Rights to record for Traditional Songs

Subject: Rights to record for Tradtional Songs
From: GUEST,Nathalie R
Date: 24 Aug 05 - 02:13 PM

My friends have talked me into actually recording some of my favorite sea chanteys, but I find I run into a wall when I try and figure out the rights... If it has an author than it is traditional to ask/buy for the rights to record. But many of the songs I want to do I have always known as Traditional. Do you have to do anything specific to get the rights to record a Traditional song?

And while I have your attention, the songs I believe to be tradtional are:
Tow Rope Girls
Leave Her Johnny
Randy Dandy -O
'Rio Grande
Heave Boys Away/The Capstan Bar
Three Score and Ten
Sailor at Sea
Mingulay Boat Song
Bury Me Not in the Deep deep sea
Holy Ground

If you know that one of these is not a Traditional, please let me know.

Nathalie R
Chanteyman, Schooner Bill of Rights 2005
[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Rights to record for Tradtional Songs
From:
Date: 24 Aug 05 - 02:20 PM

The only one I know for sure is the Mingulay Boat song. I believe it was Sir Hugh Roberton who composed that. There is at least two threads here at the Mudcat which has that authorship information. He was director of the Glasgow Phoenix Orchestra or Choir and wrote that along with others to traditional tunes.

Have you done a search here at Mudcat? I'm pretty sure a number of these have been discussed at some point.

Subject: RE: Rights to record for Tradtional Songs
From: MMario
Date: 24 Aug 05 - 02:23 PM

Mingulay Boat song is by Hugh S. Roberton (1874-1952), so I think it is still under copyright.

Subject: RE: Rights to record for Tradtional Songs
From: Musique174
Date: 24 Aug 05 - 02:32 PM

The words are by him, but the tune is traditional. So how would one go about looking for the copyright? See this is where I get confused.

Subject: RE: Rights to record for Tradtional Songs
From: MMario
Date: 24 Aug 05 - 02:43 PM

Where are you located? In the US the place to start would probably be the *shudder* Harry Fox Agency. I'm not sure what the equivilant is elsewhere.

Subject: RE: Rights to record for Tradtional Songs
From: asirovedout
Date: 24 Aug 05 - 03:24 PM

Nathalie,
There is a 'Tow-Rope Girls' which is a setting of a Cicely Fox-Smith poem to music by Alan Fitzsimmons, copyright 1995.
It begins: Oh a ship in the tropics a-foaming along, with eve'ry stitch drawing, the Trade blowing strong....

(But you probably don't mean that one.)

@

Subject: RE: Rights to record for Tradtional Songs
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 Aug 05 - 04:13 PM

"The Tow-Rope Girls" first was published in 1920 by the composer, Cicely Fox Smith, in "Ships and Folks," pub. and copyright by Elkin Matthews Ltd. It also appeared in her "Sea Songs and Ballads," 1924, pub. Houghton Mifflin. Copyright status??
I believe there was a musical setting prior to that by Fitzsimmons, cited by asirovedout, used by other shanty groups, but I couldn't date recordings with certainty.

"Then haul away, girls, steady and true," (in chorus).

Subject: RE: Rights to record for Tradtional Songs
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 24 Aug 05 - 04:22 PM

Seventy (aka 3 score and 10) is contemporary and in copyright (in the UK) - and there are threads about it on here too.

Beleiveing otherwise is an error I once made myself....

Subject: RE: Rights to record for Tradtional Songs
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 24 Aug 05 - 04:36 PM

Just record them and assume you're gonna be 'under the radar' enough that no one will notice... Especially if your liner notes appear to say that you paid copyright...

Subject: RE: Rights to record for Tradtional Songs
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 Aug 05 - 04:39 PM

Not much help, but "Mingulay Boat Song" copyright, I believe. is held by Robertson Publications, Aylesbury.
The tune Robertson used is "Craig Guinach," not "Lochaber," according to Malcolm Douglas, thread 10414, 03 Dec 02. Mingulay

There doesn't seem to be an easy way to check, unless BMI or ASCAP holds them.

Subject: RE: Rights to record for Tradtional Songs
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 24 Aug 05 - 06:10 PM

You don't need permission to record, but there may be modest royalties due on copyright material of arrangements. Simply contact the appropriate agency for the country you live in. I'm sure that people here will be happy to tell you what that is, but you will of course need to name your nation.

Subject: RE: Rights to record for Tradtional Songs
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 25 Aug 05 - 02:38 AM

Surely the Mingulay Boat Song is now in the public domain, it being more than fifty years since the author died, unless the law has been changed copyright expires fifty years after the death of the author.

eric

Subject: RE: Rights to record for Tradtional Songs
From: Jim McLean
Date: 25 Aug 05 - 05:28 AM

It's now 70 years, eric.

Subject: RE: Rights to record for Tradtional Songs
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 25 Aug 05 - 07:06 AM

Thanks Jim.

eric

Subject: RE: Rights to record for Tradtional Songs
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 25 Aug 05 - 07:14 AM

The text of Three Score And Ten was written by William Delph, a Whitby fisherman, to commemorate a freak storm in 1889, according to A L Lloyd's sleeve notes to the Watersons' recording.

