Provider of Free Public Domain Music Shuts Down

Mark Rogers writes "The International Music Score Library Project has provided access to copies of many musical scores that are in the public domain. It has just been shut down due to a cease-and-desist letter sent to the site operator by a European Union music publisher (Universal Edition). A majority of the scores recently available at IMSLP were in the public domain worldwide. Other scores were not in the public domain in the United States or the EU (where copyright extends for 70 years after the composer's death), but were legal in Canada (where the site is hosted) and many other countries. The site's maintainers clearly labeled the copyright status of such scores and warned users to follow their respective country's copyright law. Apparently this wasn't enough for Universal Edition, who found it necessary to protect the interests of their (long-dead) composers and shut down a site that has proved useful to many students, professors, and other musicians worldwide."

Comments

I feel better about this decision...

[Anonymous Coward]

Once I'm dead.

Re:I feel better about this decision...

[Technician]

Once I'm dead.

The day the music died is many. Some die sooner, some die later. Any day the music dies is a sad day.

Re:I feel better about this decision...

[Anonymous Coward]

At least when I die, my producers can still profit from my music. Isn't that why I create it in the first place?

Re:I feel better about this decision...

[Endo13]

Wow. Just wow. This kind of bullshit really makes my blood boil. This shows how completely broken copyright is now.

Copyright duration really needs to be chopped down to 10 years, with a total maximum of 15 possible after a 5-year extension. NO copyright at all would be a hundred times better than the crap we have now.

Not again....

[Adradis]

Once again, the music industry hammers down people, even when they have no legal standing in the country. Pretty pathetic.

Re:Not again....

[DustyShadow]

even when they have no legal standing in the country

I never went to the site but depending on how it worked, the labels could have had a strong argument to take the owner to court in the U.S. They'd probably use the importing the works into the U.S., "targeting" consumers that in the U.S., etc. I'm sure Canada and the U.S. have agreements to enforce judgments over the borders.

Re:Not again....

[Kadin2048]

even when they have no legal standing in the country

I never went to the site but depending on how it worked, the labels could have had a strong argument to take the owner to court in the U.S. They'd probably use the importing the works into the U.S., "targeting" consumers that in the U.S., etc. I'm sure Canada and the U.S. have agreements to enforce judgments over the borders. I'm not really sure how you think that would work. If you allowed that, you'd open the door to any country enforcing its copyright laws on every other country, simply because the content was potentially accessible to someone in their nation. That's a hell of a can of worms to open, because copyright laws vary wildly between countries -- in the E.U., for instance, you can copyright databases in ways that are not deemed valid in the U.S.

You might be able to find a lower court judge stupid enough to rule that was initially (there are a lot of judges, and by definition, that means there are at least some really bad ones), but I can't imagine that it wouldn't be overturned on appeal.

I think the really sad thing here is that the operators of the site don't have either the will or the resources to fight this to its conclusion. So therefore, as usual, the case is not being decided on anything approaching the merits, but simply by the might of deep pockets.

Re:Not again....

[Fred_A]

I never went to the site but depending on how it worked, the labels could have had a strong argument to take the owner to court in the U.S. They'd probably use the importing the works into the U.S., "targeting" consumers that in the U.S., etc. I'm sure Canada and the U.S. have agreements to enforce judgments over the borders. With that argument, the DEA should routinely raid the Coffee Shops in Amsterdam because, you know, some US tourists actually go there.

Re:Not again....

[adatepej]

What I don't understand is why the people let there site go if the legality is so clear?

Re:Not again....

[Anonymous Coward]

Careful what you ask for...

Re:Not again....

[Anonymous Coward]

With that argument, the DEA should routinely raid the Coffee Shops in Amsterdam because, you know, some US tourists actually go there.

People are routinely extradited to the US to stand trial (actually, plea bargain, since trial is unwinnable) based on the allegations made by secret operatives. The most worrying cases are where people where involved in the production of, say, XTC pills that were smuggled to the US, but they themselves neither organised, nor took part in the smuggling. In other words, they were on Dutch soil the entire time, a small cog in the machine. The legal theory is that producing and exporting XTC is illegal in both countries, which satisfies extradition treaties, even though there is clearly a lack of jurisdiction or territoriality.
The best part is where extradition is approved on the proviso that the US DA promises not to seek the death penalty, but enforcing that promise is kinda hard when the prisoner is turned over and on US soil!

In short, yes, DEA operatives DO raid Dutch places of naughtiness (albeit the ones that are illegal in The Netherlands too) and get people who have broken NO US LAW (by virtue of never having been under the jurisdiction of the US) to take plea bargains so they can rot in a US jail for a few years before they get sent back to The Netherlands.

Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy about the US.

That, and the The Hague Invasion Act.

And Gitmo.

Etc.

Re:Not again....

[Anonymous Coward]

And the Delaware state troopers should head out to Texas to enforce their 65 MPH speed limits ... I'm sure they can meet quota a lot easier there (having the signs posted at 80 will help a lot).

Re:Not again....

[PopeRatzo]

So therefore, as usual, the case is not being decided on anything approaching the merits, but simply by the might of deep pockets.

I'm afraid this is now the way of the world when corporations are more powerful than governments, and educated people see "The Free Market" as omnipotent.

Re:Not again....

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

With that argument, the DEA should routinely raid the Coffee Shops in Amsterdam because, you know, some US tourists actually go there.

Internet's a little fuzzy on those kinds of issues. It also be equated with the DEA routinely raiding Coffee Shops in Amsterdam because they export drugs to the US.

Re:Not again....

[Oligonicella]

The best part is where extradition is approved on the proviso that the US DA promises not to seek the death penalty, but enforcing that promise is kinda hard when the prisoner is turned over and on US soil!

Nice troll, there. On what cases would you base that paranoia?

Re:Not again....

[ultranova]

If you allowed that, you'd open the door to any country enforcing its copyright laws on every other country, simply because the content was potentially accessible to someone in their nation.

Isn't that the whole point with "harmonizing" copyright laws between nations - to make copyright law everywhere to be the superset of all copyright laws anywhere ?

Take the longest copyright duration anywhere, combine it with the widest scope, nastiest punishments, least consumer rights, etc. and you have the global copyright law the harmonizers are pushing for.

Re:Not again....

[budgenator]

well that can of worms has been blown open:
they are suing that the scores are copyrighted
for 70 years after the authors death in Europe and 50 in Canada,
that he is responsible for any infringement because he the admin, that because it's possible to implement a IP address filtering system to restrict access to persons based on their countries of origin, he responsible to do so in order to restrict access based on the country of origin's laws and that they are going to sue him in Europe and Canada will enforce any judgments.

Maybe they should move the operation to Russia where there is still a chance to be free of being bullied by a foreign country's laws. Boy that's sad, moving to Russia for freedom, who would have though.

Re:Not again....

[budgenator]

There is no death penalty in the US for illegal drug manufacture.

Re:Not again....

[DustyShadow]

Actually it does happen all the time. It's called personal jurisdiction. Look it up. If the court finds that the site had the "minimum contacts" in the US, then they'd have jurisdiction over them. Do you not think that the U.S. should be able to target people who illegally import goods to the U.S.? Why should we prejudice our own citizens who are harmed by those outside the U.S. if those that did the harm were purposely targeting Americans? How do you think the victims of bombings that took place outside the U.S. were able to sue Osama bin Laden in a U.S. court? (yes, kind of a pointless suit on other grounds) Every country does have laws like this. Why do you think the U.S. was able to have that British hacker who hacked in the DOD systems a couple years back?

In fact, it's happening a lot write now in Britain where people who don't like books that are written about them are suing the author in court in Britain for defamation, even though the book was never sold and never intended to be sold in Britain. The people bringing the suit simply go to Amazon and buy a few copies. Read about it here.

The reason I said "it depends on how the site works" is because the Supreme Court has already looked at the issue of personal jurisdiction and websites in the Pavlovich case, the guy who made the LiVid website that dealt with DeCSS and DVDs with Linux. There was no jurisdiction in that case but the court said if the website was more interactive and targeted people in California then there would have been. So, if this site had targeted Americans, then yes, they could have had PJ in the U.S.

With all that said, i think it's pretty shitty to do that to this guy.

Re:Not again....

[element-o.p.]

For the love of all that is holy, PLEASE do not give them any ideas!!!

Re:Not again....

[Hognoxious]

My favourite precedent is Arkell v Pressdram and it would be rather apt in this case.

Re:Not again....

[oergiR]

With that argument, the DEA should routinely raid the Coffee Shops in Amsterdam because, you know, some US tourists actually go there. These matters are usually solved through diplomacy. For example, magic mushrooms are going to banned in the Netherlands because some tourists who take them jump out of windows.

Re:Not again....

[Anonymous Coward]

So all that the **AA needs is some crazy African country needing a lot of money to be bought off and pass 2 billion year copyrights. Then, keep everything copyrighted forever, and claim that (country X says you broke their law...). So one country with stupid laws can force the whole world to put up with stupid laws (oh, not unlike the United States). This is quite disappointing. In the country of origin, they are not breaking the law. Go after people violating the law in the countries where they live, but please don't force other people in other places to put up with your laws (they didn't do anything wrong where they live).

Re:Not again....

[DustyShadow]

There is a difference between being "targeted by Americans" and "targeting Americans."

Re:Not again....

[fractoid]

Because they weren't a massive multinational corporate cartel and thus couldn't afford the legal fees to defend themselves against such a cartel?

Re:Not again....

[Capsaicin]

I'm not really sure how you think that would work. If you allowed that, you'd open the door to any country enforcing its copyright laws on every other country, simply because the content was potentially accessible to someone in their nation. That's a hell of a can of worms to open, because copyright laws vary wildly between countries -- in the E.U., for instance, you can copyright databases in ways that are not deemed valid in the U.S.

You might be able to find a lower court judge stupid enough to rule that was initially (there are a lot of judges, and by definition, that means there are at least some really bad ones), but I can't imagine that it wouldn't be overturned on appeal.

Indeed, but it is not for the higher court to consider the can of worms its decision has in regard to another jurisdicition, that court has only to consider its own laws. Look at the French cases regarding racist websites (nazi memorabilia) and the regard they show for US free speech rights. It's another story of course when it comes to enforcing judgments inconsistent with the country where the defendant exists. Eg consider the Joe Gutnik defamation victory against Barrons. Now given that Barrons have no Australian corporate presence Gutnik won't be able to get his order enforced (since US defamation law would not be so favourable to Gutnik).

So ... it's not entirely outside the realm of possibility that some EU or US superior court would hold that IFPI was in breach of their copyright legislation (certainly the locals who download and make their own copy would be), but it is difficult to see how they would get a Canadian court to enforce an order against them.

In any case, I can't see why IFPI needs to shut down. They could remove those scores less than 70yrs post death, and safely continue publishing.

Re:Not again....

[Petrushka]

I'm not really sure how you think that would work. If you allowed that, you'd open the door to any country enforcing its copyright laws on every other country, simply because the content was potentially accessible to someone in their nation.

Yes. Yes, you would. I rather think that is precisely the idea.

Re:Not again....

[gurps_npc]

That is total BULLCRAP.

If someone buys something in Canada and illegally imports something into the US, then you go after the person that IMPORTED it, not SOLD it.

The importning is done by the guy that downloads it, not the person that sells it.

Any other interpretation is bullcrap made up by people trying to change reality.

Re:Not again....

