Sharp's photos for sale. Illegal?
Subject: RE: Cecil Sharp's photos for sale. Illegal?
Phil d'Conch makes an interesting point:
One may reproduce old photographs but not new reproductions of same. The actual thing used in the new production stream must also be out of copyright. ie: Clipping a 1920 image from a book published in 2020 can get one it hot water (if found out.)

Again there is the analogy to music. Music is copyright for writer's life + 70 years. But a publisher also has a 25 year copyright on their layout. Being in a church choir I notice that Novello re-issue the major cantatas (Passion of Christ etc.) on a regular basis. Early ones tend to be in buff coloured covers, then blue covers, then red. Each one has a 25 year publisher's copyright, so the latest version benefits from this copyright (with the usual exceptions for small excerpts, difficult page turns etc.) but there is no restriction on copying if you source one of the earlier versions. It is not so much extending the original copyright as getting a new copyright on the new version.

Publishers now tend to mark music with "It is illegal to photocopy music", or "It is illegal to photocopy this music" which both overstate the case. While there may be copyright on the music when originally issued that copyright is not endless.