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Err... maybe I just didn't read the article closely enough, but if both the music and the words predate 1900, how can there possibly be a valid copyright on it today? I mean, I'm sure it would cost big bucks to prove in court that it should be public domain, but WB wouldn't actually have a leg to stand on, would they?

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Because there is nothing showing the tune and the words together (i.e. sheet music) with some kind of statement that involves copyright. It's a shaky leg, but a leg nonetheless.

But even if they were combined without permission, wouldn't that invalidate the later copyright? I know copyrights aren't exactly like patents, but was it really possible to take something someone else had written (decades earlier!), and copyright it yourself?

Hmmm, I also came away from the article with more questions than answers.

Would this mean that the lyrics are not under copyright, but just the performance combined with the music? And that the music is not under copyright unless combined with those lyrics?

Assuming that the copyright to the combined is valid, is there any other way I could recombine them that would constitute a copyrightable derived work -- simply shifting the key the music is performed in perhaps?

My conclusion; copyright laws suck.

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