I, Tom Lehrer, individually and as trustee of the Tom Lehrer Trust 2007, hereby grant the following permissions:
All copyrights to lyrics or music written or composed by me have been permanently and irrevocably relinquished, and therefore such songs are now in the public domain. All of my songs that have never been copyrighted, having been available for free for so long, are now also in the public domain. In other words, I have abandoned, surrendered and disclaimed all right, title and interest in and to my work and have injected any and all copyrights into the public domain.
The permission granted includes all lyrics which I have written to music by others, although the music to such parodies, if copyrighted by their composers, are of course not included without permission of their copyright owners. The translated songs on this website may be found on YouTube in their original languages.
Performing and recording rights to all of my songs are included in this permission. Translation rights are also included.
In particular, permission is hereby granted to anyone to set any of these lyrics to their own music, or to set any of this music to their own lyrics, and to publish or perform their parodies or distortions of these songs without payment or fear of legal action.
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.
In short, I no longer retain any rights to any of my songs.
So help yourselves, and don’t send me any money.
NOTICE:
THIS WEBSITE WILL BE SHUT DOWN AT SOME DATE IN THE NOT TOO DISTANT FUTURE, SO IF YOU WANT TO DOWNLOAD ANYTHING, DON’T WAIT TOO LONG.
It’s sad that these things will eventually be lost to centralization and digital aging. Make physical copies as well. How long does the USB standard last?
Think about the music that has been lost to time/death/natural disaster/RIAA
> As a souvenir for [his graduate student friends], Lehrer decided in 1953 to make a record of the songs he had written at Harvard. He recorded Songs by Tom Lehrer in one session at Trans Radio studios in Boston on a 10-inch LP.. bought the rights to the record from Trans Radio, and began selling it by mail order.. By 1954.. he had sold 10,000 records.. By the end of the decade, he had sold 370,000 records.
Sounds like maybe he self-published: "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"
This is only true for pure administration deals which are extremely rare. The usual co-publishing deals, as well as full publishing and 360 deals give up some ownership of the songs.
I, Tom Lehrer, individually and as trustee of the Tom Lehrer Trust 2007, hereby grant the following permissions: All copyrights to lyrics or music written or composed by me have been permanently and irrevocably relinquished, and therefore such songs are now in the public domain. All of my songs that have never been copyrighted, having been available for free for so long, are now also in the public domain. In other words, I have abandoned, surrendered and disclaimed all right, title and interest in and to my work and have injected any and all copyrights into the public domain.
The permission granted includes all lyrics which I have written to music by others, although the music to such parodies, if copyrighted by their composers, are of course not included without permission of their copyright owners. The translated songs on this website may be found on YouTube in their original languages. Performing and recording rights to all of my songs are included in this permission. Translation rights are also included.
In particular, permission is hereby granted to anyone to set any of these lyrics to their own music, or to set any of this music to their own lyrics, and to publish or perform their parodies or distortions of these songs without payment or fear of legal action.
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.
In short, I no longer retain any rights to any of my songs.
So help yourselves, and don’t send me any money.
NOTICE: THIS WEBSITE WILL BE SHUT DOWN AT SOME DATE IN THE NOT TOO DISTANT FUTURE, SO IF YOU WANT TO DOWNLOAD ANYTHING, DON’T WAIT TOO LONG.
Tom Lehrer November 26, 2022