[bbc]

Isn't that the whole point with "harmonizing" copyright laws between nations - to make copyright law everywhere to be the superset of all copyright laws anywhere ?

Yes. And no. Copyright harmonization between countries is always done in such a way that you still have something to harmonize towards. A harmonization round, at least in the perverted minds of the likes of WIPO and the large publishers, should always overshoot a little.

To give you an example: recently (late 1990s?) the US harmonized its copyright laws so that they were more like those of the EU. The result of this was for instance that recording rights last 90 years in the US; far more than in the EU. So recently organizations in the UK (which is still part of the EU) started lobbying for harmonizing recording rights terms with those of the US, even if those in the US were the result of a round of changes that was supposed to harmonize US copyright law with those of the EU.

Re:Not again....

[gstoddart]

Isn't that the whole point with "harmonizing" copyright laws between nations - to make copyright law everywhere to be the superset of all copyright laws anywhere ?

If, by that, you mean the rest of the world gets US copyright laws (along with extensions purchased by Disney et al) shoved down our throats, then yes. That's what it means.

Take the longest copyright duration anywhere, combine it with the widest scope, nastiest punishments, least consumer rights, etc. and you have the global copyright law the harmonizers are pushing for.

Yes, exactly. Buy a shitty law in your country, and then have your law-makers pressure everyone else in the world to bend over and take it the same way.

In this case, undermine other people's view of free use and public domain.

Sucks, don't it?

Cheers

Re:Not again....

[Mr. Slippery]

Do you not think that the U.S. should be able to target people who illegally import goods to the U.S.?

To import goods into the U.S., you must be in the U.S., and therefore it's a reasonable claim that you are subject to its laws.

This is more like (though still different from) targeting people who are exporting goods to the U.S. If somebody in Japan sells you a gizmo on eBay, that is legal in Japan but banned in the U.S., that's your lookout.

Of course, that's pretending that law or reason had anything to do with governments. The reality is, if a government can convince someone to point a gun at you, it has jurisdiction over you.

How do you think the victims of bombings that took place outside the U.S. were able to sue Osama bin Laden in a U.S. court?

The plaintiffs are U.S. citizens, and the claim is that bin Laden has assets in the U.S. - a form of presence here.

Re:Not again....

[Kadin2048]

If, by that, you mean the rest of the world gets US copyright laws (along with extensions purchased by Disney et al) shoved down our throats, then yes. That's what it means. Right. Except that that some of the really terrible portions of U.S. copyright law were arrived at through international treaties designed to "harmonize" the U.S. with more strict locales.

And although the U.S. may have the worst laws for consumers of any first-world nation, there are places which have small portions of their laws that are worse. As I mentioned earlier, the E.U. has a database copyright that's so far been fought off and rejected in the U.S., but I fully expect the people who'd benefit most by that (the MLB has always wanted to be able to copyright collections of baseball statistics, for instance) to push for 'harmonization' of the U.S. with our 'forward thinking' international neighbors.

The net result is that virtually all nations are involved in a race to the bottom.

In whose name?

[blind biker]

In whose name is Universal Edition stirring up this sh*t? In the name of composers that definitely would HAVE deservED the recognition while they were alive? Now that they are dead, if you believe in afterlife, what are the odds that they want their work to fatten a fat-cat? Wouldn't they rather want for their work to be as widespread as possible, that many people would enjoy their music?

I guess dead people don't put all that much emphasis on money loss due to copyright violation.

Re:In whose name?

[unfunk]

actually, the income from this sort of music usually goes to the composer's estate. We're talking about Composers here, not "artists" that have producers and songwriters.

Re:In whose name?

[blind biker]

I can only reply with what I already said: dead composers probably don't give a duck about that.

I'm a bit fuzzy about the difference you're trying to make between composers and artists. For me a composer is a bona fide artist. Must be a weakness in my English language skills.

Re:In whose name?

[unfunk]

I can only reply with what I already said: dead composers probably don't give a duck about that.

I'm a bit fuzzy about the difference you're trying to make between composers and artists. For me a composer is a bona fide artist. Must be a weakness in my English language skills. Well, I'm a composer, and I recognise that I probably won't be making much money off my music during my lifetime. My kids though, may well have the distinction of saying "yeah, that unfunk fellow was my dad" and thus, I'm all for them getting money from my work.

As to the distinction I'm trying to make, well, it's pretty simple.
I write music. A String Quartet or an Orchestra will (hopefully) perform it. It may even get recorded. When it's released, it will be titled something along the lines of "unfunk's second symphony. Performed by the Suchandsuch Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Whatshisname"
Britney Spears, on the other hand, performs music (and I use the term loosely) written by somebody else. It's always Britney's song though, and not the-person-who-wrote-it's. That person got paid their songwriting fee, and that's that (I think).
The point I'm trying to make is that the Classical Music world is like the reverse of the pop music world, and that Pop Artists aren't really 'artists'...

Having said all that though, I'd be pretty pissed off with a corporation making decisions on my dead behalf.. especially as I've been giving my scores away to anybody that will play them for as long as I've been writing music.

Re:In whose name?

[the_arrow]

Well, I'm a composer, and I recognise that I probably won't be making much money off my music during my lifetime. My kids though, may well have the distinction of saying "yeah, that unfunk fellow was my dad" and thus, I'm all for them getting money from my work.

Well, your kids (and grandkids) are lucky bastards, because I know of no other line of work where your kids are getting paid for something you did when you were alive, while the kids are doing nothing themselves to earn it (besides being your kids).

Re:In whose name?

[bstone]

Well, I'm a composer, and I recognise that I probably won't be making much money off my music during my lifetime. My kids though, may well have the distinction of saying "yeah, that unfunk fellow was my dad" and thus, I'm all for them getting money from my work.

Too bad that, unless you're in the top .1% of composers, your work will all be lost by then. If it doesn't make money now, nobody is going to publish it commercially and since copyright laws prohibit others from attempting to preserve it, it's gone. Rather than living off the wealth of your creativity, your grandchildren won't even know about anything you wrote.

Re:In whose name?

[sixintl]

No other line of work? I think all of the rich kids out there with trust funds and stock investments put away long before they were born think that's a pretty naive thing to say. You don't have to look farther than the President to see a shining example of a life of success provided for by someone's decisions back a century ago.

Re:In whose name?

[jvkjvk]

Well, your kids (and grandkids) are lucky bastards, because I know of no other line of work where your kids are getting paid for something you did when you were alive, while the kids are doing nothing themselves to earn it (besides being your kids). every other form of inheritance?

Re:In whose name?

[budgenator]

Just about anything involved with copyright is like that, historically authors of works got paid very little, because the publishers had everybody by the short-hairs, recently that's reversed somewhat yet still its the residuals that are most attractive. Now self publishing is very possible, it's getting shelf-space that's difficult.

Re:In whose name?

[ozmanjusri]

I write music.

I write and perform music too. I normally do so for free because of the joy it gives me, but I often get offered free beer and sometimes money to perform.

I'm also part of a team who are building a railway and port (for iron ore). The port will be providing a service to the West Australian community and generating income for decades at least, and probably hundreds of years. It'd be nice if someone offered me part of the profits of the facilty for the next 70 years.

I don't expect it though, any more than I expect people to give me money for my music.

Re:In whose name?

[JesseMcDonald]

Well, your kids (and grandkids) are lucky [individuals], because I know of no other line of work where your kids are getting paid for something you did when you were alive, while the kids are doing nothing themselves to earn it (besides being your kids).

every other form of inheritance?

No, normal inheritance is different. The kids only receive a one-time gift, not a continuing income. Any income past that point is the result of their own choice to defer gratification and instead invest that gift so that others can benefit from it.

In contrast, you can't invest a copyright; once the work has actually been created, the copyright can only represent a continuing loss to society, since copyright is only the legal right to artificially restrict the distribution of something that would otherwise be unlimited in supply, and such artificial restrictions are, of course, always a loss. This loss can be reduced -- creating a relative profit -- by reducing the copyright's scope through licensing, or by eliminating the copyright entirely, but a copyright is not a resource that can be invested, i.e. employed toward further production.

Re:In whose name?

[westlake]

I guess dead people don't put all that much emphasis on money loss due to copyright violation.

The living do put a value on estate planning.

Does it ever occur to the eternally-adolescent geek that a man may want to leave something more to his kids and grandkids than a mortgage in the suburbs and a clapped-out '87 Toyota? Something of his own creation?

Wouldn't they rather want for their work to be as widespread as possible, that many people would enjoy their music?

Irving Berlin [1888-1989] wrote 3,000 songs, 17 film scores and 21 Broadway scores. There are about 800 CDs of his work available through Amazon.com. 22 DVDs. 4,000 collections of his sheet music.

Re:In whose name?

[BobTheLawyer]

Really? Can't the kids sell the copyright, and then invest the sale proceeds?

As far as they're concerned, it's no different from any other type of property. You may think it has deleterious effects on society, but that's a separate point (and some would argue that other forms of property are socially harmful, e.g. land ownership, ownership of companies etc).

Re:In whose name?

[JesseMcDonald]

Really? Can't the kids sell the copyright, and then invest the sale proceeds?

Sure they can, but that's not the same thing. Investment meants putting something toward a productive use. Copyrights per se have no productive use. While the copyright does confer a relative material advantage on its "owner" it can only do so by restricting everyone else. The "owner" has no resources or abilities it would not have in the absence of the copyright; instead, everyone else's natural abilities are curtailed to create that advantage for the "owner".

It's no different than if I decreed that everyone must, from now on, refrain from gathering their own water and instead purchase bottled water from me. Such a decree would have immense monetary value to myself, and to anyone I might choose to sell it to -- assuming for the moment that I could enforce it -- but only because everyone else has been unjustly restricted.

If you want to justify copyright, you'll first need to come up with an explanation for how a priviledge-based incentive system of dubious value could possibly justify infringing upon everyone's freedom of non-aggressive action.

Re:In whose name?

[blind biker]

I am a great fan of Irving Berlin. He would probably be upset if he knew that ASCAP would sue you for singing "Happy Birthday" in public! Yessir, that's what I'm talking about right here, see...

Re:In whose name?

[bentcd]

Now self publishing is very possible, it's getting shelf-space that's difficult. Shelf-space is obsolete. It's google-space you want, and you can get that either by throwing money at it or by being creative. Publishers have no problem doing the former, and writers really shouldn't find the latter much of a problem.

Re:In whose name?

[Anonymous Coward]

who says he isn't?

Re:In whose name?

[Anonymous Coward]

don't give a duck

"fuck".

Re:In whose name?

[bbc]

who says he isn't?

Why does that matter?

Re:In whose name?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, then it is a good thing he didn't write "Happy Birthday." Two sisters did.

Re:In whose name?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I'm a composer, and I recognise that I probably won't be making much money off my music during my lifetime. My kids though, may well have the distinction of saying "yeah, that unfunk fellow was my dad" and thus, I'm all for them getting money from my work.

Well, your kids (and grandkids) are lucky bastards, because I know of no other line of work where your kids are getting paid for something you did when you were alive, while the kids are doing nothing themselves to earn it (besides being your kids).

I hate all that copyright as much as the next /.er, but I always ask myself:
How come it's OK for some guy to work real hard at building a factory, and let many generations live off the value of it while being lazy bastards; but yet if a musician works just as hard, his kids are supposed to work hard for a living.
IMHO everybody should work hard for a living, but are we supposed to freeze a man's asset upon his death, only to give the kids dividend, and sell it 70 years later?
Where is the balance between the two? Merit is hard to evaluate with today's 200+ Millions lottery winners!

