h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hello! Hopefully one of the very knowledgeable people around here will be able to help me out. I'm in the middle of producing a short film and I need some background music. However, I can't infringe anyone's copyright and I'm not rich enough to actually buy a license to use someone's music (or talented enough to write my own). I was wondering what the copyright status of classical music is. If I recorded myself playing, say, Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata on my piano, and used that, would I be infringing anyone's copyright?

No, you wouldn't. You'd need the permission to use somebody else's recording of it, certainly - but the Berne Convention sets copyright expiration at fifty years after the author/composer's death (in the US, it's seventy years).

So Beethoven is sufficiently dead that you don't have to worry about it

Good Bob! What's this? someone asking a question on Ask and it being answered in post 2?

We can't have that...someone come in and derail the thread into pointless trivia!

RF

p.s. Trin's right, though.
p.p.s. Let the trivia begin!

The Beatles song "Because" from the Abbey Road album was written based upon a reversal of the "Moonlight" Sonata's chord progression.

Ta da!

And thanks Trin, that's great

and just as a footnote, http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/protect/p07_music_copyright
explains it in full

Ah great, I was just about to ask about other people's recordings, but you pre-empted me

I use music in some of my short animations, relying heavily on "royalty free" products like my "Corel Stock Music Library". It has 10 CD's with a wide range of music, all in four lengths: a full song, ~3 minutes, a 30 second version, a ~15 sec "stinger" and a 10-15 second loopable excerpt. The 30 second and stinger versions all begin & end "musically", so you don't have to fade in or out.

But that product seems to have disappeared, with the possible exception of Ebay or similar. There are other sources, like this one that includes "Moonlight Sonata":

http://www.royaltyfreemusic.com/classical-piano-4.html

Seems a little pricey to me, I recall paying much less than that for my Corel 10 CD library, but it was on the clearance rack at Micro Center. Note the same website above has some freebies.

What about Creative Commons?

http://creativecommons.org/

I know that they have free music on their site