When Maurice Ravel's music will fall in public domain?

Question

Since the composer Maurice Ravel passed away in 1937, the next year (2008) his music should fall in the public domain (the standard rule of copyrights is that a work falls in the public domain after 70 years from the author's death), but it's unclear if Maurice Ravel's works have some sort of tie with other copyright holders... anyone can help me to find this out?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

See, this is why all copyright laws should be rolled back to pre-1978 standards--of course with minor adjustments to adapt to the digital world.

Ravel's copyrights expired many years ago; back when he was composing, the US standard I think was 28 years from the time of publication, plus an optional renewal for an additional 28 years. Or was that 32 years? I do recall that Joe Walsh and the James Gang had to pull one of their recordings off the market because they slipped Ravel's "Bolero" into a guitar solo--that album became available again back in the 1990s.

The copyright revisions of 1978 made it longer, and since then the Sonny Bonos of the world kept it creeping up with the goal eventually of making it the end of time. You can find the exact history by checking the copyrights articles in Wikipedia.

Keeping in mind that the US constitution authorizes copyrights for the express purpose of encouraging creativity, we ought to expect our congress to explain how in bloody hell it encourages any creativity to hold on to a copyright 50 years after you're dead. Nothing but a big money-grab by lawyers for Hal David and such slimey ilk.

Thank you for giving me this opportunity to rant.

Answer 2

this is a very complex issue especially since he wrote significant compositions late in his life. his compositions first published in the USA after 1924 have their copyrights extended by the sonny bono act and will not expire in 2007. any works not registered in the USA expired in 1987, then were retroactively restored by the EU to 2007. Bolero will be in rights until 2020 in the US (publication plus 95 years).

Answer 3

This Article is excellent for understanding the copyright holder history for Ravel

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,477906,00.html