As an example, Bach has approx. 6 million listeners monthly on Spotify. Who gets those royalties? Are they profit for streaming services? Donated? Given to a trust?
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The composition is public domain, anybody can use it. The performance is the copyright of the performer, though, so they get their royalty if you play it (unless they specify it’s royalty free or are getting screwed over)
Copyright is the legal framework that prevents people from reproducing your work without your permission. Copyright is a property right and can be inherited, sold or given away. But, it doesn’t last forever. In America, copyright lasts for the life of the creator plus 70 years. After that point the work is in the public domain and you don’t need permission from the composer to perform that work.
However, when someone sits down and plays that piece and records it, they are granted a copyright on the specific recording. So, when the London Philharmonic plays Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, they don’t need his (or his descendants’) permission. But, you would need permission to make a copy of the recording.
Classical Music is in the public domain, meaning that it is too old to qualify for copyright protection.
So the descendants of composers can’t claim royalties for the work anymore.
But a particular performance of said music can be protected.
A lot of classic music is available commission free however, for example US Army bands can’t charge for performances so all their performances are royalty free.
Where it gets really interesting—and by interesting I mean tragic—is when classical musicians play classical music on their YouTube channel and then get “copy strikes” and demonetized for pieces that are in the public domain yet claimed by random people. This happens a lot to TwoSet Violin.
Copyright law was introduced in the years after classical composers. Now it stands for 50 years or so, after that it enters public domain.
last time i saw bach he was erasing everything hed ever written
i wasnt prepared to see him decomposing so badly
Copyright laws vary in different countries.
The most common is: 70 years after the death of the composer the copyright of the creations enters public domain.
The copyright for recordings or sheet music is under different regulations.
By the way… only people with millions of klicks on streaming platforms like Spotify is make any kind of money of that.
Spotify is equivalent to sweatshops in music.
I just had a copyright claim on a recent live performance of a 70yr old piece of music. I think some @$$h*!e is copyrighting public domain music. If their claim is upheld, they get to put their ads on my video. How do I stop them? (I don’t have ads, and I’m not doing this to make money. )
Hiya! My SO is a composer himself as well as an assistant to another very well known composer.
From what I understand they do and can make money off their music today but it’s not to the same scale as say even 100 years ago.
Main sources of income now come from things like commissions themselves (big ones come from larger companies like the Met Opera, big orchestras around the world etc) that pay for the composition of a specific piece of music.
His boss started his own publishing house that also helps earn him money as his boss can also own all the rights to his own music so if someone wants to play his piece, they need to pay for it.
There is also an organization called BMI that assists smaller composers (my boyfriend included) with pay by paying for every single preformance of his music (not talking big money here tho).
There is also the work modern composers can get from modern projects: tv, movies, commercials all need music that they pay for or pay for the rights for!
All this said he’s always called it a dying field because we simply don’t enjoy classical (or I think a better word for it is orchestral) music the same way we did a few decades/centuries ago 🙂
It depends how recently they wrote it.
Sergei Rachmaninoff wrote his piano concerto no 2 in 1901. He lived till 1943.
Eric Carmen used the melody from one movement in his 1975 hit “All By Myself” which he did not write all by himself. He thought it was public domain (and it was, in the US). But it wasn’t everywhere else, and he was contacted by the Rachmaninoff estate and they settled out of court for co-writing credit and 12% of revenues.
So watch out for classical that is recent.
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