Hi, Angel-
The laws vary somewhat from country to country. It used to be 75 years from date of publication until a composition moves into public domain. Now I think it's 70 years after the death of the composer. In the U.S., anything written before 1923 is in the public domain, and stuff written after that falls under the new rules.

Here's an excerpt from the article on copyright in Wikipedia:

Copyright subsists for a variety of lengths in different jurisdictions. The length of the term can depend on several factors, including the type of work (e.g. musical composition or novel), whether the work has been published or not, and whether the work was created by an individual or a corporation. In most of the world, the default length of copyright is the life of the author plus either 50 or 70 years. In the United States, the term for most existing works is for a term ending 70 years after the death of the author. If the work was a work for hire (e.g., those created by a corporation) then copyright persists for 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever is shorter. In some countries (for example, the United States[34] and the United Kingdom),[35] copyrights expire at the end of the calendar year in question.

You'll find a very good explanation on this page at the U.S. Copyright Office.

-Joe Offer, Forum Moderator-

P.S. I moved both your posts into the same thread. It gets confusing when you post the same thing in a number of threads.