Posted by ed on January 14, 2004 at 13:00:55:
In Reply to: For the copyright experts... posted by Ted on January 14, 2004 at 00:29:58:
If these songs are as old as you presume they are, then they would be in the public domain. Although the music itself may be without copyright, they are published in that book and so those melodies as they appear there are protected. The only way to get around this is to find her original source -- if she lifted them, then find the recordings she used. If she found them it another book and edited them or made other corrections/additions, then find the book she used. Then you may be able to get around the copyright.
Here's an example: all of the Mozart symphonies are in the public domain. If a publisher has produced a volume of the symphonies, and you wanted to record them, you would have to pay royalties to use that edition. Or if you wanted to arrange them for a chamber ensemble using that edition, then you would owe the publisher. The publisher owns the music in that edition in the form that it's published -- not that actual music itself. But if you go to the library and find original editions of the symphonies, and record them or arrange them, then you would not have to pay anything to anyone else.
Talk to a copyright lawyer. They will probably counsel you for a fee, but that fee will be worth the knowledge that they have and will be useful to you in the future.