NOTATIO

Den wrote: ↑26 Jul 2020, 21:07 Just one more question, when classical composers who are no longer alive are being made, are there any sub-copyrights in the publishing houses around the sheet music, in this case Beethoven ...? Or is everything allowed and can copy anything?

A composer enters into the Public Domain (=free to publish, perform without license, and arrange without license) generally 70 years after composer's death.
This year we have, among others, these composers "free": Kurt Weill and Charles Koechlin.
Here are composers that will soon "become free":
2021: Arnold Schoenberg
2023: Sergei Prokofiev
2024: Charles Ives, Nikolai Oboukhov
2025: Arthur Honegger, George Enescu
2026: Reinhold Gliere, Gustave Charpentier
2027: Jean Sibelius, Erich Korngold
2028: Ralph Vaughan Williams, Florent Schmitt
2029: Bohuslav Martinu, George Antheil, Heitor Villa Lobos, Ernest Bloch
2041: Stravinsky....
2090: Penderecki....

However, any editorial edition has "new" copyright attached to it, so called publisher's edition copyright. Indeed, a new edition of a Beethoven sonata can be copyrighted, despite the fact that Beethoven "is free" - only because the editor has his/her own rights. (Think how much effort/time/knowledge John Ruggero has put in his edition!!)

Usually, IMSLP has a very strict and systematic database and there you can easily obtain free scores without worrying.

In the USA, everything published before Jan. 1, 1923 is in the public domain. Most things after that date are not, unfortunately. Unless that has changed. Please someone, tell me it has.

OCTO, thank you for your very kind words!

ThnXXX OCTO and John!
Stravinsky 2041 and Penderecki 2090 ...

In Canada, editions of PD works are also PD, with only brand-new editions like forewords and fingering considered copyrightable.