Something odd is happening here. Perhaps I can offer a piece of insight.

APRA is the Australian music copyright organisation (https://www.apraamcos.com.au/)

ECAD is the Brazillian version.

VCPMC is the Vietnamese equivalent.

Not sure about the others, but basically these are the people with whom a composer registers their work. These organisations work together by forwarding royalties collected within each territory to their rightful owners.

I am a member of APRA and very much doubt that someone got away with registering a Beethoven work as their own.

Very curious indeed. I have no explanation.

[Edit] You are only meant to register your work in one territory, so it is odd that this 'work' would be registered in four of them.

> I am a member of APRA and very much doubt that someone got away with registering a Beethoven work as their own.

I've yet to hear of one of these nationwide registries vetting any of the work that gets submitted to them for novelty or whatever. That would be too much like doing due diligence.

APRA is Australia & NZ, ECAD is Brazil, SOCAN is Canada, VCPMC is Vietnam.

APRA: Australasian Performing Right Association

ECAD: Escritório Central de Arrecadação e Distribuição

SOCAN: Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada

VCPMC: Vietnam Center for Protection of Music Copyright

I went digging. APRA = Australasian Performing Right Association Limited ECAD = Escritório Central de Arrecadação e Distribuição SOCAN = Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada VCPMC = Vietnam Center for Protection of Music Copyright

CS stands for collections society. In another age CS would stand for the Mafia.

All but ECAD were found from here: https://www.cisac.org/

These collection societies are actually the opposite of the mafia.

They collect royalties on behalf of the composers. If the composer has a publisher, the royalties are forwarded there instead (so the publisher can take their contractual cut).

They are the only way to protect your work if you are unsigned (think struggling artists).

AIUI there collection societies are collectives of publishers and look out for the people who own the publishing companies, they're not making sure the publishing companies act fairly and justly, they're making sure they sue people who are too small to defend themselves in order to boost the collections in order to support the publishing company owners.

Maybe I'm wrong ... counter evidence welcomed.