Hello All,

Sorry for the delay.

Regarding questions that came up about our policy with respect to public domain images:

Public domain images are typically those images for which the copyright has expired. Generally, it is safe to say that any image (published or unpublished) created before 1892 or by a U.S. artist who died prior to 1942 is in the public domain in the United States. It is not however easy to determine if an image fits those criteria and is in fact in the public domain. As copyright laws vary from country to country, determining the copyright status of images created outside of the United States is more complex.

Unfortunately, researching and verifying the copyright status of public domain images is not practical as part of the review process. On occasion, our policies have attempted to be more forgiving, but we can no longer accept public domain images. For the foreseeable future we will be adhering to our existing guidelines, which prominently state "submissions must be wholly owned by the submitter. Found or public domain images or footage cannot be submitted under any circumstances."

http://submit.shutterstock.com/guidelines.mhtml

Thanks for your understanding and we sincerely apologize for any confusion.

There are no plans to remove public domain images that are currently in the collection, but we reserve the right to do so as we perform routine reviews and quality assurance.

In addition, thank you for the feedback regarding our other review policies and communications. As always, our goal is to have and maintain the best submission experience and your feedback is helpful.

Best Regards,

Scott
VP of Content
Shutterstock

We have a winner! In fact SS doesn't accept anything that's PD or found anymore.

And besides SS, you will have hit and miss results from IS and others who work on the basis of the Berne Convention agreement which is life of the author plus 50 years.

Next someone will say Beethoven or Brahms, which for some reason, are rejected when it's obvious they have been dead more than 50 years! Ah ha, but that's the original music. When someone publishes an arrangement or score, they have a new copyright.

You can not re-copyright something. Once it's PD it's PD forever. But now you see a new printing, is protected by the publisher.

What's the answer.

Blank music, copy some classical music, melody line, by hand. Find some obscure Vivaldi or better yet, if you want lots of notes, use the Marriage of Figaro by Mozart. It's just dripping with them. Then if someone reads it and wonders what you used, it can be highbrow humor.

Or find sheet music that's printed on or before 1854 at an antique shop. (if I remember the general date right) And make a note to the reviewer, that the music is not only PD but the publishing rights are expired as well. USA it's 1923 but that's where I found IS had a different opinion, International Law, and it took me some time to discover the answer, because they were just saying, that's our rule.

That means, depending on where the agency is, the answer may vary. Easy enough SS says, none, no matter what.

Quote from: Ron on September 17, 2013, 10:05

Shutterstock doesnt accept sheet music even if its from PD