What surprised me most about the article is that Lawrence Golan, one of the plaintiffs, implied that his orchestra had not been paying licensing fees for works by Prokofiev and Shostakovich. Are they really playing from unedited copies of the original manuscript?
For those unfamiliar, in the classical music world, musicians almost always play from editions of the original work. Those editions are eligible for copyright protection as derivative works of the original. As a result, if you perform a Kalmus edition of a work by Bach, you would owe Kalmus royalties, even though the original work by Bach is in the public domain.
Obviously, since much of the classical music repertoire was composed before 1923, anyone is free to make their own editions of popular works, provided they have access to the actual original. In practice, however, very few do. This is because creating a definitive edition of a musical work without misprints is painstaking work that requires considerable amounts of time and expertise.
For those unfamiliar, in the classical music world, musicians almost always play from editions of the original work. Those editions are eligible for copyright protection as derivative works of the original. As a result, if you perform a Kalmus edition of a work by Bach, you would owe Kalmus royalties, even though the original work by Bach is in the public domain.
Obviously, since much of the classical music repertoire was composed before 1923, anyone is free to make their own editions of popular works, provided they have access to the actual original. In practice, however, very few do. This is because creating a definitive edition of a musical work without misprints is painstaking work that requires considerable amounts of time and expertise.