OT: Victory at Sea music

kotori87

Member
Joined
Sep 19, 2008
Messages
292
Reaction score
1
Location
California
Hi, folks. Does anybody know the current copyright status of the Victory at Sea music? I started listening to it while playing Jutland, and I want to know if I can post a .zip with the files for other people.
 

kotori87

Member
Joined
Sep 19, 2008
Messages
292
Reaction score
1
Location
California
That's it! I don't want SES to get in trouble if I upload a .zip file with all the music correctly formatted and renamed. Wikipedia says that the Victory at Sea episodes are public domain, but the music has "other copyright limitations". I don't know where to look up what those limitations are, unfortunately, and google search was not very helpful.
 

Bullethead

Storm Eagle Studios
Joined
Feb 18, 2006
Messages
3,890
Reaction score
3
Location
Wakefield, LA
Country
llUnited States
Wikipedia says that the Victory at Sea episodes are public domain, but the music has "other copyright limitations".
I got an A in copyright class but haven't touched it 15 years so I've forgotten a lot. But I remember a rule that still seems to apply. If "Vistory at Sea" was made by the USN (which IIRC it was), then yeah, it's almost certainly been public domain since the day it was created. The usual rule is that anything made by a government entity with tax money is automatically public domain. That would cover the video and the narration for sure.

The music, however, might well fall into the chaos that is the current state of US copyright law. While you'd think that if it had been composed especially for the show, then it would also be public domain, IIRC there are some new weird laws that give composers certain rights in such music. US copyright law is a real mess right now due to us agreeing some while back to switch to European rules, which give a number of extra rights and have them all last way longer than the old US system. The change was done in phases, depending on when the work was created, with some having the old US system, some having a compromise version between the 2, and everything of fairly recent make being under the European rules. IIRC, it will still take some years before all the stuff under the 2 older systems to expire and fall into the public domain, and until that happens, you really need a copyright lawyer to tell you which system a particular piece falls under.
 
Top