[Dixielandjazz] 'New' tunes entering Public Domain?

[Rocky Ball]

I'm curious about the idea of 'new' Public Domain songs, or compositions that have 'recently' moved into the Public Domain. When I worked for a number of amusement parks in the mid-70s we were tasked with removing any tunes from our playlist that were under the umbrella of ASCAP. In 1974 and 1975 there was a court fight between ASCAP and Disney (as well as Six Flags and others) in which ASCAP had demanded a raise in performance rights fees for ALL ASCAP music being performed or played in the parks (including the background music that was being piped into the areas of the park over the speaker system). At the time Disney decided to fight the rate increase and the resulting lawsuit meant that NO ASCAP music could be performed in the park until the issue was settled. All of the other parks took the position of "wait and see" as how Disney would settle and so the other parks also banned ASCAP music in any form until the lawsuit was settled.

My supervisors told us that absolutely NO playing of any ASCAP song would be permitted and we had to purge our set lists of those songs. Only BMI, SESAC and Public Domain tunes were allowed. That was a problem for a Dixieland Band because most of the licensed music from the 20s, 30s and early 40s was ASCAP. BMI came into existence because of an ASCAP recording ban in the 40s (hence the Glenn Miller Band turning to songs like Little Brown Jug, American Patrol, and others in the interim) so MOST of the BMI music was beyond the scope of the Dixieland genre. SESAC was mostly gospel and religious music at the time and there were few nuggets in their stable of composition... so we began to research Public Domain.

Here's the relevant connection... in 1974 and 1975 compositions entering Public Domain included anything before 1923! Because the Copyright protections and the renewals of Copyright protections were somewhat arcane and complicated there was a steady march annually of compositions (and all Intellectual and Creative property) entering Public Domain... and in 1974-1975 the cutoff year was 1923. Since then Congress has amended Copyright several times to now include the death + 50 years (maybe 75 years now) of the last surviving composer of the tune (or creator of the property). This is often referred to as the Disney Clause because this giant extension in Copyright seems to have been inspired by (if not directly attributed to) the fact that Mickey Mouse was about to become Public Domain!

That door has been temporarily shut thanks to the Congress. If the cutoff date in 1974/1975 was 1923 (and the most recent post confirms that "My plan is to publish an update either in 6 months time which will include the 1923 tunes, or publish in 12 month's time and include the 1923 and 1924 tunes. - Kevin Yeates - Vancouver, Canada") then what tunes have recently fallen into Public Domain. My research has suggested that NO Intellectual property will leave Copyright protection for at least another 50-75 years!

Just curious...

~Rocky Ball - Ruby Reds Band - Atlanta, GA
ROCKY BALL | ART & MUSIC
404-918-4061
http://www.RockyBall.com
superbanjo at mindspring.com



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ml.islandnet.com/pipermail/dixielandjazz/attachments/20190304/d75479f6/attachment.html>