How can I find the copyright owner? The American composer Leo Sowerby died on July 7, 1968. At first there were three ways of contacting his heirs: 1. via the Sowerby Foundation, run by his friend Francis Crociata. They had a newsletter, a website, etc. But Mr. Crociata has since passed away, the website has disappeared, and anything sent to their old address bounces back. 2. His executor was Ronald Stalford who though not a relative himself, knew hot to contact the heirs. Mr. Stalford has since passed away and I have been unable to find out who took his place as executor. 3. The Washington National Cathedral, where Dr. Sowerby worked for the last several years of his life, used to know how to contact the heirs, but has lost touch with them. I want to copy a handwritten manuscript on file at the Library of Congress. Without permission from the copyright owner, they'll let me look at it, but that's it, and I need a copy for some research I'm doing. Are there any provisions for copying if, following reasonable diligence, the copyright owner can't be found?
There is a good chance that the letter in question is in the public domain. Prior to 1978, the copyright laws were very different. Also, if it was published in 1963 or earlier and there was an initial claim of copyright but the copyright was not renewed, it would also be in the public domain. A convenient table summarizing when various pertinent categories of works enter the public domain can be found here. It might be possible to construe depositing the work with the Library of Congress as either a "publication" of the work (which if it happened before 1964 would put it in the public domain), or as a relinquishment of the copyright to the public domain, although I am not a specialist familiar with the legal effect of different forms of donations to the Library of Congress and it could depend upon the facts and circumstances of that particular donation to the Library of Congress. If worse came to worse, I imagine it might be possible to seek a declaratory judgment that your use was a fair use with substituted service on the heirs, and seek a default judgment, although that would not be optimal. The general problem that you face is that the work in question is what is called an "orphan work". Many other countries have special procedures to allow the use of orphan works, but the U.S. has resisted such legislation except for a narrow exception applicable only to libraries and archives at 17 U.S.C. § 108.
germany I am reasonably sure that works like this would be Public Domain, i.e. not copyrighted in the first place. In Germany, copyright (or more precisely, Author's Right) can only be held by a natural person, which is a legal term of art that essentially means &quot;human being&quot;. There are two groups of natural persons involved here: the programmers and the creators of the works which are part of the training set. However, I can't see how either group could have a reasonable claim of copyright. Note: there have been similar discussions about GitHub Copilot, an AI that writes code for you. It is my understanding that the process used by GitHub Copilot is roughly comparable to the process used here. With GitHub Copilot, there have been instances where significant snippets which are part of the training set have appeared in the output with only minor alterations. In this case, it is likely that the original author will have copyright over that portion of the output. However, IFF a human being were actually involved in selecting specific works, then there is probably a copyright based on the creative decision of selecting this particular work and rejecting all the others. This is similar to the classic textbook example of a driftwood sculpture: the creative process here is not creating the sculpture but choosing to pick up this particular piece of driftwood instead of the hundreds of others on the beach. So, if you simply generate these works and publish all of them, there is no copyright. If you generate a large batch and then select a certain number, then the person who made the selection might hold a copyright.
Yes Both melody and lyrics source back to the middle ages, as for instance described here. The difficulty could be to make sure you rely your derived work on a variant that is really in the public domain. E.g. if you use notes or lyrics from the Simon &amp; Garfunkel version and derive from there, you might violate their copyright.
The relevant concept is dedicating a work to the public domain, that is, saying in the work something like "This work is dedicated to the public domain". I understand that this isn't entirely reliable in European civil law. The preferred alternative is to license it to the public. However, you have to decide how "free" you want the work to be made. The normal state of affairs, where you do nothing and just rely on copyright law, is that you have the sole right to allow copies to be made and derivative works to be created. Thus if someone were to make a derivative work based on your composition, they would need your permission: but then they would have the right what they created (such as a translation). If you just abandon your property right to the work, you impose no obligation on others, and a person can freely create a translation (which is now their property). If you execute the right public license, you can allow people to use your work as long as they include that license in their versions. A fairly common public licensing scheme is the Creative Commons licenses. That article gives a decent summary of relevant rights and how particular licenses correspond to configurations of permissions. I would say that the most difficult thing to do is to figure out what you don't want to happen, and pick a license that matches that interest.
Under US law, the use of the converter is irrelevant. The legal situation would be the same if they were posted in MP3 format, or downloaded and played in whatever format they are posted in. The point is making and distributing copies without permission. The first question is: Is the music protected by copyright at all? If the work is old enough, there is no copyright on the composition. For example, most works of classical music will be long out of copyright. However, the recording itself can be copyrighted, even if the composition is not. In general, if recording was published before 1972, it will not be protected by US copyright. There are some other edge cases where the the recording will not be protected. See This chart for details. Assuming the recording is protected, the second question is: is the posting legal? That is, was the music posted by or with the permission of the copyright holder? If not, any download or further use would be copyright infringement, although holders are unlikely to sue individuals who download for personal use only. If the posting of a protected work was legal, the key question is, did the user have permission or some other legal basis. It is generally considered that when music (or other content) is posted to the net, there is an implied permission to download it for personal use. Alternatively and to the same effect, this might be considered in US law to be a case of fair use. But this will stop at personal use. Any making of additional copies, redistribution of such copies, or public performance of the music will require permission from the copyright holder. In the absence of such permission, it will be infringement, and the holder could sue. Permission may be granted directly, by contract, or by a permissive license. But permission in some form is required for such use to be lawful. I should add that the creation and distribution of a new (cover) version of a copyrighted song or other music may be permitted under US law by a compulsory license, known as a &quot;mechanical license&quot;. This is provided for under 17 USC 115. There is a specific procedure to follow, which involves notifying the copyright holder and paying royalties at a specified rate. Failure to follow this procedure, unless permission is obtained in some other way, means that making and distributing recordings (phonorecords) is copyright infringement.
