CMAA's collection of "The Caecilia" -- Public Domain?
  • John_F_ChurchJohn_F_Church
    Posts: 54
    Just curious if one of you fine folks could verify that the music found in the online PDFs of "The Caecilia" magazine and other such publications belong in the public domain.

    Many thanks!
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,886
    Certainly the first issues from 1927 are in the clear.

    Other things would have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
    Thanked by 1John_F_Church
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,886
    Then again, if CMAA owns the copyright to the publications, and everything else is released to PD, they might all be in the clear anyway.
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,086
    Has there been any thought to attempting to expand the holdings of the Catholic Choirmaster, at least to the rolling copyright wall? There are holes in the Caecilia as well, but not to the same extent.
  • Jenny Donelson
    Posts: 257
    I believe the problem is that we don't have a comprehensive set of copies of all issues. I believe Richard was working on that a while ago, so he'd have the most up-to-date info on it.
    Thanked by 4tomjaw Jeffrey Quick John_F_Church CHGiffen
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,086
    It's something I wish I'd had time for back when I was an Academic™ with access to OhioLink. But there are still things I might be able to do, if I knew where we are on it.
  • John_F_ChurchJohn_F_Church
    Posts: 54
    Thank you, maybe I'll try to reach about to Richard.
  • Don9of11Don9of11
    Posts: 708
    If you are not planning to profit monetarily or resell the music, then you could use the music from the Caecilia collection, and I'm sure no one would kick up a big fuss. If you produce a program of the music, a liturgy guide, or something similar for your congregation, then I would give proper credit to the author and composer. To be sure, you need to go to the copyright office online and verify that no copyrights were renewed.

    You can also review the information regarding copyrights and public domain works at Cornell Univeristy https://guides.library.cornell.edu/copyright/publicdomain
    Thanked by 1oldhymns
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    The content of The Caecilia is a mix; in the later years, the journal was published by the Society of Saint Cecilia (which was probably dissolved when the journal ended); before then, it was issued by the music publisher McLaughlin and Reilly; in the 1920s, it was published by the seminary at Mundelein. The texts in the journal were probably owned by those organizations. I haven't checked, but I doubt that those copyrights got renewed, so the texts are probably all PD.

    Most of the music bears copyright notices for McLaughlin and Reilly. If the protection has not expired from the 95-year limit, it may be useful to search for copyright renewals and see who held the rights at the time of renewal: that was sometimes McLaughlin still, but in some cases, the rights were transferred to the author or an heir. McLaughlin's remaining rights, I believe, are now held by Summy-Birchard, but that publisher may be part of some bigger company now.

    If the rights went to an heir, it's a tradeoff: private individuals may be good at responding to a permission request, but finding who owns the rights now may take some research. Big publishers have not been very responsive in my few attempts to get permissions: responses to requests took several months.
    Thanked by 4tomjaw ServiamScores Don9of11 CHGiffen
  • janetgorbitzjanetgorbitz
    Posts: 968
    I have several boxes of the Catholic choirmaster that were donated to the CMAA for scanning and uploading. The project will be fairly expensive and we probably need to do a fundraiser to specifically raise funds to do this.
    Thanked by 2tomjaw ServiamScores
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,086
    I note that a number of the earlier issues of the Caecilia (German and German-English) are available at archive.org. I haven't checked yet for Catholic Choirmaster. It would seem that such issues could be ported over at minimal expense.
    Thanked by 2chonak Jenny Donelson
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