If I want to use a poem, I need to respect copyright. The use in question being setting it to music.
In the case of poems out of copyright, no problem. In the case of a living poet, seek permission. The worst case is of a poet long dead but still in copyright: a few years back I inquired about using something by Dylan Thomas, but the lawyers with the keys to his estate were utterly dismissive, so that'll have to wait until he's out of copyright.
But what about a poem seen online but published as "anonymous"? Anon may conventionally mean traditional/unknown (and implicitly old), but I don't think that's guaranteed: a modern poet might also publish anonymously.
The site in question is unclear about copyright, but contains the anonymous among a lot of poems that are verifiably out-of-copyright. What is a bit disconcerting is that googling the anonymous text finds it in exactly one place: surely a traditional poem would appear more widely?
I'm asking the site's contact about the specific, but what about the general? Are there any rules or case-law covering this situation?
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Anonymous Copyright
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Re: Anonymous Copyright
According to a quick google, copyright lasts 50 years from the date the anonymous wsork was made public:
https://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p10_duration
So you'd to find it in an old printed word to assume with certainty that it's ok.
https://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p10_duration
So you'd to find it in an old printed word to assume with certainty that it's ok.
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Re: Anonymous Copyright
Midsmartin wrote:According to a quick google, copyright lasts 50 years from the date the anonymous wsork was made public:
https://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p10_duration
So you'd to find it in an old printed word to assume with certainty that it's ok.
From the same site:
The 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act states the duration of copyright as;
For literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works
70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the last remaining author of the work dies.*
If the author is unknown, copyright will last for 70 years from end of the calendar year in which the work was created, although if it is made available to the public during that time, (by publication, authorised performance, broadcast, exhibition, etc.), then the duration will be 70 years from the end of the year that the work was first made available.
The 50 years is what's required by the Berne Convention - so UK law goes a bit further.
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