One loophole in the old system of copyright was to never publish original documents. But in 1978, the US changed over to a system of protection based on the lifetime of the author, as is common practice in Berne countries. Public, school and private libraries across the country hold old diaries, photos, letters and similar 'unpublished' items that will now fall into public domain on January 1, 2003, unless they can be published earlier. Often a condition of grant was that the library not publish the materials but offer them for research. Since the terms of a will cannot be changed, the continued protection they were seeking by not publishing will be lost because laws do change. In other circumstances estates could request publication before the deadline so as to at least garner some protection against unexpected commerical exploitation.
While this concerns mostly written memoirs, photos and art materials, it does have an effect on the music community. Publishers used to run a scam that ran something like this. The estate of a long dead composer, say J.S. Bach would keep original manuscripts of music compositions hidden from the public. A music publisher, for example Peters would send in a dupe, such as Albert Sweitzer or Mary Widor to look at these and then prepare an 'edition' to be printed. They would then qualify for and receive a US copyright, because our copyright office does not recognize public performace (by Bach originally) or hand copied manuscripts as publication. The US copyright grant would then have to be observed in Germany even though if the same music were to be published in Bach's home country it would be as public domain.
So publishers now claim (on copyright registration documents) that old Al or Mary actually hoodwinked them and rewrote Bach's works into distinctive new compositions, this despite the assurances they've printed on the sheet music about these being authentic versions. Buyer beware, because if it has been granted a copyright, then it cannot possibly be the genuine article.
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