The Copyright Legacy of Tom Lehrer

Earlier this week, one of the greatest musical satirists, Tom Lehrer, passed away at the age of 97.

Fans of Lehrer, including myself, are mourning the loss but also taking comfort in the fact that his legacy will undoubtedly live on. His mix of irreverence, dark humor and political satire ensures that his music is never truly out of date.

In short, there will always be a new audience for Tom Lehrer’s work.

And Lehrer, for his part, took significant steps to ensure that the audience would have easy access to his music. In October 2020, he took the unusual step of releasing all of his music into the public domain. In a lengthy disclaimer, he waived all his rights, permitting others to download, cover and use his work any way they see fit.

This created something of a renaissance for his music, including his music being uploaded to a variety of platforms, both old and new.

So why, five years later, is there a significant debate about deleting his music from Wikipedia? The reason is simple: copyright is complicated, and for a site like Wikipedia, the stakes are very high.

All in all, it’s proof that, even when an artist wants to walk away from their copyright, there are significant hurdles to doing so and ensuring that others will feel safe in using their work.

Background on Tom Lehrer

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and I am not providing legal advice.

I did a complete retrospective on Lehrer’s career in my previous post. As such, I won’t recall the minutiae of his work.

However, it should suffice to say that Lehrer’s music career was limited from the early 1950s to the early 1970s. Though widely successful, he abandoned music in the 1970s to focus on academia and made it clear that music no longer interested him.

Ultimately, he only wrote 37 and performed just 109 concerts in that time. Even he said that his output was “hardly what I would call a career.”

After leaving music behind, he became indifferent to how his music was used. Though he was still successful and had a large following, he was genuinely disinterested in the music business.

As such, it wasn’t much of a surprise when, in October 2020, he placed all of his work in the public domain. However, his initial proclamation created some confusion, as I reported at the time; it only referenced the compositions and lyrics, not the recordings.

This is a potentially significant problem. With most music, there are two separate copyrights to worry about: the composition and the recording. Though the status of the compositions, including the lyrics and sheet music, was clear, there was debate about the recordings.

He updated the disclaimer in November 2022 to mention his recordings. However, even that was unclear, simply saying:

“Some recording, movie, and television rights to songs written by me are merely licensed non-exclusively by me to recording, movie, or TV companies. All such rights are now released herewith and therefore do not require any permission from me or from Maelstrom Music, which is merely me in another hat, nor from the recording, movie, or TV companies involved.”

This brings us to today and why Wikipedia editors are wringing their hands over the continued distribution of Lehrer’s music on the site.

The Question of the Recordings

Lehrer only released two studio albums: Songs by Tom Lehrer (1953) and More of Tom Lehrer (1959). Both albums were self-released, meaning that Lehrer held the copyright to those sound recordings at the time of publication.

The same is true for his two biggest live albums: An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer (1959) and Revisited (1960)

Those four albums make up the lion’s share of Lehrer’s work. In all cases, Lehrer owned both the composition and sound recording.

However, there is a fly in the ointment. Two albums were released more recently by major publishers. In 1997, Rhino Entertainment published Songs & More Songs by Tom Lehrer, and in 2000, Rhino and Warner Brothers released The Remains of Tom Lehrer. Both are collections of Lehrer’s previous work with some previously unreleased material thrown in.

Both have copyright notices that indicate the respective labels own the compilation. That has caused some to worry that Rhino and/or Warner may have some copyright interest in the songs. Note: Rhino is a subsidiary of Warner.

However, that doesn’t seem likely to me. In both cases, the copyright only mentions the compilation. Under US law, you can claim copyright in a compilation of works if the compilation is assembled with some creativity. That compilation can include both public domain and copyright-protected work.

But the compilation copyright is independent of the copyright of the works in the compilation itself. The example Wikipedia uses is appropriate as it discusses a musical whose copyright lapses, but the individual songs still enjoy protection.

In short, the copyright the labels are claiming in these releases doesn’t pertain to the songs themselves, just the order and selection of works. However, even that copyright interest is going to be thin as both are, more or less, just complete collections of Lehrer’s work.

In both cases, they indicate that the music is licensed from Tom Lehrer. In short, he didn’t transfer ownership to the companies; he merely permitted them to create these compilations.

But there are still a few outliers and other issues to consider.

Outliers and Oddities

Of course, with Tom Lehrer, nothing gets to be quite that simple.

The first issue is that all of Lehrer’s music was recorded pre-1972. This means that, at release, the recordings were covered under state common law rather than federal copyright law. The CLASSICS Act of 2018 largely ironed these issues out. However, it does mean we don’t have copyright registrations, transfers or other documentation to refer to.

That makes it at least theoretically possible that Lehrer transferred the copyrights to the label. However, there’s no indication that he did that, and the labels themselves only refer to licensing the tracks. So this seems highly unlikely.

Second, some of the rereleased songs were first remastered. Theoretically, the record labels could own unique and new elements as part of that remastering. However, once again, that copyright interest would be very thin, and a 2018 9th Circuit decision made it clear that simply remastering a work does not grant a new copyright.

Finally, there’s the issue that some of the music was unreleased. The liner notes I found online offer little insight into how those recordings were made and who controlled them, whether Lehrer or the label.

To be clear, these are minor issues. However, it might be enough to indicate that some of the outlier recordings are somewhat dubious, at least until further clarification is received.

Bottom Line

All in all, when it comes to the bulk of Tom Lehrer’s work, it seems almost certain that both the compositions and the sound recordings are in the public domain (or as close as they can be). He wrote the songs, he released the four major albums, and he is the one who released the work.

Yes, later albums feature copyright notices from labels, but those notices refer only to the compilation, not the songs within. Even the tracks that were remastered do not grant a new copyright, at least under current US law.

While that does leave some outliers where there is some uncertainty, I think that Lehrer’s intent and ownership are pretty straightforward for most of his works.

That said, I think that a note from Warner clarifying their rights and/or rescinding any ownership they have would be apropos. Lehrer made his intentions abundantly clear in 2020. It would be nice to see the record labels honor that, even if it is just a technicality.

Finally, I also want to take a moment to credit the Wikipedia editors who flagged the potential problem. Though I think they were overly aggressive in this case, I applaud them for being proactive on copyright issues. It not only shows great respect for creators but also protects Wikipedia.

As we’ve seen with the Internet Archive, lawsuits over music rights can be devastating. Furthermore, the issues are complex and a degree of caution is warranted.

Still, in the case of Tom Lehrer, his intentions and ownership are pretty clear. For the bulk of his work, there isn’t much risk or concern.

Keeping his work available not only keeps his musical legacy alive, but his copyright legacy as well. That is something I think all fans of Lehrer can get behind.