copyright resources online (folk music )

Subject: BS: copyright resources online (folk music )
From: GUEST,Z.D.
Date: 09 May 06 - 11:31 AM

Does anyone know of an online resource for checking the copyright for folk songs ? A family member was a singer/ song writer, but we find it hard to keep track og who owns what.

Subject: RE: BS: copyright resources online (folk music )
From: MMario
Date: 09 May 06 - 11:35 AM

Harry Fox has an online database.

Subject: RE: copyright resources online (folk music )
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 May 06 - 01:17 PM

Hi, ZD-
The URL for the Harry Fox Agency is http://www.harryfox.com. Their "Songfile" Website will give you some help. Note, however, that the agency has copyrights listed for many traditional songs that are in the public domain. If somebody affiliated with Harry Fox claims a copyright, Harry Fox will collect royalty fees for that affiliate until someboy proves the copyright claim invalid.
If there's a question about a particular song, ask about it here in the Forum (under General Music, not BS). If it's obviously a song written by a known person after 1923, you might as well pay the royalty fees.
Ruses are different for Europe, but this is how it is in the U.S. Don't know about Canada, Australia, and the rest of the world.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: copyright resources online (folk music )
From: pavane
Date: 10 May 06 - 02:50 AM

Alternatively, there are web sites listing the first known date for a large number of songs. Anything dated before 1900 should be OK anywhere, and before 1923 in the US.

Make sure it's the right song and version though - different versions may copyrighted.

From your post, I presume you are checking to see what songs you can claim royalties on? Or perhaps songs that you can sing without paying royalties?

Subject: RE: copyright resources online (folk music )
From: M.Ted
Date: 10 May 06 - 06:29 PM

If the family member is available, you should sit them down and gather up everything that they have written and have them organize and document what is there. Get all the copyright documents together, collect the stuff that is unpublished, label the tapes, etc, etc.

This is really important, because this stuff can be recorded again, published, released again, reworked into something new, etc, etc, and you want to make sure you've got it legally and physically protected, because your documentation may be the only documentation that there is--

Knowing that something was recorded, that is was copywrited, or that it was published is not enough--you've got to be able to get your hands on the specifics. The best archives, ASCAP(at ASCAP.com) Harry Fox, and the others, don't list everything that's been registered, and, even what they do list is by title, and things can have different titles. Beyond that, old recordings, songbooks, newspapers, etc can establish rights, even when the pieces weren't registered--

A few years back, I had the dubious pleasure of hearing a melody very much like one that I'd composed recorded, and forgotten, years before, coming out of a radio. Only thing was, the master had long since disappeared, the lead sheets hadn't been saved, and the only thing I had were some lyrics, and they were not the ones that had been used.

And if this story seems questionable to you, you won't be suprised to know that the it didn't make much impression the music publishers either--