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MAKING OLD MUSIC AVAIL-ABLE ONLINE MAY INFRINGE COPYRIGHT
In a recent interpretation, the Intellectual Prop-erty Office stated that making 100-year-old classical music available online for download or listening is not free of the risk of copyright in-fringement. Whether such act infringes copy-right depends on whether the period of copyright protection has expired on both the musical work itself and on the recorded work.
Under the Copyright Act, economic rights in a musical work exist for the life of the author and for 50 years following the author's death, while those in a recorded work exist for 50 years after publication of the recording. Therefore, if the period of copyright protection on a work of classical music or on a recording of such a work has not expired, then making such a work available online for download or listening without obtaining the prior consent of the owner of the economic rights is likely to infringe copy-right. Even if a century-old work of classical music is already in the public domain, so that the musical work itself is not protected by copyright, a recording of such a work may still enjoy copyright protection.