Musical Space

Tomorrow - New Year’s Day - a number of works written in 1924 will have outlived their legal copyright status and enter public domain. This means anyone can record and perform these old songs and symphonies without having to pay royalty fees to estates or publishers. Ninety-five years is longer than any composer can hope to benefit from their work while alive, but Congress has repeatedly extended the term, much to the benefit of rights holders like Disney and Time Warner. The latest extension, Sonny Bono’s law, also called the Mickey Mouse Protection Act, gave 20 years of added income to publishers. Music: “Copenhagen” - Bix Beiderbecke and The Wolverines (rec. 1924) So it’s been a wait. But 1924 is now open to us. It was a fruitful time for American music: The jazz age was dawning and there was an explosion of new media in the form of phonograph records and radio. Music theatre was evolving and the Gershwin brothers had their first hit. So, what goes into public domain tomorrow? There