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How Royalties Are Determined for New Material Written for Public Domain Music Compositions
A music composition in the public domain is one that is unprotected by copyright because its copyright has expired. As a brief overview of copyright duration under U.S. copyright law ' and there are more complexities depending on the composition involved, so this is a general rule of thumb ' protection for a composition copyrighted prior to Jan. 1, 1978, lasts for 95 years from the earlier of registration with the Copyright Office or of publication. For compositions written on or after Jan. 1, 1978, copyright protection lasts for the life of the author (or last surviving author if a joint work), plus 70 years. And if the composition was written as a work for hire, the copyright protection term is the earlier of 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation.
Granted, not as much public domain material is recorded in comparison with original material, but if such a song becomes a hit or is on a successful album, the public performance royalties can be substantial provided the writer/arranger (who is many times the recording artist or record producer) holds the copyright in his or her version and registered it with the performance right society (PRO) with which the writer is affiliated.
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