[Dixielandjazz] More on You Can't Cheat a Cheater

[Dick Baker]

The good news is YES:  Every copyright registration was accompanied 
by some written manifestation of the melody--some were as simple as 
handwritten lead sheets, sometimes they were formally typeset pages 
from the published music.  Lyrics were either entered on the music 
or, just as often, submitted on a separate page in text form.  These 
items, referred to as "copyright deposits" by Library of Congress, 
are stored in manila file folders by composer and are held in the 
Music Reading Room of Library of Congress.

The bad news is that to see them, you have to show up in person and 
ask for the composer's folder by name.  You are then free to make 
copies right there in the MRR.  Folks whose names you'll recognize 
have spent a lot of time doing just that, such as Audrey Van Dyke, 
Alex Hassan, Marty Eggers, John Gill . . . and Turk Murphy.  I even 
got in there several times when I was working on earlier editions of 
the Stomp Off Index (I lived in the D.C. area until 2006).

But here's a heartbreaker:  On October 1 I took off on a long 
automobile trip around the country (16 days, 7,500 miles, 27 states), 
the last stop of which was Washington, D.C., so I could visit the MRR 
and look up some of the problematic titles in the Stomp Off catalog.

But the door was locked.

At 10:30 PM 11/3/2013, Scott Anthony wrote:
>Dick,
>
>Does registration of copyright imply that there is some sort of 
>written manuscript or sheet music of the tune somewhere?
>
>Scott


--Dick Baker
Working on an updated version of the Stomp Off Records Tune Titles 
and Composers Index
See working draft at http://dickbaker.org/stompoff/index.pdf