Dear MMDers: Once again, along with being New Year's Day, it is Public
Domain Day 2022! Another year's worth of intellectual property that was
copyrighted in the USA has passed into the public domain; in this case
works that were copyrighted in 1926 that were subsequently properly
renewed to double the period of copyright protection (things that were
not renewed dropped into the public domain long ago, of course.)

From a musical perspective, this includes another great trove of George
Gershwin songs, from Oh! Kay, such as "Someone to Watch Over Me", "Clap
Yo' Hands", "Fidgety Feet", "Do, do, do", and "Maybe". James P. Johnson
contributed his great standard (which, however, did not really catch on
until around 1930) "If I Could Be With You (One Hour Tonight)", and the
instrumentals "Jingles" and "Keep Off the Grass", though James P. did
record the latter in 1921 for Okeh, it was not published by Clarence
Williams Music Publishing Co. until 1926.

"Papa" Charlie Jackson copyrighted "Shake That Thing", and Jelly Roll
Morton copyrighted "Black Bottom Stomp", "Dead Man Blues", "Chicago
Breakdown" and "Sidewalk Blues" in 1926. Lem Fowler copyrighted an
instrumental called "Dark Blue Blues" under his "J. Meller" pseudonym,
then added words to it and copyrighted the resulting song as "Whip It
To a Jelly" under his "Ed. Richards" pen-name. Near the end of the year,
Fowler copyrighted the song "Percolatin' Blues" under his own name.

New this year, all sound recordings prior to 1923 -- and some estimate
that amounts to something like 400,000 recordings -- enter the public
domain. Now, I'll be interested to read the opinion of legal experts
on this, but I would imagine that that probably means the piano roll
arrangements up to 1923 now would enter the public domain, as I believe
that piano rolls were considered "phonorecords" in the eyes of the law.

If that's right, I would think that would mean that piano rolls prior to
1923 could be freely duplicated and used without obtaining any sort of
permission from corporate descendants of the issuing companies. This is
quite apart from the question of the copyright of the underlying musical
composition.

I am celebrating the works that have just entered the public domain
by scanning and sharing James P. Johnson's quite obscure "Scalin' the
Blues", copyrighted in 1926 and hence in the public domain as of today,
20220101. Clarence Williams published this one, too, in 1926. (By the
way, the actor Clarence Williams III that passed away on June 4, 2021
was indeed Clarence Williams's grandson.)

Happy New Year! Happy Public Domain Day 2022! And may all MMD readers
have a much-improved year in 2022!

Best regards,

Bob Pinsker
San Diego, California

 [ Scalin' The Blues
 [ https://www.mmdigest.com/Attachments/22/01/01/Scalin'%20the%20Blues%20-%20Happy%20Public%20Domain%20Day%202022.pdf