Re:In whose name?

[jax9999]

You're exactly right. Why is copyright so long lasting? No job that I do will last beyond the moment I sell it. Musicians should be paid to perform, and artists to produce. This ridiculous system where a musicians children make money from somethign their long dead grandparents did is insane.

Which has been dead longer?

[darkhitman]

The composers whose music was listed here, or the Universal Edition's business model?

Re:Which has been dead longer?

[Plutonite]

Common sense has been dead much, much longer.

Re:Which has been dead longer?

[jmv]

Probably the composers. After all, the business model has "only" been dead for about 10-15 years.

Re:Which has been dead longer?

[Ethanol-fueled]

It might not be about the money so much as the control.
Control is controlled by the need to control.

In whose country?

[Anonymous Coward]

The more important question is: does Canada have ceast and desist letters like in the US?

Re:In whose country?

[Simon80]

(Score:-1, Stupid)

It can go both ways

[Anonymous Coward]

Sooner or later someone will match portions of copyrighted scores to older public domain scores and void their copyright status.

Re:It can go both ways

[Anonymous Coward]

Sooner or later someone will match portions of copyrighted scores to older public domain scores and void their copyright status.

OK, I'll give you a starter for ten - the opening of the main theme of the Berg Violin Concerto is the 1st line of the Chorale 'Es ist genug'.

Doing it wrong

[quokkapox]

Modern global society is doing it wrong. The current regime of patents and copyrights is completely outdated and old-fashioned. Global digital communication has made copyright irrelevant, and it's absurd to think you can patent an idea.

I can only hope we'll look back on these early decades of the 21th century and laugh at how silly our laws were.

I'm going outside now to watch the Orionids. Good thing you can't copyright an experience.

Re:Doing it wrong

[Cecil]

I'm going outside now to watch the Orionids. Good thing you can't copyright an experience.
... Yet.

Re:Doing it wrong

[jd]

I'm going outside now to watch the Orionids. Good thing you can't copyright an experience.

Dear Quokkapox,

Your experience of the Orionids is clearly derived in part from one of the movies either produced, being produced, or considered for being produced in light of this experience, and is thus infringing on our copyrights somehow. We insist that you cease and desist in your observations immediately and buy a stackload of crappy and expensive movies instead.

Yours insincerely,

The MPAA Division of Inquisitors, a CIA Interrogator Production

Re:Doing it wrong

[speaker of the truth]

If you take away all copyright then [url=http://www.reallifecomics.com/]these[/url] [url=http://www.penny-arcade.com/]people[/url] might stop producing work. Is this what you truly want? A society where all writers must take another job with NO possibility of making money?

Re:Doing it wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using (Open)SuSE instead of Windows since 17 December 2004, and you're an idiot.

Re:Doing it wrong

[speaker of the truth]

I think you'll find your post says more about you then it does me.

Re:Doing it wrong

[ultranova]

If you take away all copyright then [url=http://www.reallifecomics.com/]these[/url] [url=http://www.penny-arcade.com/]people[/url] might stop producing work. Is this what you truly want? A society where all writers must take another job with NO possibility of making money?

Since the works of the people you linked to are publicly available, free of charge, from the very sites you linked to, it seems to me that you proved your own argument false, or at least gave strong evidence against it.

More evidence: Girl Genius (my favorite comic, web or otherwise), Megatokyo, Kevin and Kell.

Re:Doing it wrong

[Foldarn]

Unless I'm mistaken, the NFL is attempting to do just that. It says "This telecast is copyrighted by the NFL for the private use of our audience. Any other use of this telecast or of any pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the game without the NFL's consent, is prohibited." That means even though you experienced the game, you may not tell anybody else about any accounts of the game. You may not SHARE what you experienced. No play by plays for you! *sigh* sad....

Re:Doing it wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

it's absurd to think you can patent an idea.

That is correct. You can't patent ideas. You can't copyright ideas, either.

However, you can patent inventions.

The sad part about intellectual property is that so many people have no clue what they are talking about (legislators included).

Re:Doing it wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you even know what the "Preview" button is? Jesus christ.

Here are the fixed links: http://www.reallifecomics.com/ http://www.penny-arcade.com/

BTW,

If you take away all copyright then these people might stop producing work. Is this what you truly want?

Yes, it is. Those "comics" suck.

Re:Doing it wrong

[Troy Baer]

Good thing you can't copyright an experience.

Some people certainly appear to be trying. A couple years ago, somebody tried to patent a story line.

Why take the site down?

[belmolis]

I don't understand why the site is being taken down. The publisher's demands would be satisfied by removing the scores still under copyright in the EU. As I understand it, the copyright status of these scores is noted, so presumably it wouldn't be a difficult job to identify and remove those just those scores. And since, according to the article, most of the scores on the site are out of copyright everywhere, removing those still under copyright in the EU, while regrettable, would not destroy the utility of the site. The cease-and-desist letter is annoying, but I don't see that it should require taking down the site.

Re:Why take the site down?

[Korveck]

I agree. I think the owner just took the easy way out instead of spending the time and efforts to satisfy the terms.

Re:Why take the site down?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi! I am the spokesperson for the IMSLP owner, and I would like to direct your attention to the following post made, for a (rather) complete list of reasons why IMSLP is down:

http://imslpforums.org/viewtopic.php?p=3082#3082

Re:Why take the site down?

[suv4x4]

I don't understand why the site is being taken down. The publisher's demands would be satisfied by removing the scores still under copyright in the EU. As I understand it, the copyright status of these scores is noted, so presumably it wouldn't be a difficult job to identify and remove those just those scores.

Reasons:

1. If they don't act immediately, it could be argued later in court they acted in bad faith delaying taking down the offending materials. The site will be off temporarily until all offending material is removed, and then put back up.

2. The site owner(s) is/are understandably pissed off, and taking the entire site off allows them for better publicity and press coverage. It's a statement of a sort.

Re:Why take the site down?

[maiki]

If you take a gander at the IMSLP website, the former project leader listed a couple reasons why (well, kind of the same reason, reiterated several times):

I became painfully aware of the fact that I, a normal college student, has[sic] neither the energy nor the money necessary to deal with this issue in any other way than to agree with the cease and desist, and take down the entire site.

I also understand very well that the cease and desist letter does not call for a take down of the entire site, but, as I said above, I very unfortunately simply do not have the energy or money necessary to implement the terms in the cease and desist in any other way. Prior to this cease and desist I was already overloaded with server maintenance and the implementation of new features

Another major reason behind me taking the server down is the fact...that I can no longer support IMSLP adequately so basically, he doesn't have energy or money to either change what was demanded of him, or to otherwise maintain the site anymore. However, he did preface his entire spiel with this, in big bold letters:

UPDATE: Due to demand, I strongly encourage any organization willing to support a continuation of IMSLP to contact me at imslp@imslp.org

Re:Why take the site down?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the site operator just took off the songs, it wouldn't have shown up on Slashdot.

Just saying...

Re:Why take the site down?

[Anonymous Coward]

2. The site owner(s) is/are understandably pissed off, and taking the entire site off allows them for better publicity and press coverage. It's a statement of a sort.

In the last sentence, I'd change the word "statement" to "free ad" and then we might be closer to the truth.

Re:Why take the site down?

[speaker of the truth]

They don't care about the law, they only care about getting their pound of flesh.

Re:Why take the site down?

[suv4x4]

In the last sentence, I'd change the word "statement" to "free ad" and then we might be closer to the truth.

You think? Hmm, what would be the point... "Come to our site. It's down". "Now you know about our site... which you can't visit".

Dunno.

Re:Why take the site down?

[DigitAl56K]

Maybe you can implement IP->Geo, generate some secure tokens for access to downloads, and issue tokens based on copyright by geo. I don't know if you're using a CDN or serving the files yourself, but most CDNs have token solutions you can leverage, and if you're hosting yourself it's probably not too hard to build, even if it takes a few days.

Hope you find a way.

Re:Why take the site down?

[langelgjm]

Blocking access from said regions would be nice, but I don't understand why he should have to take down scores just because they're still under copyright in another country or the EU. What gives the EU the right to enforce its laws in Canada? What's the point of copyright laws that vary between countries, then? Do we have to respect the copyright law of each and every country? What if Sealand decides works in its jurisdiction are under copyright forever?

Re:Why take the site down?

[sconeu]

Because if it isn't taken down, then those dead composers won't have any incentive to compose more music.

Re:Why take the site down?

[Hatta]

Better question, who's got a mirror and a torrent?

Re:Why take the site down?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ask this guy: clark@airdberlis.com

Seems like he caved to an empty threat

[etymxris]

Based on the summary, I thought his ISP had shut him down. Rather, it seems he just caved. Since Canada is not part of the EU, what weight could such a C&D have?

Re:Seems like he caved to an empty threat

[belmolis]

The letter is from the publisher's Canadian representative and objects to the distribution of scores that are still under copyright in Canada. Furthermore, insofar as the site is available to people in the EU, the publisher can claim that it is engaged in copyright violation in the EU and take legal action in the EU resulting in a judgment that would be enforceable in Canada.

Re:Seems like he caved to an empty threat

[derailedcat]

Well, he *did* ignore their first C&D and only shut down after consulting with lawyers. I would be scared too, if I was a sole proprietor of a website with all my personal assets seizable to pay for potential court fees and fines.

That's how corporations usually coerce individuals. The best thing to do IMHO is to incorporate anything you do to protect yourself as an individual. An LLC is cheap and low maintenance, and if it gets sued, in the worst case you have to shut it down, but you as an individual are safe.

Re:Seems like he caved to an empty threat

[spleen_blender]

That is the issue right there. Even though he has committed no crime, he would have to spend a large amount of time and money defending himself even though he is said to be assumed innocent until proven guilty.

The C&D simply stifles those who do not have the time or money to fight it.

Re:Seems like he caved to an empty threat

[belmolis]

Sure, but in that case it seems to me that the right thing to do is not permanently shut down the site but shut it down temporarily to avoid legal action and ask the community to help reorganize. Create a corporation to run the site so that the individuals involved won't be liable, raise a little money for hosting and if necessary legal advice, and enlist some volunteers so that one person doesn't have to do all the work. It seems that this site has a lot of users and supporters so that it wouldn't be that hard to do.

Re:Seems like he caved to an empty threat

[Anonymous Coward]

Create a corporation to run the site so that the individuals involved won't be liable

You obviously have never run your own business. Corporate status, for the most part, does not protect individual owners from liability. Common misconception.

Re:Seems like he caved to an empty threat

[scgops]

Creating a corporation is a lot of work and wouldn't lesson the guy's problems. If you are the head of a corporation, and someone sues the corporation, who do you think has to hire a lawyer and go to court?

Re:Seems like he caved to an empty threat

[Firehed]

And as a member under my household, the copyright laws that I've recently shat out apply to any content I can access from within said household - which is to effectively say that I own the entire internet.

Come on now. If the servers and the administrators are located in Canada, then the EU's copyright model should not apply, any more than international tourists can ignore local laws and only obey those of their native country while abroad. It would work in reverse, too - since Africa can get online, pretty much the entire world's digital content should be treated as public domain, as most of Africa's copyright laws range from nonexistent to extremely minimal.

