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| Copyrights regarding folk music - Folk Song Histories - General - ezFolk Forums | |||||||||||||||
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TheBloodyIrish Approved
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As we all know, there are some songs that feel like they been around for ages, instead they are fairly recent. Even then, some folk artists travelled around and obtained local songs, then copyrighted them. How would one come around to find out if some of these songs are copyrighted? I would love to record a couple of songs with a few friends, but I do not want to violate the laws. Reason I am asking is that some of these songs feeled like they been around for ages like "My Land". Some of these songs are not copyrighted, but some of the bands added to or changed the lyrics. For instance "The Night That Paddy Murphy Died", made famous by Great Big Sea and Ryan's Fancy or "Lukey's Boat", famous by Great Big Sea and The Chieftains. Even something like "Waltzing Matilda" have many variations copyrighted by their rightful bands. Unfortunately, it is difficult to find out if a particular lyrics is copyrighted, or even find the original lyrics to some of the centuries-old songs.
____________________ Currently learning: D-tuned Tin Whistle Projects: Tin-Can Banjo, Goatskin Banjo, Ugly Stick Dream Instruments: Banjo, Fiddle, Lambeg, Lap Guitar, Mountain Dulcimer |
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Richard Hefner Administrator 
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I'm not familiar with most of the songs you mentioned but as long as you know a song was originally published before 1923 you can pretty much be sure it's in the public domain. When an artist records a song such as "Waltzing Matilda" then their recording of the song is under their copyright but unless they made major changes in the melody or the lyrics the song itself is still public domain and even though your recording might be similar to theirs you haven't broken any copyright laws, and your recording is under your copyright as well. The best thing to do is to find an actual copy of the music that predates 1923 and that musical arrangement and the lyrics are public domain and anybody can use them. The purpose of the ezFolk Public Domain Library is so that people can find public domain versions of songs. You can find it here... http://www.ezfolk.com/library/ There are hundreds of songs in there with melody and lyrics that are public domain. They are all in books that were published before 1923, so if you're looking for public domain tunes that's a pretty good reference for you. 
____________________ Richard Hefner Webmaster, ezFolk.com MP3 Page: http://www.ezfolk.com/audio/richardhefner Running Blog: http://old-runner.com |
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banjo brad Super Moderator 
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By "My Land," do you mean "This Land Is My Land" by Woody Gutherie? That would definitely be under copyright, and the Guthrie family does maintain the rights to his songs. And "Waltzing Matilda" is not American, it was written by an Australian. I am not sure of the copyright status of that. There was an interesting article in National Geographic a few years back about the composer - I think the song is 20th Century in origins, but I may be wrong. Brad
____________________ ezFolk Help Brad Prickly Pear Music Banjo Brad's ezFolk page TOTMC |
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TheBloodyIrish Approved
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I know that "This Land Is My Land" is copyrighted, except people don't seem to understand it is indeed copyrighted. Not to mention, it also got covered and twisted so many time, people forget it is only a 50 to 60 years old song. Stuff like this irrate me anyway. Songs like "Old Makomi" seems to be around forever and sound traditional, but most of these were recorded in the 1950s. Anyway, thanks for clearing it up. It get confusing when in sessions, you play a tune that seem to be around forever and no two singer have the same lyrics. I used "Waltzing Matilda" as an example for this, as I never heard a single consistant set of lyrics among two people or more. I guess, it depended on the recordings they listened to when they learned these songs. It is just that with example I have given, "The Night Paddy Murphy Died", I heard so many variations of it. I am aware that Johnny Burke (1851-1930) originally wrote the song during the late 1800s, except no one really sing, retained or publish the original version anymore on tablure or sheet music. All of them are the ones published by the bands or singers that altered them. So, as long we do not use the same arrangement as any one artist on a public domain song, we should be okay then? I always find excerpts like: Captain Wedderburn, ####.... Author unknown. Arranged by Great Big Sea (Turn, 1999). Variant of a 19th century British broadside ballad, Lord Roslin's Daughter's Courtship, published by Stephenson (Gateshead) sometime between 1821 and 1850, and archived at the Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads, shelfmark: Harding b25(1143). Also a variant of a 19th century traditional Scottish ballad, Captain Wedderburn's Courtship (Child Ballad #46) The English And Scottish Popular Ballads (1882-1898) edited by Francis James Child [1825-1896] (Dover, 1965) ....####Greenpond, ####.... Variant of text by (Henry) Beckles Willson (1869-1942) found in his book The Tenth Island: Being Some Account Of Newfoundland, p.110, published by Grant Richards, London, 1897, arranged By Great Big Sea (Play, 1997) ....####South Australia, ####.... Author unknown. Traditional capstan shanty. Arranged by Ryan's Fancy (An Irish Night At The Black Knight Lounge ©1971, Marathon Records) ....#### Last edited on Wed Feb 7th, 2007 11:19 pm by TheBloodyIrish ____________________ Currently learning: D-tuned Tin Whistle Projects: Tin-Can Banjo, Goatskin Banjo, Ugly Stick Dream Instruments: Banjo, Fiddle, Lambeg, Lap Guitar, Mountain Dulcimer |
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Richard Hefner Administrator
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Oh, I didn't know that "My Land" referred to "This Land Is Your Land," which of course is copyrighted. Those other examples that cited the pre-1923 references should be fine to record if you want to. The copyrights by the people who recorded them refer to their copyright of their recorded music, not to the song itself. If you wanted to get technical about it, I suppose someone could claim a copyright on something such as the music they created for one of the Child ballads, since these were published without music for the most part, but I think in reality nobody would really come after you for using the same melody on something like that.
