Re: Excellent paper on 'Copyfraud'

[Urs Liska]

Am 08.03.2013 14:18, schrieb Mike Blackstock:
> This paper might be of interest to anyone typesetting public domain
> music from so-called copyrighted scores:
> http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=787244
>
> Abstract:
> "Copyfraud is everywhere. False copyright notices appear on modern
> reprints of Shakespeare's plays, Beethoven's piano scores, greeting
> card versions of Monet's Water Lilies, and even the U.S. Constitution.
> Archives claim blanket copyright in everything in their collections.
> Vendors of microfilmed versions of historical newspapers assert
> copyright ownership. These false copyright claims, which are often
> accompanied by threatened litigation for reproducing a work without
> the owner's permission, result in users seeking licenses and paying
> fees to reproduce works that are free for everyone to use. "
>
> 75 pages, PDF - Jason Mazzone, University of Illinois College of Law
>
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May I suggest a concrete example for consideration (because it's a 
tricky constellation and I'd appreciate any opinion)?

Given a musical work that is clearly in the public domain (1820s).
The autograph score is in private possession (in Switzerland).
The contents of this autograph have been brought to the public through a 
'private print' (by a renowned scholar) in 1967.
I don't know how many copies there are from this private print, but some 
of them are available through public libraries (where I had the 
opportunity to take digital photographs).

If I now would want to make an edition of that work, and explicitely the 
version of that manuscript, would I have to ask the owner of the 
manuscript, or could I argue that the music is in the public domain and 
the manuscript has already been made public?

Would a claim of the owners of the manuscript to either charge royalties 
or prohibit the project be a valid cause or would you consider that 
copyfraud?

Urs