If there were valid claims against work still under Canadian copyright - fine, that's valid, and would would even constitute a rare acceptable use of a takedown notice (regardless of what you think of copyright laws, it's still a valid claim if you're breaking them). That's within their jurisdiction. Violations that are only the case in Europe are not.

Re:Seems like he caved to an empty threat

[belmolis]

Yes, it would lessen his problems: he would no longer be personally liable. That is one of the main reasons for forming a corporation. And he wouldn't necessarily have to be the one to do the work. If there is money for staff, a staff member can hire the lawyer. If there isn't, another volunteer might do it.

Prior Art

[Maxo-Texas]

Could not the existing public domain music melody sequences be compared to current copyrighted works and be shown to have already be written in public domain music?

They are suing for 12 sequence notes these days- I think it is likely that many 12 sequence notes are already public domain. All it needs is some computer crunching between still copyrighted songs and public domain songs to compare them.

Re:Prior Art

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, there are only 7 notes, or 21 once you consider sharps and flats, so taken in combination with possible repetition, there are only 7,355,827,511,386,642 possible sequences of 12 notes. We could always iterate through all 7 quadrillion of them and copyright them all, and thus insure that all possible music is in the public domain by the time our copyrights expire.

Hmm, I wonder if there is a good way to find the shortest possible composition that has all of those sequences including overlapping sequences...

Re:Prior Art

[Mathinker]

See De Bruijn sequence.

Re:Prior Art

[jimicus]

This has already been discussed elsewhere.

IIRC, the conclusion was that when you account for the fact that not all combinations of notes are ever going to work musically, it is mathematically impossible to write a truly original piece of music.

Unfortunately I can't find a citation for that, so you'll have to either take my word for it, be better at searching than I am or conclude I'm speaking rubbish.

Re:Prior Art

[CRCulver]

Today's microtonal composers show that there are far more than the twelve tones of the chromatic scale.

Re:Prior Art

[Dunbal]

We could always iterate through all 7 quadrillion of them and copyright them all, and thus insure that all possible music is in the public domain by the time our copyrights expire.

      OK, but I've already patented that business method...let's talk.

Re:Prior Art

[TheLink]

And a fair number of singers/violinists don't stick to the twelve notes of the chromatic scale either ;).

Re:Prior Art

[tepples]

Today's microtonal composers show that there are far more than the twelve tones of the chromatic scale. But can a judge or jury distinguish microtones?

Re:Prior Art

[tepples]

IIRC, the conclusion was that when you account for the fact that not all combinations of notes are ever going to work musically, it is mathematically impossible to write a truly original piece of music.

Unfortunately I can't find a citation for that Looking for this?

Re:Prior Art

[Maxo-Texas]

In fact, most music follows some very predictable patterns. A friend and I freaked out another friend by humming along with a new song. It was a good song and as soon as you heard each note, you knew what the next note had to be.

So you don't have to copyright the "noise". There still may be a lot of songs but as someone else said- get them copyrighted (and then release them to the public domain). Then musicians can get back to arranging instruments and interesting variations of those songs.

Re:Prior Art

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are confusing copyrights with patents.

Re:A few duties.

[Anonymous Coward]

Has anyone heard of a relative semblance of neutrality here?

I see what you're saying, but then again why shoud that be expected of a Slashdot submission? This isn't the New York Times (or even a news outlet, really it's just a collection of links and a forum) and a submitter isn't a journalist. As long as the information is accurate I don't see why an article's summary needs to be free from commentary or bias.

The power of choice...

[Roger Wilcox]

Choose to get all your favorite media products from the kind, anonymous repository of media on the Internet. Not only can you find your favorite popular media for free, but you can also do so without unwittingly sponsoring the Mafiaa and the other dickcheese that keep pushing the ever-oppressive envelope on copyright law.

I fully intend to avoid shelling a single dime to any of these asshats for as long as I shall live. They're obviously not playing fair, so why should I?

Re:The power of choice...

[maxume]

At this point, the biggest reason to play fair is plans to run for high political office.

Time to change copyright ...

[trolltalk.com]

"where copyright extends for 70 years after the composer's death"

... Change copyright to 20 years or less; this gives them a reason to keep producing quality, rather than turning out like this Pop-Tart.

Re:Time to change copyright ...

[Microlith]

Nah, it'd encourage them to produce more pop crap, since investing in something that might take a while to catch on would be risky.

Granted few of the modern big-names have been around 20 years thus far, but it'd definitely panic them and make 'em pickier than they already are (but not in a good way.)

How could the EU shut down a Canadian company?

[simonbp]

Last I checked, Canada was not a member of the European Union...

Re:How could the EU shut down a Canadian company?

[theheadlessrabbit]

I know a director who ran into a similar problem with one of his movies. Canadian copyright lasts 50 years after the artists death, while in America, I believe it is 70 years. The CRIA came after him for copyright infringement, because he put a 51 year old song in one of his movies, and he had to argue to the Canadian Recording Association that Canada is not a province of the United States. This is more evidence why copyright law is foolish, and hindering the very people it is supposedly protecting. It would appear that we Canadians have watched too much South Park, and are actually starting to believe that we are not a real country. I'm an artist myself, and when I'm dead, I want everyone to steal my shit right away and use it for anything they can think of. when they come after you, direct the layers to this comment, and promptly tell them where they should go, and what they can go do with themselves.

Re:How could the EU shut down a Canadian company?

[PHPfanboy]

Yeah, but most Canadians are of European origin, so I guess the music publisher can go after their descendents until 70 years after their death. (I'm guessing that Mr.Xiao-Guan Guo from the International Music Score Library Project might have a good line of defence....)

Re:How could the EU shut down a Canadian company?

[Chrisje]

It is however a member of the Commonwealth, and as such you can still find pictures of Her Majesty the Queen of England there.

Canada, Australia, India and South Africa.... Colonialism. History.

Re:How could the EU shut down a Canadian company?

[Kadin2048]

I want everyone to steal my shit right away and use it for anything they can think of. This is not terribly hard to do -- just be sure to specify it in your will. I know of some people who have looked into having this done. One of them decided to direct that a portion of money should be used to make an announcement to this effect in the local newspaper, just so that it would be permanently recorded somewhere. (Since wills do not normally become part of the public record just by themselves or anything, there'd be no evidence to show that they're in the public domain unless you did something like this, and directed people where they could find the official document.) I guess a cheaper version might be Usenet?

The fellow isn't dead yet, so I don't know how it'll pan out, but I thought it was an interesting idea.

Re:How could the EU shut down a Canadian company?

[Fieryphoenix]

Um.. it's a 51 year old song... did the artist die right after making it? You said Canadian copyright lasts 50 years after the artist's death, so... doesn't it sound like the song was likely still under copyright?

Re:How could the EU shut down a Canadian company?

[theheadlessrabbit]

oh, Im sorry, I worded that wrong. the artist died 51 years ago. The director actually held off making the film for several years, just so this song would enter the public domain and he could use it. He also wanted to use an American song that was only 30, but the family refused to give permission, and the amount of money they wanted for the song was doubble his movies budgit. (its was a $60 000 movie, and this guy owns all his own gear scores, films and edits himself, so that cash is purely for actors and transportation)

Re:How could the EU shut down a Canadian company?

[dryeo]

Actually that is Her Majesty the Queen of Canada.
When I became a Canadian citizen I had to swear allegiance to the Queen of Canada even though by birth (England) she was already my Queen.
Be interesting if Canada and England ever went to war as I owe allegiance to the Queen on both sides :)

One Argument for Patents

[BlackGriffen]

Before there were patents there were guilds and these guilds have trade secrets that they jealously guarded out of fear of losing their exclusive meal ticket. Patents, because the schematics are public records, discourage this behavior. This is a good thing because it means that the knowledge is less likely to be lost and will enter the public domain "soon." At least, that's the ideal.

Now, is the patent system as presently constituted anywhere close to an ideal solution to this problem? Not on your life. The obviousness threshold for granting patents needs to be raised significantly and there are lots of things being patented that shouldn't be (eg genes).

Fixing those things, though, could we make it even better? That's the million dollar question.

Re:One Argument for Patents

[compro01]

and also they need to raise the requirement for disclosure in patents. it is completely impossible to replicate the item in question from a lot of modern patents because they lack a lot of the information that ought to be required.

Re:One Argument for Patents

[BillyBlaze]

I'd add software to the list of things that shouldn't be patented. Even if we fix the obviousness problem, the patents still wouldn't be achieving their goal. The language of patents is purposefully made even more inscrutable than machine code, so as to be as general as possible while divulging as little as possible. The result is that software patents don't contain the equivalent of "schematics" for physical processes or designs. It's far easier to guess or infer the block diagrams than to coax them from the language of the patent, so never actually look to patents to implement anything.

Clearly the real "schematics" of software are source code. If English could capture software's function as well, we'd all be out of a job. So to adequately do their job, software patents would need to include full source code and accompanying documentation. But since source code is indisputably covered under copyright law, the patent system would thus become more of a source code escrow system, mandatory for copyright protection. The real question is whether the trade secret nature of proprietary source code is a big enough problem to warrant the incredible added overhead of such a system. I don't think it is.

In short, copyright serves the industry well enough, with minimal overhead. Patents cause more problems than they fix, and their overhead excludes basement coders, the modern equivalent of garage inventors. The best way to fix the patent system is to push it back into physical realms where it can do some good. The tech industry can do just fine without them, thanks.

Re:One Argument for Patents

[bit01]

Before there were patents there were guilds and these guilds have trade secrets that they jealously guarded out of fear of losing their exclusive meal ticket. Patents, because the schematics are public records, discourage this behavior.

In other words patents are pointless for any idea that can't be kept secret if actually being used. In other words not reverse-engineer-able.

The only class of invention where that might happen are "construction" ideas, such as creating salable chemicals and physical product using a process that cannot be reverse-engineered from the resulting product. That appears to be rare in modern technology and non-existent in software.

---

Like software, intellectual property law is a product of the mind, and can be anything we want it to be. Let's get it right.

Re:One Argument for Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd add software to the list of things that shouldn't be patented.

If software can be patented, then surely the realisation of an idea in the form of music can also be patented - Let's lobby for Music Patents...

Re:One Argument for Patents

[AndersOSU]

The other important class of invention where this does not apply is where the inventor (or an operator under a NDA) is the only one using the invention. This could be basically every piece of industrial equipment ever invented. The shirt isn't a secret, but the loom is.

No good deed goes unpunished

[Geof]

Allow me to quote someone named Carolus on the IMSLP site's forums:

1. Canada's judicial system is generally very sympathetic to rulings issued by EU magistrates. Ironically, the USA is considerably more resistant (at least in places) to such meddling by judicial ideologues and corporatist cronies who like to impose their rules on people halfway around the world. Other countries with life-plus-50 terms, like South Korea, are not at all likely to abide by EU pontifications. IMSLP has a strong case, but it was by no means guaranteed that Canadian courts would be sympathetic.
2. The UE threat was probably just the leading edge for a series of legal threats from a consortium of large European publishers. IMSLP has been under discussion as a major threat in the newsletter of a EU publishers' asscoiation - which has been reported in the American Music Publishers Assocation newsletter. (Curiously, most US publishers are either unaware of IMSLP or don't care.)
3. IMSLP has grown so huge that its administration and management are really beyond the capabilities of a single person plus several trusty and reliable helpers. The time has really come for IMSLP to be re-constituted in a more institutional form, like Gutenberg or Wikipedia, or perhaps taken over by a consortium of music libraries.
4. Life-plus-70 is no guarantee. As you can see from the list, there are no less than four composers listed in the C & D letter who have been dead for over 70 years. This could have been sheer stupidity and arrogance on UE's part, or these composers could still be protected in Austria by some sort of special provision in that country's copyright law.

