Public Domain: The Shocking Truth!

Having been some time since I've talked about the issue of music and cartoons. I've mentioned things quite a bit, but let's face it--music and cartoons go hand in hand.

So now having learned something I somewhat referenced in a past post about music. I vaguely touched on Public Domain music. Where I mentioned "the older the better".

Turns out, that's only a half truth. Why? Well let me tel you.

While an old song may be public domain, that really only covers the sheet music, any lyrics.

The catch here is, any recordings or productions made from that music are protected by copyright and belong to that particular creator. And that recording won't enter public domain until at least 75 years after the death of that creator.

So even though an old dusty piece of classical music is up for grabs, every individual musician or group are the rightful owners of their respective recordings. And therefore you cannot use that 150+ year old song unless you go about getting the proper permissions to use it.

Of course you could always time travel 100 years or so into the future, make your toon and then come back.