[HN Gopher] Happy Public Domain Day: Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blu...
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Happy Public Domain Day: Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" Is Copyright
Free
Author : aaronbrethorst
Score : 115 points
Date : 2020-01-01 20:01 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (hyperallergic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (hyperallergic.com)
| TruffleLabs wrote:
| Hugh Lofting, Doctor Dolittle's Circus is public domain! I read
| that (and many other Lofting books) when I was 12ish. :)
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| So, just intellectual curiosity, is there a software program that
| could accept the original notes (arrangement?) for Rhapsody in
| Blue and produce a passable rendition that I could then use on my
| (non existent) YouTube documentary and I would not have to pay
| Gherswin nor an orchestra for the audio recording?
|
| I think I am looking for a whirlwind tour of audio copyright
| TylerE wrote:
| The commonly performed orchestral arrangement won't be public
| domain for another 18 years - it didn't debut until 1942.
| SquishyPanda23 wrote:
| Others have answered, but in case it's not clear, for software
| there are two steps.
|
| If you have the notes in a machine-readable format, a midi
| program can produce an audio recording of it. If you are
| willing to pay, you can get very good samples and the quality
| will be more than passable IMO.
|
| Getting to a machine-readable format from a scan of sheet music
| is separate issue. You can either manually enter the notes into
| a computer (or pay someone on Fiverr), or there may be an ML
| program that will turn sheet music into something a computer
| can understand.
| wolfgang42 wrote:
| Yes, a MIDI synthesizer can take the score and convert it to
| audio. (The discerning ear--or even an untrained one, if it's a
| poor quality sythesizer--could tell the difference between that
| and a live orchestra, of course, but that may not be a concern
| for you.)
|
| However, unless you transcribed the original sheet music to
| MIDI yourself, the file may constitute an "original work" for
| which there is a separate copyright[0], in which case you'd
| still need an appropriate license for that. You'd also want to
| make sure that the sound fonts the synthesizer is using are OK
| as well.
|
| Now that the original work is in the public domain, though, I
| would expect that sooner or later there will be a CC-licensed
| version of it on Wikimedia Commons or the YouTube Audio
| Library, and you may want to just wait for that.
|
| [0]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikilegal/MIDI_Files
| daniel_iversen wrote:
| You can apparently use real recorded instrument sounds with
| midi and music software, it's used for professional artists
| too and some of the "instruments" are many GBs in size -
| don't think a living soul could tell the difference.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| On a fairly serious note, how would I find out more of "how
| to" nature - if for example I wanted to have a project with
| my kids RaspberryPis and making music ?
| wolfgang42 wrote:
| Depends on what you're trying to do. If all you want is to
| play back MIDI files adequately, Firefox or VLC can do that
| just fine (I'm sure there are better dedicated software
| synths as well). For making music on the computer, I know
| there's a lot of software with different interfaces like
| virtual keyboards, trackers, and programs where you can
| drag-and-drop notes on a staff.
|
| Since you're talking about the Raspberry Pi, maybe you're
| looking for a hardware. In this case, you can get MIDI
| piano keyboards that plug into the computer over USB (or
| can be used standalone). These can both send MIDI data to
| the computer and also receive it and play it with their
| internal synthesizer. (If you go _really_ expensive, you
| can get actual grand pianos with sensors and actuators
| under each key, along with a subscription service that
| gives you access to recordings by professional piano
| players, replayable at your whim with exact dynamics so it
| 's like they're in your living room.)
|
| You can also build your own hardware and hook it up with a
| microcontroller; I've had good experiences with the Teensy,
| which is similar to an Arduino but can present itself to
| the computer as a USB MIDI device so you can build whatever
| creative/crazy instruments you want.
|
| Should you come across a device with an actual MIDI port (a
| big round DIN socket with 5 pins), it's just a serial
| connection; you can get adaptors to convert them to USB.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Indeed -- transcribing sheet music into MIDI is generally not
| going to be 100% automatic, whoever is doing it is going to
| have necessary artistic choices to make -- what metronome
| speeds do tempo descriptions convert to, how much longer will
| a fermata hold, what levels of volume the different dynamic
| markings will hold.
|
| You _could_ take a "pure" mapping of just the notes and
| relative durations... but then you'd wind up with what would
| essentially sound like a weird robotic "player piano" version
| of the music at strange speeds that would be, well... pretty
| bad.
