Re: [Harp-L] public domain

[Ken Deifik <kenneth.d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

John Dekker asked:
> How old does a song have to be before it is the public domain?

The current copyright on songs registered after 1977 lasts until the 
copyright holder has been dead for 50 years.  "Life plus 50."  It may be 
until the composer has been dead for 50 years, but in any case, it's a long 
time before recent work goes into the public domain.

Material registed from 1909-1977 got 28 years plus a 28 year renewal, and 
then because congress was always dicking around modernizing the copyright 
law, extensions were issued.  This was important because guys like Irving 
Berlin had valuable copyrights that they'd written around 1909, and they 
were still producing income, and he was still alive.

Those extensions have been running out for a while now.  The 1978 copyright 
law gave one standard extension, but I no longer recall how long it was 
for.  That is because I am so old that I was actually working for a major 
publisher in the Brill Building 32 years ago when the 1978 law went into 
effect.

In fact, this company had recently purchased a huge ocean of songs that 
hadn't been renewed for their second 28 years.  Often they were old country 
numbers that were as old as America.  They hired an arranger whose 
specialty was writing lead sheets for these tunes that made them seem 
distinctive - many were absolutely not distinctive - and they filed for the 
1978 extensions on this material, and were not challenged.

Don't blame me, I was a grunt.

> Also, about how much does a club have to pay in royalties if a copyrighted 
> song is played by a band, and how much of that goes to the song's write? 
> Thanks.

ASCAP and BMI are called 'performance rights' organizations, because the 
1909 copyright law gave composers and songwriters the right to be paid for 
live performance and broadcast performance of their copyright 
material.  They were organized so that a writer doesn't have to get in his 
car and go around America demanding a payment from every radio station, TV 
station and live venue.  I don't know how much they take from live venuse, 
but ASCAP used to get 2 percent of the gross billing of broadcast outlets, 
and BMI used to get 1 percent.  This is probably in the ballpark of what 
they still get.

Both organizations then divvy up their dollars to their members, based on - 
supposedly - the percentage of performances each member's material was 
performed in a three month period.  For instance, if you're an ASCAP 
writer, and they have taken in $100M in a     quarter, and they calculate 
that your material got one-tenth of one percent of all ASCAP performances 
in that quarter, they cut you a check for about $100G's.  Most checks are 
significantly smaller than that.  Most songwriters who make their living 
from their songs make a middle-class income.

How many plays your song got used to be a total guessing game, but now the 
broadcast performances are tallied by computers that receive a constant 
flow from data automatically generated by the broadcasters.  The only song 
I ever got radio play on was in decent rotation on about 30 tiny country 
radio stations.  ASCAP didn't notice any plays at all, but that was back 
when it was a total guessing game.  Ha ha on me.  Now I'd probably make a 
few hundred bucks.

I have no idea how the live venue and restaurant performances are tallied, 
but they may very well be total guesses.  They probably have some formulae 
that infer how much to pay based on broadcast numbers.  Or they just pull 
it out of you-know-where.

In any case, the publisher and the writer(s) split the performance 
royalties according to whatever deal they made.  Used to be a standard 
50-50 deal.  That has changed, in favor of the writer, if the writer has a 
good track record.

Here's what you need to know.  The live venue, if it has paid for its 
licenses, has a blanket license to play ALL ASCAP material and/or ALL BMI 
material for the license period.  If you're playing current hits the 
writers are probably making a piece of those license fees.  I suspect that 
the publishers of famous blues numbers make damned sure that ASCAP and BMI 
(most blues songs were originally with BMI) know that these songs, still 
under copyright, are very popular in blues clubs throughout the US of A.