contact: Jeff Matthews

       

Copyright Laws that Make Your Head Hurt

Our modern concept of copyright goes back to 1710, when the Parliament of Great Britain passed the Statute of Anne, also known as the Copyright Act. It provided for copyright regulated by the government and courts, rather than by private parties. Before that, copying restrictions fell under the Licensing of the Press Act of 1662. Those restrictions were enforced by the Stationers' Company, a guild of printers given the exclusive power to print —and the responsibility to censor— literary works. Censorship under the Licensing Act led to public protest. As the act had to be renewed every two years, authors sought to prevent its reauthorization. Finally, in 1694, Parliament refused to renew the Licensing Act. That ended the Stationers' monopoly and press restrictions. The Statute of Anne took over in 1710.

Among the many stories surrounding the song 'O sole mio, one has to do with the 1920 Olympic Games held in Antwerp, Belgium. The conductor of the band couldn't find the music to the Royal March, the national anthem of Italy, so he struck up 'O sole mio! After a few moments of confusion, the crowd got the idea and stood up. That's just how iconic the song had become for Italy almost from the time it was composed (1898). (There was a great typo in an il Mattino article about that event: the Italian name for Antwerp is "Anversa". The newspaper, however, referred to "the 1920 Olympics in Aversa..." [sic]. Aversa is a small town north of Naples, most famous as the one-time site of a notorious hospital/prison for the criminally insane. That kind of error is not at all uncommon in the local papers. Some years ago, one writer for il Mattino called Princess Grace of Monaco a "Bavarian Princess". Besides referring to the principality on the French Riviera, "Monaco" also happens to be the Italian name for Munich. That, of course, was not a typo—just stupidity.) 

There's a stranger and much more recent episode having to do with 'O sole mio, and it has to do with copyright. (Stifle that yawn. It gets interesting. And confusing.) Some sources on the history of 'O sole mio assume that this most famous of all Neapolitan songs (ok, maybe it's a toss-up with Funiculì-Funiculà) must have been in the pubic domain in the mid-20th-century when various non-Italian versions of it appeared on the worldwide market. How else could Tony Martin have recorded the melody with the lyric of There's No Tomorrow or Elvis Presley have done It's Now or Never to the same tune? International copyright law makes quantum entanglement look like See Dick & Jane Run, so I really don't know. (If anyone does, I await your message. I will print the best explanation in this space or come to your house and serenade you with 'O sole mio. In keeping with the spirit of this entry, however, I won't pay you a cent!)* ^{note below}



Anyway, Bideri (now Gennarelli Bideri) Music Publishers sponsored the famous Piedigrotta song festival in 1898 and 'O sole mio came in second. Bideri apparently then bought the song from two authors, Giovanni Capurro (1859-1929) (lyrics) and Eduardo Di Capua (1865-1917) (music) for a small one-time fee. There is almost no information on the Bideri website about such things. Both Capurro and Di Capua died in poverty having made nothing off of one of the most recognized and recorded songs ever written. Maybe the publishing company feels guilty about this and hangs its head in shame all the way to bank (but I wouldn't count on it). Bideri does tell us, however, that they presented Elvis with a Golden Record in 1957 for It's Now or Never, so they must have had some interest in the song, either financially or, perhaps, merely because it was good publicity.

OK, WAKE UP!! It turns out that there were three authors, not two. In October, 2002, Maria Alvau, a judge in Torino, decided that one Alfredo Mazzucchi (1878-1972) deserved to be listed as a co-author of the melody to 'O sole mio. (Mazzucchi's name does, indeed, appear with that of Di Capua on early Italian sheet music of 'O sole mio.) Mazzucchi is obscure even to students of the Neapolitan Song and is usually referred to as a "transcriber," meaning that, as a young pianist, he would show up and work at the keyboard to help the "real" songwriters get their ideas down on music manuscript.

The lawsuit came about because Di Capua's heirs sued to have granddad recognized as the sole composer of the melody. This, in itself, is strange since those heirs couldn't claim any money from a song that had been sold legitimately back when it was written. So why would they sue? They may have anticipated a suit against themselves by Mazzucchi's heirs who might claim that their own grandfather was one of the composers and had never agreed to sell the song in the first place; thus, Bideri couldn't own the song and someone would now have to cough up some back royalties. In other words, the Di Capua people would sue in order to keep the Mazzucchi camp from suing them for all that money. That became moot when judge Alvau said that Mazzucchi had had as much to do with many of Di Capua's famous melodies as did Di Capua, himself; she said that Mazzucchi's contribution to the "creative process" was "indistinguishable" from that of Di Capua. The decision extends, as well, to 18 other popular Neapolitan songs composed by di Capua, including Maria Marì (commonly known as Oi, Marì). 