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| A player piano doesn't necessarily have to sound bad.
|
| Back in 1993 Yamaha built a device that could read piano
| rolls personally "recorded" by Gershwin by hand (he would
| hammer them out for money in his spare time), and then
| played back on a modern player piano. The resulting album
| is one of my all-time favorite albums.
|
| Yamaha still sells these "scans" (on 3.5" floppy!) for
| their player pianos, and they could certainly be reverse
| engineered, but I imagine they are considered derivative
| works and covered by their own copyright.
|
| https://apnews.com/fb3f8c3bc3305506f57120df0755f9d8
| https://youtu.be/_kIpr6nSvjI
| pdpi wrote:
| You're looking for a midi something or another I think. You'll
| have to take care that the midi file you use isn't itself
| considered a creative work with its own copyright though (as
| befits an arrangement)
| duncan-donuts wrote:
| I wonder how different it has to be. If you were to switch
| around 2 notes in a couple phrases overall you'd probably end
| up with more or less the same song. I don't know of anything
| that would do it automatically. I'm more curious about the
| subjectivity of what makes it different or not
| flatiron wrote:
| See vanilla ice verse queen. Da dun dun dun da dun dun dun.
| ronyeh wrote:
| To do it in the most legal way possible....
|
| Look up the 1924 public domain arrangement in sheet music form.
|
| Copy those notes into Musescore or an alternative.
|
| Export the notes into MIDI.
|
| Use Pianoteq to play the MIDI file. (It's one of the better
| sounding virtual instruments out there.) You can export a WAV
| file from Pianoteq.
|
| Use this WAV file in your documentary on YouTube.
|
| Prepare to get content ID'd by one of the big publishers
| anyways. You will have to defend the claim with proof that your
| audio is in the public domain.
|
| I'm not a lawyer, but I happen to know a little about music
| licensing.
| TylerE wrote:
| His audio, a new recording, would NOT be public domain. But
| it would be HIS.
|
| There is a vital difference between copyright of the
| _written_ music and any particular recording of said music.
| aperrien wrote:
| Yes, but then you as an author can choose to place your own
| performance in the public domain.
| ronyeh wrote:
| Yes you are correct. The audio recording any person
| generates through the procedure I outlined above is now
| copyrighted by that person, who may then choose to place it
| in the public domain.
|
| It's like if I recorded myself playing Fur Elise. The
| recording I generate is owned by me, unless I release it to
| the public domain.
| jancsika wrote:
| Gershwin's original version, or the version everyone knows that
| was arranged by Grofe?
|
| If it's only the original version, it'd be kind of fun to see AA
| start using that instead. IIRC it's got an extra piano in the
| rhythm section and a banjo chugging away, too.
| bbanyc wrote:
| The Gershwin estate was the other big force lobbying for the 1998
| copyright extension, besides Disney of course.
|
| I guess United Airlines doesn't have to pay royalties for its
| theme song anymore.
| cma wrote:
| Is anything currently working its way through congress to
| extend it again? Anything we can try and get ahead of?
| slg wrote:
| Considering the public domain is up to 1924 and Steamboat
| Willie is from 1928, Disney is certainly going to start
| pushing for an extension soon if they haven't already started
| lobbying for specific legislation on the issue.
| cortesoft wrote:
| I bet they try something different this time than just an
| extension... maybe some sort of "brand icon" exemption that
| exempts any character who is strongly associated with a
| brand from copyright expiration. They probably sense that
| continuous extension isn't going to work forever.
| TylerE wrote:
| That'd fall under trademark law, no?
| PBnFlash wrote:
| Disney recently released some special edition gold fish
| crackers with the Steamboat Willie design. They are
| pushing for something.
| anonymfus wrote:
| That would probably be a violation of Berne Convention
| because brands are national constructs and require
| registration and convention requires copyright to exists
| independently of national borders and without
| registration.
| Ronnie76er wrote:
| I remember this article from a while ago (beginning of 2018),
| saying the RIAA and MPAA was not actively pursuing anything
| to extend it again: https://arstechnica.com/tech-
| policy/2018/01/hollywood-says-i...
|
| I didn't see anything refuting that in a short look around,
| but maybe that's changed.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| More about Public Domain Day 2020 in the U.S.:
| https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2020/ (discussed at
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21926233 )
| ggm wrote:
| King porter stomp! (*composed by Jelly Roll Morton) Mind you, I
| like the Benny Goodman version better and it's still bound in ipr
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