Public domain music is music to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Background The length of copyright protection varies from country to country, but music, along with most other creative works, generally enters the public domain fifty to seventy-five years after the death of the creator. Generally, copyright separately protects "musical compositions" (melodies, rhythms, lyrics, etc. as written in sheet music) and "sound recordings" (performances as recorded in audio files, CDs, and records). Therefore, a recording of Rhapsody in Blue made in 2020 could be protected by copyright even though the underlying composition lies in the public domain. In the United States, although case law regarding copyright abandonment is inconsistent, the law has generally assumed that copyright owners may dedicate their works to the public domain; however, this practice remains exceedingly rare. The most common way for a work to enter the public domain is for its copyright term to expire—this is the case for musical compositions published prior to January 1, 1926. Sound recordings, on the other hand, were generally protected until at least 2022. Before 1976, sound recordings were not protected by national copyright law in the United States; instead, the protection of these works was under the jurisdiction of the state and local governments. This resulted in great variation in laws across the country, with some jurisdictions extending perpetual protection to sound recordings. Although the Copyright Act of 1976 provided federal copyright protection to sound recordings created after 1972, it otherwise left state protections in place until at least 2067. The 2018 Music Modernization Act further nationalized the system by extending federal copyright protection to pre-1972 sound recordings while also shortening their term of protection. Sound recordings made before 1923 entered the public domain on January 1, 2022; recordings made between 1923 and 1946 will be protected for 100 years after publication; recordings made between 1947 and 1956 will be protected for 110 years; and all recordings made from 1957 to February 15, 1972 will have their protection terminate on February 15, 2067. In the European Union and Canada, sound recordings were copyrighted for fifty years until 2013. On January 1, 2013, the Beatles' single "Love Me Do" entered the public domain. As of November 2013, European sound recordings are now protected for 70 years, which is not retroactive. In 2015, Canada changed the copyright length to 70 years. On February 8, 2016, a court ruled