This was just one person providing a public service... uh, sorry, competing unfairly with the copyright cartel.

Re:No good deed goes unpunished

[MK_CSGuy]

Canada's judicial system is generally very sympathetic to rulings issued by EU magistrates.

Seriously, what happened to sovereignty?
I would have been very disturbed had I been a Canadian... Hell, I find it disturbing as a citizen of a sovereign democracy.

Re:No good deed goes unpunished

[Creepy]

the reason #4 is true is because someone may go in and add something like bowings, tempos, cadenza's, etc. and then re-copyright the work. For instance, Haydn Concerto (#1) for Cello in C Major is by a composer that died in 1809 and written in the 1760s. The concerto was rediscovered in the 1960s in Prague and Cadenzas were added by Milos Sadlo, who died in 2003. This piece is probably copyrighted in Canada until 2053 and in the US until 2073 because of this, however, there's more - the US version is copyrighted under both Sadlo and Rostropovich, who died in 2007, so it may be copyrighted in the US until 2077 with an option to extend the copyright to 2097 under the Mickey Mouse law (yes, that's what I'm calling the copyright extension act from now on).
    The IMPSL work was copied from the Prague, but the copied piece had the Sadlo cadenzas, making it likely still under copyright in the EU since it was not the original. There was a large notice stating that the piece was likely under copyright in the US, Canada, and the EU, but an investigation was underway because no copyright was listed on the piece archived at the Prague, where the copy was made. I personally own the copy credited to Sadlo and Rostropovich, however, and was unable to find one of the insert pages, so I made a copy from IMPSL (I've since rediscovered the original and destroyed the copy), and I'm not exactly sure where that stands, especially since I didn't know the versions were different until after I downloaded it, but I would think it's the same as recordings - if I own a copy of the work, I should have some fair use rights. It's also possible I violated copyright law even though the version I own is a superset of the Sadlo version (it contains notational differences like fingerings, but is otherwise identical).

    Note that that was the exception, not the rule - every other piece I downloaded off of IMPSL was completely legal with no exception in the US (and everywhere else), most being 100+ years old. It was a wonderful source of solo material, especially since I rarely find cello solo sheet music without special ordering it and have no idea of the complexity of the piece (I am pretty good, but Haydn in C pushes my limits - especially the third movement).

Doing it wrong-patenting pandering to the audience

[Anonymous Coward]

"Modern global society is doing it wrong. The current regime of patents and copyrights is completely outdated and old-fashioned. Global digital communication has made copyright irrelevant, and it's absurd to think you can patent an idea."

Since that's not what patenting or copyright is. The rest of your sentence is useless. The basic ideas of copyright, patents, and trademark are even more relevant than in the past. The abuse on both sides is the problem. Not the ideas themselves.

I like it

[Jehosephat2k]

As a composer of piano music, I can't wait for these people to try to shut down the release of my music on the Internet this year. I will sue for millions.

Re:I like it

[Faluzeer]

That sounds like a variant of the old joke :
"How do you get a small fortune?...start with a large one"

How many millions in legal fees would it cost before a decision is made in your favour?

morally right, legally wrong

[xeno]

This is the sort of morally right but legally wrong (in some places) service that ought to move into an anonymously-hosted service such as Freenet. There are several caveats to this tho -- it only works for a community-supported decentralized project, it's harder to maintain, and it's a tacit admission that the activities are impermissible in some locales. On the other hand, there are some things -- works of art in public domain, classic texts, referential materials, unpopular political speech, and the like -- that ought to have a safe haven.

What kind of safe haven? Safe where information that /ought/ to be free (libre) can be posted and retrieved by all, but not pushed on anyone, not traced to anyone, and not deletable. Unfortunately there are certain commercial entities (not all -- I'm not anti-captialist) that have made a mockery of IP laws in the US And EU, and they have considerable influence. A while back, I saw a political sticker with a skull and crossbones, with the line "Voting is not the only answer" under it. While that's a little extreme, there is a time for civil disobedience, and a mode for using technology to simply override the restrictions of those who are morally wrong. A purely legal fight may take decades or even lifetimes, so sometimes it's better & faster to just destroy a bad business model that has societally-destructive effects by technical means, if not proper ones.

Also (and I know this will come up), no, Freenet and Tor are not nests of pedophiles where sheet music is lost in the filth. Yes, there are unfortunately visible and inevitable misusers of anonymous networks, but whatever the trolls might say, pictures do not cause abuse (and as this week's events demonstrate, there are very positive effects to abusers clickitying their i-thought-it-was-distorted faces on teh intarwebs). On the other hand, freedom to inform does cause aid to come to those who need it in a political/refugee sense, and freedom to share does further the cause of art and literature in a locked-away-text or book-burning sense. I continue to support these anonymous networks for the same reason I would not demand that we have a crime-free neighborhood before coming to the aid of those who need safe harbor in a more immediate sense.

Re:morally right, legally wrong

[camperdave]

I saw a political sticker with a skull and crossbones, with the line "Voting is not the only answer" under it. While that's a little extreme...

True. There must be a better way of changing the law than poisoning politicians.

Re:morally right, legally wrong

[darthdavid]

To be fair it could've also been advocating committing maritime crime against them...

Re:morally right, legally wrong

[Dunbal]

To be fair it could've also been advocating committing maritime crime against them...

      Or simply taking a stand against global warming?

Re:morally right, legally wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

There must be a better way of changing the law than poisoning politicians.

OK, I'll bite; what is it?

unified copyright will be pushed because of this..

[wizardforce]

Of course now if anyone really pushes the matter and shows how clearly retarded and one-sided this is, the RIAA/MPAA etc... will push a lot harder for a unified copyright system just as horrid as the USA's is now. Only this time they will have the excuse of preventing similar occurances liek this in the future.

Such Bullshit.

[Ethanol-fueled]

Another control-hungry bunch of fuckheads ruins it for the rest of us. The content people already went after the guitar tablature. What's next -- MIDI files?!

The site took too much work to maintain

[scgops]

Seriously.

I never heard of the site or the operator before this story, but a quick read of his forum makes it pretty clear the guy was already worn out from the workload of maintaining the site. He would have walked away sooner or later. The cease and desist letter merely hastened the inevitable.

Fan sites and other labors of love nearly always evolve into large and larger doses of labor with decreasing amounts of joy and love. The sites days were numbered long ago.

-DaveU

Re:The site took too much work to maintain

[ScrewMaster]

That was true even before the Internet went public. I ran a large BBS at one point (sixteen lines, basement full of computers) and there was a time when I suffered a severe case of sysop burnout. We eventually became a pay operation, but I gotta tell you, keeping all the line servers up, updating the file library, making sure the email was flowing (we were on all the major mail relay networks, and unlike most other boards we ran mail updates every quarter hour) was a lot of work. At one point, I just said "Aaaaaaaaaagh!" and went away for a week. Fortunately, everything was still running when I got back (we put a lot of work into reliability and redundancy) but I just had to get away from the thing.

Even though it meant losing the income from the board, looking back, when the Internet came along and killed off that entire industry almost overnight ... I was kind of relieved when I finally pulled the main switch.

Re:The site took too much work to maintain

[sstrader]

I never heard of Slashdot or CmdrTaco before this story, but a quick read of his forum makes it pretty clear the guy was already worn out from the workload of maintaining the site. He would have walked away sooner or later.

- Post from an alternate history, 1998, where a new tech site caught the attention of corporate lawyers

Make copyright the same as perpetuities.

[Kadin2048]

In the U.S., back a few centuries ago, some fairly bright people realized that it's not healthy to let people lock up assets in trusts that last either forever, or effectively forever. And so they created rules against these types of perpetual financial instruments, which are commonly known as 'perpetuities,' and created a hard limit on how long you can lock assets away: usually the life of the person creating the trust, plus 18 or 21 years (figuring that's the longest possible time that it would take for their youngest-possible direct heir to reach majority).

Somehow, though, we've never viewed Copyright in this same light, even though many of the same issues apply to it, and I think the same logic could be applied to the term. At most, for a work created by an individual in their own name, the term of copyright ought to be their life, plus 18 years. For a work created for a corporation or for hire, the term ought to be 50% of the average lifespan of a citizen, as defined by the latest Census. (The logic being, that's sort of the 'average' individual copyright term, using an idealized model where a person is equally able to produce a work anytime after reaching majority until after they die.)

Although personally I think a copyright term of 15 years would be more useful to the public and society at large, I think that life+18 would come closer to satisfying the number of people who believe (wrongly, IMO) that an author has a "right" to exploit their work for their entire life, and for their children's childhoods.

Re:Make copyright the same as perpetuities.

[cpt kangarooski]

I believe you'll find that the rule against perpetuities is of English origin. The US is better known for being early in abolishing the fee tail.

Somehow, though, we've never viewed Copyright in this same light

Copyright originated from this manner of thinking. May I suggest you read this paper about the origins of copyright, particularly in the US. I enjoyed it a lot. I would also fight very hard against life+18. For some works, 15 years is far too long. A modest quantity of very short terms (e.g. 1-2 year terms which at most might be renewable up to a total of 20 years, and in some cases much less) strikes me as better given how the economics of creative works actually plays out.

Re:Make copyright the same as perpetuities.

[kasperd]

usually the life of the person creating the trust, plus 18 or 21 years (figuring that's the longest possible time that it would take for their youngest-possible direct heir to reach majority).

That argumentation does make a bit of sense (you'd have to add 9 months, but that is just a minor detail). But even though I see the point in that argumentation, I do feel a problem in that approach. At least for copyright, I would much rather it was a fixed period. A fixed period of say 25 years from when the work is created would still be sufficient time to monetize the work.

Re:Make copyright the same as perpetuities.

[jdjbuffalo]

Interesting paper. I'll read it when I get a chance. I've done some research myself on the origins of copyrights in the US. I like your idea of short to long term renewable copyrights. They are along the lines that I've been formulating. I don't want to go into details right now but I think this basic model which you've outlined is what would be the most fair in this digital age where everything can be copied with such ease. I have yet to write down all the details that I've been formulating. Many of them are based on the thousands of posts I've read on Slashdot and other places, combined with what's been happening in the world of copyrights in the last 200 years. Keep an eye out and I'll post a detailed list of what I think is viable someday soon I hope.

Re:Make copyright the same as perpetuities.

[Kadin2048]

usually the life of the person creating the trust, plus 18 or 21 years (figuring that's the longest possible time that it would take for their youngest-possible direct heir to reach majority).

That argumentation does make a bit of sense (you'd have to add 9 months, but that is just a minor detail). But even though I see the point in that argumentation, I do feel a problem in that approach. At least for copyright, I would much rather it was a fixed period. A fixed period of say 25 years from when the work is created would still be sufficient time to monetize the work. Oh I agree. Optimally, I'd like to have a copyright that's quite short, maybe five years at the outside, renewable once or twice, with irrevocable expiration into the public domain if it's not renewed.

