DonovanB wrote
Stratisfear wrote
Yeah, Bob, I don't agree with that contention one little bit. If you have a really, really good idea nobody's ever had before, why shouldn't you get your worth out of it? It has nothing to do with who might be able to copy it later. It might be completely inimitable; I don't think that's the issue.
I think that was meant more as if i wrote a song, and you copied it and made the money out of it instead of me, not something you covered.
check this out for interests sake
http://www.samro.org.za/resources/our_resources/
In the notification of works, there is an area for arranger. So a new arrangement of an existing song you would get some royalties from it.
also there's this.
http://www.samro.org.za/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/filemanager/files/Short-term_performing_right.pdf
This is where it gets sort of tricky... when you create an adaptation of a work or you copy/incorporate someone's work into your own, you are infringing someone’s copyright. BUT if the work YOU created (using other's copyright) exhibits enough originality you have copyright in that work (even though it infringes someone else’s copyright) and you would be entitled to royalties if someone wants to use it.
Riaan wrote
I may have missed it in this thread, but (and I guess Rikus will know) when does this copyright expire? Let's say someone wanted to do a cover of an Elvis or Buddy Holly song. Are they still under copyright protection?
So does that mean that once it's expired, the piece of music is public property and doesn't belong to anyone anymore (like classical music)?
The general rule for a musical work is the lifetime of the author plus 50 years. Once that period has expired it is referred to as being "in the public domain" and anyone can use it (like classical music). Stuff that is in the public domain can however still be "copyrighted". The copyright in a Shakespeare novel for example is long gone, but any Shakespeare novel that you purchase in a bookstore will be copyrighted. In that instance it's not the words that are copyrighted, but the specific arrangement of the words in the book, the page numbers... stuff like that.
Fun fact: the above term has been extended in the US mianly due to pressure from people like Sonny Bono and Disney (exceptions for Mickey Mouse/Disney stuff has been made since the '70's IIRC).
