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Database of music copyright status?
Squirminator2k
they/themNorth Hollywood, CARegistered User regular
they/themNorth Hollywood, CARegistered User regular
I need to find out if the song "Heart and Soul" (famously used in the movie "Big") is in the public domain or not. Does anyone know where I might be able to find this out online? We'd very much like to use it at the end of Boomer's Day Off part four.
Cheers.
Cheers.
Jump Leads - a scifi-comedy audiodrama podcast
Squirminator2k on
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http://www.pdinfo.com/index.php
Heart and Soul doesn't appear in it, and Wikipedia says it was published in 1938. From that pdinfo site:
* Works created after 1/1/1978 - life of the longest surviving author plus 70 years - earliest possible PD date is 1/1/2048
* Works registered before 1/1/1978 - 95 years from the date copyright was secured.
* Works registered before 1/1/1923 - Copyright protection for 75 years has expired and these works are in the public domain.
===
* The Good News - works published in the United States in 1922 or earlier are in the public domain even if they are not yet 95 years old.
* The Bad News - no new works will enter the public domain until January 1, 2019.
I don't know what that is, but if you are using the song for academic research, criticism, parody, or satire, then you don't need to worry about whether or not it's in the public domain.
If not, then you are probably fucked. The Berne Convention, of which the U.S. is a signatory, stipulates copyright is in force for at least 50 years after the author's death. That's the minimum, and I'm quite sure the U.S. has longer terms.
If you want to use a specific version, rather than recording your own, I think you'd have to get permission from both the performer and the original writer (or holder of that copyright.)
There's a possibility that this is completely wrong.