Unfortunately, as I've become more aware of the issue over the last few years and discussed it with more people, I've discovered that there are a lot of people -- perhaps not the majority, but at least a large minority -- who are fairly receptive to the "author's rights" argument. (I'd put 'rights' in scare quotes there, if it didn't look so ugly.) E.g., they actually seem to fall for the stated reasoning behind things like the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which basically amounted to "I want my children to be able to squeeze every last drop from my works, until the end of time, and that's my right, goddamnit." Or, uglier, more self-interested, and much more believable: "I want to squeeze every last drop out of my father/mother/great-grandfather-in-law's works, and that's my right, goddamnit."

My first reaction would be to simply assume that anyone falling for that (rather than what I think is the real driving force behind that law, namely Disney's and some other large corporations' "vaults" of content) is an idiot. But some of the people seemingly swayed by this are intelligent folks. So despite the fact that I don't think that an artist has any right to commercially exploit works once they've been published -- if they want that sort of downstream control over works, then they should only ever sell them to people who've signed an NDA -- I think any copyright reform has to take this concern into account if it is to be successful.

I wouldn't use Freenet, but...

[petrus4]

...maybe something like the Kad Network. Decentralised, and almost completely untraceable. Create a date marked tarball of the website, and put it up. Then host a SHA256 checksum for the file on IRC somewhere, to prevent big media compromising your trust by distributing files claimed to be from you but containing viruses. They do this on P2P in order to try and deter people from using it.

Whenever you've got changes/new scores, upload another version of the tarball. You could either create a private mailing list (prolly better cos that way you can keep track of who knows about it) or use a text file on Kad itself to notify safe people about the new file.

Freenet is unbelievably slow, and contains a lot of junk that I can well understand some people not wanting to be associated with. Not only that, it being so slow means that about the only thing it's really good for hosting is HTML, and not even that in most cases.

Re:I wouldn't use Freenet, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

cool, I'm glad there are hard-working people like you dreaming up better ways we can all take other people fucking hard work without paying them a single fucking penny.
you dickhead. You are the reason the RIAA exists.

Re:I wouldn't use Freenet, but...

[petrus4]

you dickhead. You are the reason the RIAA exists.

Yep. Want to know something else? We're winning.

Re:I wouldn't use Freenet, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Freenet is actually a lot faster and leaner than it was a year ago. Full albums can be downloaded in a few hours, and people are regularly downloading 700MB movie files (takes a few days). The size of the network seems to be increasing rapidly too, so it is well worth checking out.

Install the main Freenet node and then look for the message board program Frost, and file sharing program Thaw, which come bundled with Freenet.

http://freenetproject.org/

You forgot...

[Smordnys s'regrepsA]

...you're talking about music!
~7e15 possible combinations for just the notes themselves...but what about rests, and rest/note lengths?
I don't want to even try the math on that one at this time in the morning, but I'm sure it's huge.

Besides which, you could just specify that the notes are off by a certain small frequency, so that it isn't truly an A# or B, but that it is actually a note without a name somewhere in between.

Re:You forgot...

[TheRaven64]

Note lengths are implicitly taken into account by the grandparent; it doesn't remove sequential beats with the same note and there is practically no difference between two crochets on the same note and one minim. Adding in rests is just another symbol, so you have 8 instead of 7. This gives 68,719,476,736.

That said, the actual number of combinations is much smaller since transposing a sequence would not be enough to stop it being a derived work, which eliminates a huge number of the options. The same is true of transposing the music into a different key.

Re:A few duties.

[cliffski]

well said. so this website had 'mostly' copyright-free material, and it got shut down. Talk about major spin. how about this as a title:

"Site that infringed copyright gets prosecuted for infringing copyright"

not so scandalous now is it? If the website was really keen to provide copyright-free music, why didn't they just stick to doing that. They could always have set up a second site for music that was still copyrighted in some territories.

Mutopia Project - All legal sheet music in USA+EU

[Anonymous Coward]

Try the Mutopia Project - all their sheet music is out of copyright in both the USA and the EU.

Not that this lessens the tragedy of a site having to shut down due to baseless threats which would cost too much to defend against.

Makes Perfect Sense

[giafly]

Apparently this wasn't enough for Universal Edition, who found it necessary to protect the interests of their (long-dead) composers and shut down a site that has proved useful to many students, professors, and other musicians worldwide

You guys and your life-ist bias! If I were promoting the music of dead musicians, the last thing I'd want is competition from live musicians, so I'd have shut down this site too.

request seems reasonable

[m2943]

If you read their letter, they didn't ask him to shut down, they asked him to filter his IP addresses to prohibit accesses from regions where their copyright is still in force. That seems like a reasonable request to me.

The reason he shut down was because he considered that too much work. I'm sorry, but downloading a geolocation database and using it to filter requests is not a lot of work. In fact, from his remarks, it sounds like running the server was just becoming too much work in general and this was simply the final straw.

It think it's stupid that they the publishers still hold the copyright, but that's an issue to be taken up with the legislatures. The fact that they have these rights in Europe is clear, and it's reasonable for them to try to enforce them.

Re:request seems reasonable

[smurfsurf]

> they asked him to filter his IP addresses to prohibit accesses from regions where their
> copyright is still in force. That seems like a reasonable request to me.

Say you have images on your website that show people drinking alcohol. Now some organisation from a foreign jurisdiction asks you to filter access to these images for visitors from said region. Would you do it? Is it a reasonable request to follow? Setting things up and keeping the system current does not come for free. And there is the question if you should do it at all.

Re:request seems reasonable

[zotz]

"If you read their letter, they didn't ask him to shut down, they asked him to filter his IP addresses to prohibit accesses from regions where their copyright is still in force. That seems like a reasonable request to me."

Would it not be more reasonable to ask for the filtering to be done closer to home? Ask ISPs in their jurisdictions where their laws apply to filter his IP addresses.

(Not that I think either is all that reasonable mind you. I am making no claims as to that.)

all the best,

drew

http://openphoto.net/gallery/index.html?user_id=178
Underwater Fun and more...

Re:request seems reasonable

[m2943]

Would you do it? Is it a reasonable request to follow? Setting things up and keeping the system current does not come for free. And there is the question if you should do it at all.

He is Canadian and bound by Canadian law. Canadian law recognizes and enforces European copyrights in Canada. So, yes, he should do it. If, on the other hand, I were in a situation where I wasn't bound by law to enforce it, then I wouldn't enforce it.

Re:request seems reasonable

[gEvil (beta)]

Which would you be more livid about?

A. Going to a website only to be told by the site itself that due to copyright laws in your country it won't allow you to see the page.
B. Trying to go to a website only to be told by your ISP that due to copyright law they won't let you go there.

I know I'd personally much prefer A, not to mention it's a much easier solution to implement. Think of how crowded the front page would be here with "OMG! Censorship!" stories if B were implemented.

Re:request seems reasonable

[k8to]

I would prefer B, because it is more untenable, and thus more likely to fail, as it should.

Re:request seems reasonable

[MeNeXT]

You read too much in this. Canadian law does not care about European copyrights. The risk is that the judge might side with the European position which would require continued litigation. As a student he does not have the resources to pay his way through this fight.

Re:request seems reasonable

[Anonymous Coward]

You read too much in this. Canadian law does not care about European copyrights.

Oh, really? Thanks for clearing that up for us.

Re:request seems reasonable

[zotz]

"Which would you be more livid about?"

That's not really the point. The point is more who should bear the costs of implementing a country's laws... Entities in other countries? Or entities in the same country? One who may have some influence in getting the laws changed if the costs are too high.

Who do you think should shoulder the burden? And should you choose those in your situation A... should it only apply in cases of copyright law and no other laws?

all the best,

drew

http://openphoto.net/gallery/index.html?user_id=178

Re:request seems reasonable

[tmdybvik]

Well... taking that a bit further, you are responsible for filtering all content that the Burmese/Myanmar government deems to be in violation of their internal laws.
I don't think you would be willing to implement that amount of filtering.

If the Europeans have an issue with it, it should probably be their responsibility to filter it.

Re:request seems reasonable

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't know what you're talking about.

Re:request seems reasonable

[mabhatter654]

once they start, and you comply with one request, you open yourself up to every request and they never stop. He'd spend all his future time complying with legal demands and not doing his hobby.

Re:request seems reasonable

[turgid]

If you read their letter, they didn't ask him to shut down, they asked him to filter his IP addresses to prohibit accesses from regions where their copyright is still in force. That seems like a reasonable request to me.

Do you know what a proxy server is? Do you see now why this is asinine?

This is the intarweb we're talking about... every PHB, politician and priest's worst nightmare.

Re:request seems reasonable

[ickypoo]

I'm sorry, but downloading a geolocation database and using it to filter requests is not a lot of work.

Do you find it simple enough to volunteer to help him?

As anyone who invests an expanding amount of time and energy into a volunteer project knows, every new demand, criticism, or blossomed expectation is another grain of sand in your shoe. If you aren't ever given the time to wash the shoe out, eventually, it wears away your foot.

This guy is clearly taken on more work for this than he is actually able to provide, and the peanut gallery demands wont elicit anything more than a foul comment from him to you and reinforce the desire to wash his hands of the whole thing. What he needs is help, not snide comments about his capacity to do the job.

Re:request seems reasonable

[neminem]

Yeah, but you don't have to tell them that. And by them, I mean people making that request. Just let them go on believing that everything's great, while meanwhile, anyone reasonably intelligent can get around the ban easily. So basically, it's just like all other DRM/copywrite restrictions.

Re:Why take the site down? Model wrong for size.

[3seas]

It seems pretty clear that the model the site was under was not what it should be to carry such responsibility.

As has been noted, maintenance of the site became overwhelming and the second C&D was only the straw that broke an already overloaded camel back.

I see no reason for the site to not come back, but under a different maintenance model along with user agreements/registrations to access
works not worldwide public domain, effectively making reasonable effort to provide restrictions where needed.

Public domain is public domain..... there are no laws to circumvent this, only the exposure of wrong doings by those who oppose it.

Even if the person who created the site does not want to bring it back, he should be willing to transfer the resources to another willing to do so.
Unless of course he has intent on publishing for sale, such a collection.

It wouldn't be the first time someone took what was open and closed it up for a personal profit.

Re: Composers get their share

[Telephone Sanitizer]

> That person got paid their songwriting fee, and that's that (I think).

No, that person gets paid quite a bit for performance rights and music-publishing.

'Probably much more per track than Ms. Spears gets for doing the vocals since in addition to royalties on the album and online music sales the composer also gets paid for radio-play where Ms. Spears does not.

What makes Ms. Spears' arrangement more advantageous than the composers' are the payments from other sources such as advances against sales, concerts, merchandise, appearances and publicity, commercial advertisements -- and of course the free stuff that she gets just for showing up at awards ceremonies, bars and parties.

Not again ...

[guerby]

This is unfortunately not a first, the canadian site "Classiques des Sciences Sociale" collecting social science texts was threatened in 2003 by a french editor over works public domain for 50 but not in 70: the story is here (in french). After a big fuss, the editor went away, but copyright owners never learn...

Absurd

[Smordnys s'regrepsA]

While there is much math in music, this is one time 1/4 + 1/4 != 1/2

As both a Pianist and a Drummer, I find it ridiculous for you to attempt the explanation that two quarter-notes and one half-note can, even for the sake of argument, be considered to be equal.
It has been a while since we've had a wind instrument in our jam session, but maybe your thought would hold true for them. Then again, how many flute solos do you hear in modern music?
As far as I can tell, the great-grand-pappy was talking about the number of notes, not beats (since it does, quite clearly, state "12 sequence notes" and never mentions a time frame). I'm simply implying the estimate was too small, by many degrees.