One cannot use the works of others unless one of the following applies: The copyright holder has given permission, usually in the form of a license, often explicit, but sometimes implied. The work is not protected by copyright. This can happen in several ways, but the most common is that the work is old enough that copyright has expired. In the US, works older than 1927 are currently out of copyright. So are some others, the rules are a bit complex. In many countries, if the author or creator died more than 70 years ago, the work is out of copyright. In some countries this is a different number, between 50 and 100 years. This is not likely to apply to a file distributed with current software. If an exception to copyright applies. In the US this would most likely be fair use. In the UK it would probably be fair dealing. In other countries there are a variety of exceptions that might apply, including personal use in some. AS a comment by Jen points out &quot;use&quot; here refers only to those rights protected by copyright, such as making and distributing copied, making nd distributing derivative works, and the like. (Displaying and publicly performing seem unlikely to apply.) Now lets consider the specific situation, and which if any of the reasons for lawful use might apply. License or other permission. There is no explicit license. Since the program is distributed to be run, there is an implicit license to make the sort of use of the file needed to run the program. If the documentation describes how to employ the file as part of running the program, there is almost surely an implied license to employ it in that way. There is not, however, permission to make copies unless that is needed to run the program. There is surely not permission to make derivative works of the file or distribute copies to others, even if you do not charge anything. Expired copyright This pretty clearly will not apply. Fair use This might apply, or might not. There isn't enough info in the question to tell, not even to make a good guess. If any use would be non commercial, that helps fair use a bit. If the use would be for a different purpose than the one the developers used it for, that helps fair use a lot. If the use of the file harmed the market for the program, or served as a substitute, that lean against fair use. without knowing what the file is, what it does, and how it might be used, one really cannot weven guess.
The RIAA changed their litigation strategy in the late 2000s and it (and its members) generally no longer sue individuals. See https://hbr.org/2008/12/why-the-riaa-stopped-suing If you're just asking for a prediction about whether Tenenbaum or Thomas-Rasset would be sued today if they were to impermissibly make copyrighted music available to the public again, my preduction would be no. But I have to say this is an odd prediction to ask us to make. And I wouldn't have much to argue against somebody who predicts the other direction.
I'm not a lawyer; I'm not your lawyer. I would interpret the Copyright Board's interpretation in relation to tariffs when musical works copied for private use only, as the document's scope does not appear to extend beyond that. However, in BMG Canada Inc. v. John Doe, [2004] 3 FCR 241, a consortium of record industry corporations attempted to request confidential ISP account holder information. Essentially, the plaintiffs failed to bring adequate evidence to prove the magnitude of copyright infringement; additionally, it is specifically stated at [24-5] that: Subsection 80(1) [as am. by S.C. 1997, c. 24, s.50] of the Copyright Act provides as follows: 80. (1) Subject to subsection (2), the act of reproducing all or any substantial part of (a) a musical work embodied in a sound recording, ... onto an audio recording medium for the private use of the person who makes the copy does not constitute an infringement of the copyright in the musical work, the performer's performance, or the sound recording. Although the Copyright Modernization Act, did, in fact, introduce a number of amendments, Subsection 80 still reads as it does when the BMG case was decided. Since this case, I can find no court that has found this ruling to be invalid, and no cases which have considered and not applied this subsection. There is also Subsection 29.22 (1) (which applies to all works): 29.22 (1) It is not an infringement of copyright for an individual to reproduce a work or other subject-matter or any substantial part of a work or other subject-matter if (a) the copy of the work or other subject-matter from which the reproduction is made is not an infringing copy; (b) the individual legally obtained the copy of the work or other subject-matter from which the reproduction is made, other than by borrowing it or renting it, and owns or is authorized to use the medium or device on which it is reproduced; (c) the individual, in order to make the reproduction, did not circumvent, as defined in section 41, a technological protection measure, as defined in that section, or cause one to be circumvented; (d) the individual does not give the reproduction away; and (e) the reproduction is used only for the individual’s private purposes. Subsection 80(1) creates a special exemption purely for musical works, and so the less restrictive conditions there should be found to apply to them instead. On the basis of the case above, and my consideration of the Copyright Act, I would find that reproduction of a musical work does not constitute copyright infringement, pursuant and subject to s 80(1) of the Act.