____________________ Richard Hefner Webmaster, ezFolk.com MP3 Page: http://www.ezfolk.com/audio/richardhefner Running Blog: http://old-runner.com |
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TheBloodyIrish Approved
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Richard Hefner wrote: Oh, I didn't know that "My Land" referred to "This Land Is Your Land," which of course is copyrighted. Thanks! Sorry about the "My Land" part, it just that been used so often and translated into so many languages, each with its own many variants, it seems more fitting.
____________________ Currently learning: D-tuned Tin Whistle Projects: Tin-Can Banjo, Goatskin Banjo, Ugly Stick Dream Instruments: Banjo, Fiddle, Lambeg, Lap Guitar, Mountain Dulcimer |
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dannyknapp Approved
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Keep in mind to that there are many great songwriters here on ezfolk as well as youtube and myspace. If you would like to cover one of their songs for non-commercial purposes you can likely obtain permission directly from the author. I've been fortunate to have many great friends and musicians play my songs and I can tell you it is a true joy for an amateur songwriter like myself to see what others can do with my songs. I'm sure most amateur songwriters feel the same way. check out my playlist entitled 'My Wonderful Friends' to see everyone who has played my songs. http://www.myspace.com/dannyknappmusic you can also check out my top friends there for many songwriters who would likely be agreeable to public covers of their tunes. yes, copyright laws are hard to figure. for example, originally copyrights were supposed to expire 50 years after the writers death. So, for example, all Hank Williams songs should be public domain. Then greedy record exec's and lawyers decided they wanted to make more money so they extended it to 70 years. also, many of the great lines to popular songs from the 40's, 50's, 60's and even today were simply stolen from old folk songs. no offense to my hero, but even Bob Dylan did it on several occasions. hey, I'm somewhat of a songwriter and even I think it's ridiculous. I would love to just put all of my songs into the public domain except I'm not sure how to do that. And I want them to be played by people on their front porch and not raped by the record industry. peace everyone Danny Last edited on Sat Aug 30th, 2008 01:27 am by dannyknapp |
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banjo brad Super Moderator
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Danny- The easiest way to put your stuff into the PD is to go to Creative Commons and license your stuff under their "Public Domain" license.
____________________ ezFolk Help Brad Prickly Pear Music Banjo Brad's ezFolk page TOTMC |
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GEST Approved
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TheBloodyIrish wrote: I know that "This Land Is My Land" is copyrighted, except people don't seem to understand it is indeed copyrighted. Not to mention, it also got covered and twisted so many time, people forget it is only a 50 to 60 years old song. Stuff like this irrate me anyway. Songs like "Old Makomi" seems to be around forever and sound traditional, but most of these were recorded in the 1950s.I have to laugh at TheBloodyIrish's quoted excerpts herein simply because he does not ALWAYS find them, as he said... All three of these excerpted footnotes are from one site: GEST Songs of Newfoundland and Labrador at http://wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/ ... The precise format of each footnote as well as the information contained therein is mine. Hence, it is copyrighted in that format and TheBloodyIrish has technically violated my posted copyright notice on the site. I really don't give a rat's dropping, but it would be nice if TheBloodyIrish had credited the author or the site whence it came so others would know where to find proper accredited information about songs. I spend nightmarish hours scouring for information about songs, musicians, history, and geography to ensure my archive site is as informative and correct as possible for this and future generations. It irks me when someone quotes that information without giving proper credit where credit is due. If I were a member of a certain litigious society, I would probably sue his Irish arse. ~ROTFLMAO~ On a more serious note, thanks for visiting my site, TheBloodyIrish. Come back again.  GEST
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viking Approved 
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Hi Danny I play Dylan's "Girl From The North Country" at live gigs. I think thats OK here in the UK as all the venues I play at have an entertainments licence and part of the cost of this goes to performing rights and indirectly to the author (don't ask me how but it does). But the song itself is a variation on Scarborough Fayre which is derived from the poem Elven Knight. The arrangement I play owes more to the Sam Bush's live version than any version of Bob's and is completely original. Frankly if I reworked the words a little using original source (Child) it could probably be considered a new song and it would be up to Mr D's lawyers to argue otherwise. But given that The Great Mr.Dylan is a multi million selling recording artist and I play the odd gig in a pub I don't think I'll bother and I very much doubt he will either. But how I would love to be able to post a recording of my rendition on this type of open, free of charge amateur forum without the fear of litigation. Hear You Soon MARK
____________________ Hear You Soon MARK |
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| ezFolk Forums > General > Folk Song Histories > Copyrights regarding folk music | |