Hell, if you push me hard enough, I may ask for the relative volume of each note to be taken into consideration in your accounting (though, by now you're just adding to infinity).

Re:Absurd

[Maxo-Texas]

I see your point.

Are you arguing that no modern copyrighted music duplicates any existing public domain music?

We have set note lengths and a fixed number of notes. I know for sure I've heard long parts of old country and folk songs in new rock and roll songs.

It irritates me that a rock musician will get all pissy because another musician "stole their song" when it is likely that they have done the same things themselves.

Zombies have rights too!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Apparently this wasn't enough for Universal Edition, who found it necessary to protect the interests of their (long-dead) composers and shut down a site that has proved useful to many students, professors, and other musicians worldwide."

Who can blame them? I mean, I'd be motivated too if a bunch of zombie composers were constantly demanding royalties. If they don't get what they want, they might start asking for brains instead.

Re:A few duties.

[Pete]

[...] Talk about major spin. how about this as a title: "Site that infringed copyright gets prosecuted for infringing copyright" [...] If the website was really keen to provide copyright-free music, why didn't they just stick to doing that.

You didn't RTFA, did you? They (or rather, he, as it was only one person (a student), running a non-commercial site out of his own pocket) were only providing music that was out of copyright... in Canada.

The problem here, and the thing that makes it outrageous, is that publisher (Universal Edition) threatened to obtain a "judgement" against the guy in Europe - which then (according to UE's version of Canadian law, which may or may not be entirely accurate) would be enforceable against the guy in Canada. I don't know about you, but I find that kinda fucked up.

The other part, however, is more simple (and more familiar) - a large organisation with effectively infinite resources launches a "legal" assault on a single person with none. The guy had absolutely no time, funds, or any other resources to fight this. The publisher could probably have threatened to sue him in Canada, where they'd (presumably) have absolutely no case at all, and he'd still pretty much have to give up.

So well done, Universal Edition - you fucknuts. Why don't you go find a few newborn puppies you can kick, if you really want to feel like big tough men.

max(70, copyrighttimesomewhereintheworld)

[eddy]

So we now live in a world where the effective copyright term is the maximum anywhere in the world? Do this transfer to other parts of the justice system also, as long as we add "on the internet"? What kind of nonsensical idiocy is this? Say the Taliban make it punishable by death use the internet, should we now honor their requests for people to be killed in the West, and if not, why do we honor requests from fucktards from the "why produce when we can live on the work of someone who's been dead 69 years."?

Can't wait for the Copyright Elite to buy a copyright extension to one BILLION years, retroactively somewhere, and then going around using the WIPO and whatever to enforce it against people under the threat of expensive litigation.

Some day this corporate greed will make people feel so powerless, so fucking fed up, that we'll see the rise of domestic terrorism like we've never seen it before.

Re:max(70, copyrighttimesomewhereintheworld)

[tom's a-cold]

Say the Taliban make it punishable by death use the internet, should we now honor their requests for people to be killed in the West...

With international treaties on "intellectual property" they are moving that way. And when they've moved, they'll do what they do now with existing law: let you walk if you are a big criminal, but throw you in jail for forty years or kill you if you're small, powerless or in some way have pissed off the powers that be.

It's going to take a huge effort, decades maybe, for that to be changed. Meanwhile we have to find ways to work around the attempts at cultural repression. And that's what it is: the dead hand of the profit motive attempting to extract rents from cultural continuity. Too bad that, in the US, the only parties who oppose rapacious corporate interests are near-microscopic (no lectures, please: I support one of them). So whatever happens will have to be grass-roots, since the institutions aren't built yet.

Re:max(70, copyrighttimesomewhereintheworld)

[smegged]

Can't wait for the Copyright Elite to buy a copyright extension to one BILLION years, retroactively somewhere, and then going around using the WIPO and whatever to enforce it against people under the threat of expensive litigation.

One billion is not high enough. Scientologists have a six billion year mission. Obviously, we don't want scientologists losing their copyrights with only 1/6 of their mission complete.

Life plus 70 is much too long

[mbone]

There is little about copyright that would not be substantially improved by a return to 28 year terms.

Under copyright, these works belong to the public, that is, all of us. To lock them away for multiple lifetimes is, simply put, stealing
from the public. It is a corruption of the original intent, brought about by a few people beholden to industry negotiating international treaties
largely in secret. Unless the rot at the center of the current copyright system is fixed, eventually the public will turn away from copyright, which will be a shame.

Re:Not again.... (I'm so sick of this happening)

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Just great. I got modded redundant. Since there are no other posts on this thread expressing this view, I can only assume that that view in particular has now been unofficially declared redundant. Apparently we need to find continually more original ways of breaking the constant, redundant flow of groupthink, because as soon as a certain view (that of course isn't part of the groupthink, which is never, ever redundant) more than a few times, it's redundant. Sometimes moderation seems to be just another way for people to stick their heads in the sand. I just hoped that an intelligent group of people, especially one so committed to the principles of free speech, would be different.

Re:Not again.... (I'm so sick of this happening)

[mqduck]

Hey, the mods who use "redundant" and "offtopic" are assholes, period. I think modding people down is therapeutic for some. Oh, and I can't know where you got your SN from, but VU fucking rock.

cant you all see..

[ticktickboom]

cant you all see, it effects cooperate profits! if you want to learn anything, you must pay. if you think that song is going to help you understand music theroy better, buy it. thasts the way they want it. poor = dumb. thats the way 'they' see it.

i was hoping for a few good links to public domain music and movies. i had no idea about the +70 years after the death thing. that is just absolutely ridicules. i mean, i9 could see 5, 10, possibly 15. not 70. that is greed, pure and simple.

tick

i wonder when their going to implement a data tax. a small charge for each letter sent out over the 'web'.

Re:cant you all see..

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you could use a lot of help with your spelling and grammar. Have you even heard of capital letters? By the way, "effects" is a noun. The word your simple brain is struggling for is "affects."

Expert Opinion

[Hemogoblin]

Michael Geist, the lawyer, weighs in on the issue

In this particular case, UE demanded that the site use IP addresses to filter out non-Canadian users, arguing that failing to do so infringes both European and Canadian copyright law. It is hard to see how this is true given that the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that sites such as IMSLP are entitled to presume that they are being used in a lawful manner and therefore would not rise to the level of authorizing infringement. The site was operating lawfully in Canada and there is no positive obligation in the law to block out non-Canadians.

As for a European infringement, if UE is correct, then the public domain becomes an offline concept, since posting works online would immediately result in the longest single copyright term applying on a global basis. That can't possibly be right. Canada has chosen a copyright term that complies with its international obligations and attempts to import longer terms - as is the case here - should not only be rejected but treated as copyright misuse.

Re:Expert Opinion

[Scarblac]

It's about numbers. As long as it's copyrighted and owned by some entity, then it can be represented as a number on some balance sheet. If you then release it to the public, the world as a whole becomes richer, but in terms of numbers, it's only a loss.

Since politicians think in terms of money and the economy, protecting "intellectual property" is a no-brainer.

Bastards and Cowards

[Nom du Keyboard]

Universal Edition are Bastards, who obviously feel that the whole world has to follow their own local country laws.

The International Music Score Library Project are Cowards, for not standing up for their legal rights in their own country.

I always thought that Canada prided themselves on not being either the USA, or Europe. They sure sound like both now.

Re:Bastards and Cowards

[Linzer]

The International Music Score Library Project are Cowards, for not standing up for their legal rights in their own country.

This is a rather strong statement. The administrators were providing the service voluntarily, and it benefited countless students, scholars and music lovers. I would not call them cowards simply because they cannot spend the additional time and effort needed to defend themselves or cannot afford even the risk of litigation.

If the claims of UE are really unfounded, then people should be working on gathering legal and institutional support for the admins so that they can operate the site again without feeling at risk.

Re:Bastards and Cowards

[Nom du Keyboard]

This is a rather strong statement.

If they don't want to fight it, then give up the database to someone who does. I resent the overall destruction of information simply to please a party who wishes to profit from it, and say so in strong terms!

So, A Curious Question

[Nom du Keyboard]

So, this begs a curious question: How much of this is in the Internet Archive?

Also: How much can be saved out from there and rehosted in a much safer (e.g. Sweden, Russia...) country?

After all, if you can't shut down spammers, this must be able to survive somewhere.

Lastly: Why not only remove the affected songs?

IANAL, but C&D letters are very cheap to send. They are often sent with no justification at all. When one comes from a whole 'nuther country, that can't be the scariest thing.

Doomed to repeat the past

[jihadist]

Classical music is one spot of hope in a musically bleak world. They should recognize that having more literate buying audiences will get them more profit in the end. Again, the music industry shoots itself in the foot through paranoid MBAs lashing out against anything that challenges the old way of doing things.

editable formats

[bcrowell]

Since IMSLP is down, I haven't been able to see how big their collection was or what it was like, but it sounds like it was scans of PD sheet music. While that could be very useful, it's obviously preferable to have your music in a format such as lilypond that you can edit. For example, I'm a violist, and right now I'm working on the prelude from one of the Bach cello suites. Once the score was in lilypond format, it was trivial to transpose it up an octave and put it in C clef. Then I was able to change the bowings and fingerings and get high-quality printed output. The Mutopia project collects scores in lilypond format. Werner Icking Music Archive has a lot of very high quality scores in musixtex format. I've posted some of my own PD scores here. Sure it's a lot more work than collecting scans, but in the long run it's the right way to go. I think the main barrier has been the lack of open-source music typesetting software that is a gui but can produce output as high in quality as lilypond ot musixtex can. Rosegarden (a gui that uses lilypond as a back end for typesetting) wasn't quite there the last time I looked, although it seems like the developers are working hard on it.

Re:editable formats

[Anonymous Coward]

IMSLP had 15000+ scores before it was shutdown. This includes most of the classical standards as well as lots of rare gems. Yes, it was mostly scanned PDF's (there were a few exceptions). I agree that the ability to modify the score easily is good, but even the mutopia scores need a public domain source. IMSLP lowers the barrier for someone to find a source, verify that it is public domain, and re-typeset it. This is a very good thing for everybody.

Re:editable formats

[Anonymous Coward]

warner icking has the cello suites already transcribed for violin + viola in their dls, im looking at a copy right now

Re:A few duties.

[cliffski]

It sounds like you think that people running one man businesses should be immune to prosecution by larger ones. you clearly think that in any struggle between any multi million dollar company and a guy running a site in his bedroom, the one guy MUST be innocent right? because its 'teh evil company' right?
What would you do if you ran a large company? refuse to prosecute anyone earning under X a year? regardless what impact they had on your company?
what bullshit.

This isn't censorship

[noidentity]

Come on, let's reserve the word "censorship" for places where it really applies: where one party wants to prevent anyone from accessing particular material, because they consider said material to be harmful to their goals if viewed by others. The core is a desire to keep people ignorant of the information, not to make money off it. In this case, the source of the cease and desist would probably be glad to sell you whatever copyrighted material was on the site.

English ML

[tepples]

Clearly the real "schematics" of software are source code. If English could capture software's function as well, we'd all be out of a job. So to adequately do their job, software patents would need to include full source code and accompanying documentation.

