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Hymn Descant / Lines - legal question



 
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orchestraltrpt
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Joined: 04 Mar 2003
Posts: 163

PostPosted: Tue Aug 08, 2017 7:31 pm    Post subject: Hymn Descant / Lines - legal question Reply with quote

Hi! I'm a trumpet player / composer / arranger and I'm looking to potentially publish online a book of hymn descants that I have used over the years for my own use.

Has anyone done anything similar? I am particularly curious about any copyright issues regarding copyrighted hymn material.

I assume if I only provide my original descants and no other copyrighted material all will be ok.

Thanks for your help,
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legallyloud
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Joined: 14 Mar 2011
Posts: 16

PostPosted: Tue Aug 08, 2017 9:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I am an attorney but copyright is not my specialty. Generally speaking, the chord changes under your descants are not copyrightable in and of themselves. But, the descants may be considered derivative works of the original hymns. In that case, you would need arrainging rights from the copyright owner. It is not so cut and dry. Be careful. Perhaps someone with more experience in this area can help further.

To elaborate a little: many of the hymns you would probably use are public domain. Do whatever you want with those.

If you composed a new song using only the chord changes to a copyrighted hymn but changed all other elements, you would likely have an original composition that would not be controlled by the original copyright owner. But, with a descant, you are not making an all original composition. You are making a new voice line for an existing composition. That may be considered a derivative work.

Hope this helps. Anyone else dealt with this situation before?
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trickg
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Joined: 02 Jan 2002
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 09, 2017 5:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't know if this will help or not - it's possible that some of the hymns you have written descants for would be in the public domain, but it's possible that there are a number of them that are still copyrighted.

I don't know how any of that applies though - you are composing original descants against pre-established works, so I don't know how the copyright would apply.

https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/hymns-public-domain-and-copyright
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orchestraltrpt
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 09, 2017 3:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you for your insight. I will stick to public domain hymns for anything released.

Stay tuned! Thanks,
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