As things turned out, Di Capua's descendants were not too unhappy at the ruling, perhaps because of the interesting copyright implications. 'O sole mio is one of the most recorded songs in the history of the industry. If my fine legal mind has not melted from all this, I think the decision says (1) that since Mazzucchi was not consulted in the original sale of the song to the music publishers, that sale was invalid; (2) the song, thus, does not legitimately belong to Bideri and, in any event, a Bideri copyright has expired; (3) since copyright lasts 70 years beyond the death of the last surviving author/composer—in this case, Mazzucchi, who died in 1972—the song is protected by copyright (belonging now to the heirs of Di Capua, Capurro and Mazzucchi until 2042; and (4)—the nitty gritty that renders all of this much more than the ho-hum legal quibble you thought it was going to be—said heirs are entitled to retroactive royalties (!) on one of the most recorded songs in history.

I think that such a decision is only meant to apply nationally, that is, to versions of the original 'O sole mio performed or recorded in Italy. This brings into play the Società italiania di autori e editori (SIAE, the Italian Society of Authors and Editors) the agency that takes care of paying royalties (pronounced properly in Italian, as a single word, it sounds suspiciously like C.I.A. No comment.) I have not been able to find out how much is at stake—or if it is now (eight years on from the court decision) being paid out—but it has to be somewhere between "lots" and "staggering".

Gee, I seem to remember showing up at Cole Porter's house one time with a couple of tunes...

p.s. I know an American judge who smiles at all this and says, "I hate copyright law. They will never settle this. Give me a
good first-degree murder trial any time. No problem. Try'em and fry'em."

note: copyright law
The Statute of Anne, also known as the Copyright Act 1710 (cited either as 8 Ann. c. 21 or as 8 Ann. c. 19),  is an act of the Parliament of Great Britain passed in 1710, which was the first statute to provide for copyright regulated by the government and courts, rather than by private parties. The complete Wikipedia article is excellent, here.

* The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works was first established in 1886. It was revised in 1896 (Paris), 1908 (Berlin), 1928 (Rome), 1948 (Brussels), 1967 (Stockholm) and 1971 (Paris). The United States initially refused to become a party to the Convention and did not do so until the U.S. passed its own Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988. Thus, I have a feeling that at mid-20th-century, US publishers could safely use tunes from foreign songwriters (even if the material was protected in the country of origin) without fear of being sued. Of course, music composed in the 19th-century was completely up for grabs by later songwriters. Readers may be aware of a number of well-known popular songs with lyrics set to classical themes: Till the End of Time, from Frédéric Chopin's Polonaise in A flat major; Tonight We Love, from Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto in B-Flat Minor; also, the entire 1953 musical Kismet uses the music of Alexander Borodin (including the hit song, "Take my hand, I'm a stranger to copyright").

The Neapolitan song, Funiculì-Funiculà, with music by Denza, has had some copyright adventures, as well. See this link.

Theme songs of old US radio and TV shows are also interesting. Rossini lived too long ago for any of his heirs to even think about getting money from the Lone Ranger for the William Tell Overture. The same is true for poor Rimsky-Korsakov; his heirs will never collect a dime from the Green Hornet for The Flight of the Bumblebee. Then there is the case of Sergei Prokofiev. He died in 1953, by which time the hit radio crime drama, The FBI in Peace & War, had been running for nine years on CBS in the United States using as its theme song the march from Prokofiev's opera, The Love for Three Oranges. I wonder if Sergei ever complained to Stalin: "Those capitalists rats are using my music! I want some dough!" "Why, Sergei," Uncle Joe would have said, "what a totally capitalist ratty thing to want. All intellectual property belongs to the people. Besides, we don't belong to the international copyright convention, either."  (back to text)


added Oct. 2015: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU. In spite of a recent court decision hyped by the press as putting "Happy Birthday to You" in the public domain, it isn't --at least the words. So keep humming.  Invent your own words. If you want to be thoroughly confused, here is a good explanation of the recent decision.

(Other entries on the Neapolitan Song here and here.)

(And an entry on the non-Neapolitan Song, click here.)

(Also see related item on copyright and photography here.)