Subject: RE: Rights to record for Tradtional Songs
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Aug 05 - 09:44 AM

Thanks countess - so the issue here (not in the USA, there it differs) is going to be whether Delph died before or after 1935.

Subject: RE: Rights to record for Tradtional Songs
From: Tradsinger
Date: 25 Aug 05 - 05:08 PM

You don't have to agonise too much about this. If you're in the UK, record the songs, then fill in a Mechanical Copyright Protection Society form giving as much detail as you can, using the information provided in this thread. They will then send you a certificate and a bill which will be typically quite small. Then you can go ahead and flog your recordings.

Gwilym

Subject: RE: Rights to record for Tradtional Songs
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Aug 05 - 06:38 PM

Tradsinger's suggestion seems reasonable. With the present muddle and differences between U. S., UK copyright and so-called 'international' rights, some responsible group must clear a way through the briers.
Is there a similar group to deal with the matter in the U. S.?

I can read the statutes, and understand most of them, but it is the particular case and the practical effect that confuse and worry many of us.

Subject: RE: Rights to record for Tradtional Songs
From: GUEST,Rosslyn Elliott
Date: 26 Aug 05 - 07:01 AM

Hi,

This is a message for Jim McLean - I'm posting it here because I wwasn't sure that you would see it on the thread it actually relates to, since that thread is about 4 years old!

First, I just wanted to tell you how much I loved Alistair McDonald's SCotland in Song when I listened to it as a child. I was born the year that tape was first produced, bu I remember listening to it with my family on car trips through the UK in the early 1980's. (My family is American but my father was stationed in England as a member of the US Air Force.)

I have looked for a way to get a copy of that album, but I cannot find a trace of it on ebay or Google. I was wondering if you know of any way to get hold of it. Someone on the thread about Silver Darlin's claimed to have a CD version, so I figure there must have been a more recent reissue of the album.

Thank you so much!

Rosslyn Elliott
[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Rights to record for Tradtional Songs
From: Jim McLean
Date: 26 Aug 05 - 07:23 AM

Hi Rosslyn,
If you go to www.lochshore.com you'll find the CD, sung by Alastair McDonald, Scotland in Song, CDLB2013 for sale. Any problems email me at [e-mail]

Subject: RE: Rights to record for Traditional Songs
From: Musique174
Date: 29 Aug 05 - 12:50 AM

Well to clear up one thing, I am in the US, California to be exact.

So how much trouble would you get in if you were to record something without permission... I mean could they send you to jail or would it just be a fine?

I mean this is going to be my demo CD, used mainly for marketing myself to other events and such. Although if they turn out great I would like to also sell them...

Subject: RE: Rights to record for Traditional Songs
From: open mike
Date: 29 Aug 05 - 01:36 AM

aside to Rosslyn..if you post to a thread, it automatically
refreshes the thread and it is posted at the top of the list.
so it doesn't get lost even though it is an older thread.
sometimes people merely add the word re-fresh in order to
bring the thread back into the visible portion of the list.

Subject: RE: Rights to record for Traditional Songs
From: open mike
Date: 29 Aug 05 - 01:37 AM

Natalie/Musique, will you be at the sea music festival in S.F. in sept?

Subject: RE: Rights to record for Traditional Songs
From: Musique174
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 02:46 AM

Yes in fact I was at the festival yesturday and it turned out wonderfully. Sorry for the late response...

Subject: RE: Rights to record for Traditional Songs
From: Crystal
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 04:54 AM

I always thought that with truely traditional stuff as long as you don't use somone elses arrangement you can pretty much go ahead and do what you like with it.
Stuff which was written within the last 70 years I'm not sure about!

Subject: RE: Rights to record for Traditional Songs
From: GUEST,Dazbo
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 05:31 AM

In Britain (well at least England I don't know if Scotland is different) the copyright time limit was raised to 70 years about 10 years ago (apparently to fall in line with Germany rather than Germany fall in line with the rest of Europe). At the time I had to make enquiries for making arrangements of music for a handbell team.

Basically, once a piece has been out of copyright (when the limit was 50 years) the change to 70 years cannot put it back into copyright. If I remember it properly the rights holder for one of the pieces said words to the effect that they couldn't now charge but I could put a notice on saying that it was with permission. Also, the 70 year rule applies from the date of the death of the holder of the rights; if I understand it correctly this isn't necessarily the author/composer's!

Subject: RE: Rights to record for Traditional Songs
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 02:30 PM

Guest,Dazbo:

In UK the 70 years runs from the death of the composer/author (or the later death if these are two people (Gilbert & Sullivan for example); or the relevent death if you wish only to use thr music/words.
If the copyright has been transferred to another person or entity, the same expiry is still effective. The original composer cannot grant, or sell, to a third party rights which he does not have.
For printed music, the publisher has a copyright on his layout for 25 years from publication. This means that if the author/composer has been dead 70+ years, and the publication is over 25 years old you are free to copy it. It does, however, prevent you buying one tidy copy of a Bach chorale and taking 20 copies for all your choir.

Hope that doesn't muddy the waters too much

Nigel

Subject: RE: Rights to record for Traditional Songs
From: JohnB
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 02:49 PM

I also have a few CD's which state words like "words Trad arrangements by *name of group or singer* if otherwise please report to #####. It should get you out of a lot of trouble. Provided of course that you have done some sort of check first.
JohnB