Ever heard of the ENGLISH query language in the Pick OS?

But more seriously, if an algorithm can be implemented in Haskell or ML or some similar functional language, wouldn't translating each operator into English result in an acceptable English description of an algorithm? Imagine how you would read ML aloud:

fun fac (0 : int) : int = 1
| fac (n : int) : int = n * fac (n-1)

The function called fac, when given an integer of value 0, produces an integer of value 1.
Or when given an integer of value n, produces an integer of value n times fac of the quantity n minus 1.

I leave interpreting more complicated ML as an exercise, but it appears doable.

The 2Pac business model?

[tepples]

Because if it isn't taken down, then those dead composers won't have any incentive to compose more music. Did you mean the following?

Because if it isn't taken down, then those dead composers' grandchildren won't have any incentive to publish previously unpublished works that the composer had created.

Re:The 2Pac business model?

[sconeu]

No, I meant what I said.

Chilling effect on music? My sweet lord.

[tepples]

Could not the existing public domain music melody sequences be compared to current copyrighted works and be shown to have already be written in public domain music? You might find this old journal interesting.

And get kicked out of the WTO

[tepples]

Change copyright to 20 years or less Any country that tried this would get kicked out of the World Trade Organization, as one of the essential WTO treaties specifies a minimum copyright term of 50 years PMA. Good luck under autarky induced through prohibitive tariffs when the rest of the world is enjoying the benefits of pseudo-free international trade.

Re:And get kicked out of the WTO

[kasperd]

one of the essential WTO treaties specifies a minimum copyright term of 50 years PMA.

Just because somebody once upon of time made a stupid decission, it doesn't mean that can never be changed. WTO could change that treaty. Or some country powerfull enough to say screw the WTO, could change their copyright to something sensible (in the order of 15-25 years). To me the real question is, whether there is a country that is powerfull enough to say screw those industry lobyists. Yes there are some people who make money from the current copyright situation, but society as a whole does not make any more from the absurdly long copyrights. Time to take one step back and ask yourself why was copyright introduced in the first place. If we hadn't had copyright for the last many years, would politicians have wanted to introduce copyright today. In general I'd say introducing a new law just so some industry can make more money is a bad idea, there ought to be a better reason, if somebody making more money is an unavoidable side effect, then I guess that is not so bad. As an example assume somebody invented some new security equipment for high speed trains, and a law was made requiring it on all new trains. That law makes sense, the company producing the equipment would obviously make more money, but that is not the purpose of the law. But you would politicians listen to lobyists from the leather industry suggesting, that all such trains should be required to have leather seats?

Introduction problem?

[tepples]

This is the sort of morally right but legally wrong (in some places) service that ought to move into an anonymously-hosted service such as Freenet. The current version of Freenet requires exchanging codes similar to Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection friend codes with another user inside Freenet before you can retrieve any documents. How would anyone get a friend code in order to get into Freenet without making one's personal information available to the copyright industry goons who might be monitoring freenode#freenet-refs?

It needs friend codes

[tepples]

The size of the network seems to be increasing rapidly too, so it is well worth checking out. But how do I find somebody who is already on Freenet in order to exchange friend codes? And given that Freenet takes a couple days to start routing, how do I connect if my PC isn't always on?

Does Canadian law care about expired copyrights?

[tepples]

You read too much in this. Canadian law does not care about European copyrights. Oh, really? [See the Berne Convention.] But does Canadian law care about European copyrights after they have expired under the minimum term that the Berne Convention requires, that is, 50 years pma?

Re:A few duties.

[nosferatu1001]

Way to ignore the actual argument he was making - that it was a frivolous and baseless legal threat....

Re:A few duties.

[chris_eineke]

The problem here, and the thing that makes it outrageous, is that publisher (Universal Edition) threatened to obtain a "judgement" against the guy in Europe - which then (according to UE's version of Canadian law, which may or may not be entirely accurate) would be enforceable against the guy in Canada. I don't know about you, but I find that kinda fucked up.

New World Order?

Re:Does Canadian law care about expired copyrights

[Anonymous Coward]

But does Canadian law care about European copyrights after they have expired under the minimum term that the Berne Convention requires, that is, 50 years pma?

Yes, they do: Canada has committed to enforcing copyright judgments made in the EU against Canadians in Canada.

IMSLP

[freeasinrealale]

Herewith copy of my email to Aird & Berlis: I'm sure your company is getting a lot of nasty mail over this one. Deservedly so. There are a few times I'm not proud to be Canadian. This is one of them. The last time I felt this disgusted was when Diefenbaker canceled the Arrow. Sincerely; Frank Kokot Oshawa

U.S. & E.U. should go back to old Copyright sy

[Jane Q. Public]

The whole problem here was and has continued to be unwarranted extensions to the concept of copyright, brought about by greedy corporations.

The original Copyrights were like patents: 17 years. That was to give incentive to the creators of original works, who could sell them for a limited time, before the work became public domain. But copyrights were put there to encourage creators to create works for the public good, because it eventually did pass to the public. The problem was, if the public just took original works, then there was no incentive for the creative types to create. Thus Copyright law.

And the concepts of Fair Use allowed the public and schools to use even copyrighted materials in certain circumstances, again for the public good.

It was never intended, originally, that all rights to works should be held, essentially forever, by private parties. That is a complete bastardization of the whole concept.

It was designed to be only temporary, just like patents. Then greedy people got it extended to the life of the creator. And then more. And now, life plus 70 years! Which in many cases is more than the lifetime of a member of the general public. And the DMCA has been used to even stifle university research if that research would endanger someone's copyright! What a crock!

How can that possibly be in the public interest???

If we went back to the old system, 17 years or even compromise and say 30 or 35... a whole lot of these "problems" surrounding copyrights would just GO AWAY!!!

Prepare for a .torrent in 3... 2...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait! Whaddya mean nobody mirrored the site?

Re:A few duties.

[Pete]

It sounds like you think that people running one man businesses should be immune to prosecution by larger ones.

The only reason it "sounds like you think that" to you is because you've read what you thought I wrote, rather than what I actually wrote.

The point I was trying (and apparently in your case failing) to make is that UE's legal threats on this guy are both completely amoral and also qualify as standard schoolyard bullying ("I don't want you to do that and I'm bigger than you, so I'll make your life miserable until you stop it!"). They share the (apparently far too common) viewpoint that if they can find a legal loophole to get what they want, it's pretty much compulsory that they exploit it. The moral/ethical viability of using their legal system to back-door attack a guy who's doing the right thing under his country's legal system - apparently that's a bit too much for them to consider.

In conclusion, it's not that the "small guy" attacked by a big company must be in the right - but when he is in the right (as in this case), it further emphasises the despicable nature of the bully. To see this demonstrated, just watch UE fold like... er... a thing that folds really quickly and easily... :) when IMSLP is restarted by an organisation with the ability (and willingness) to defend itself.

Take responsibility...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe if you'd used proper grammar, they could have understood what you're trying to say. Instead, it looks like you're just repeating the section you quoted.

Save your outrage for a good post. How can you be mad that that one won't be shared with the world?

Irving Berlin was a charter member of ASCAP

[westlake]

I am a great fan of Irving Berlin. He would probably be upset if he knew that ASCAP would sue you for singing "Happy Birthday" in public! Yessir, that's what I'm talking about right here, see...

If you know Irving Berlin, you should also also know that he was a charter member of ASCAP in 1914.

Dues $10 a year for writers. $50 for publishers.

ASCAP took public performance rights to the U.S. Supreme Court and won in a decision by written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: "If music did not pay, it would be given up. Whether it pays or not, the purpose of employing {it for profit is enough.]

As Irving Berlin, Inc., Berlin owned [or purchased] the rights to every song he ever wrote. Always: A singer's journey through the life of Irving Berlin

Re:Why take the site down? Model wrong for size.

[owlnation]

Yes, I agree. I'd like to see this site back up and running asap. I used it often.

However, I'd have some concerns about moving away from a radically different model. It think it's only the maintenance and sole ownership that are the issue. It was one of the few wiki-sites that contained factual and accurate information, and was not run at least in part by over-zealous idiots pushing their own agenda.

I'd personally prefer an for-profit model than anything that was more typically wiki.

Re:Prior Art (Now that is a fantastic idea)

[jon287]

We need a site like 'The oracle of bacon' that simply takes a song and gives it a "theft index" based on prior public domain works. I bet this would be a real eye opener to content "owners".

Re:Mutopia Project - All legal sheet music in USA+

[vonFinkelstien]

Mutopia's music should be safe from this. They require that you verify that both the composer and the editor of the edition you are working from have been dead for over 70 years. Unless you have access to faded, yellow scores, you can't contribute to the project. On a side note, it is nice that everything there is in Lilypond format.

Fixed ....

[Archangel Michael]

"course the free stuff that she gets just for showing up at awards ceremonies in bras and panties."

There, fixed it for you ....

In whose business?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Well, your kids (and grandkids) are lucky bastards, because I know of no other line of work where your kids are getting paid for something you did when you were alive, while the kids are doing nothing themselves to earn it (besides being your kids)."

The children of Sam Walton for example.

uhm, hello? the solution is RIGHT THERE.

[znerk]

Transfer all the unprotected works to Gutenberg. Problem solved.

As a side benefit, Gutenberg gets a lot of free publicity (with people who care, anyway).

on the other hand...

[Anonymous Coward]

We could simply get organized, and burn down the buildings those fascists and their lawyers live in. I'm sick and tired of all of this "don't do this, don't do that, be a good sheep" rhetoric, aren't you?

How much does it take before we decide that our rights are being trampled?

As a music student...

[Alexpkeaton1010]

This is very sad. There is a significant amount of very good music that has been completely lost to time. I had a very old piano teacher with sheet music that literally only she may have had. Music that you could not buy if you wanted to. Sites like these are very important so that music is properly archived and available for future generations. Music is just as worthwhile to save as Art, but because you cannot enjoy sheet music by simply looking at it, there are not legions of museums dedicated to preserving it. I have listened to CDs and heard music that I simply could not find at all, neither free or for purchase.

Also, what motive is there for this website to be shut down? These music publishers probably make a good deal of money on BEGINNER type music books, but how many people actually advance to a level where they could play original scores? I am just guessing, but there are probably less then a few thousand people on this earth that can play Rachmaninoff #3. And the ones that master it probably have hand-written notes all over there copy that they made while learning it. For myself, after looking at a score online to asses the difficulty, I typically find a for-pay copy that has good recommended fingering and notes on how to play it, things that original scores don't often have.

For full orchestra scores, there are not that many people other than music students and professional musicians who would ever have a need to look at one. So why bother taking a website like this down?

you're right, it's not censorship. it's worse.

[znerk]

it's ridiculous money-grubbing. it's a bunch of anal-retentive jackasses who are so self-important that no one can make a move without them raising a stink. it's a bunch of jackals and vultures feeding off content that they didn't even produce. it makes me sick.

it's not censorship. it's theft. theft of our time and money, based on a proposition that we owe someone money for something they didn't produce in the first place. let the artists make the money, if they're still alive, and let the lawyers starve.

Re:A few duties.

[gknoy]

. They share the (apparently far too common) viewpoint that if they can find a legal loophole to get what they want, it's pretty much compulsory that they exploit it.

To be fair, I imagine that they are legally reponsible to their shareholders to do that, much as corporations are effectively sociopathic due to the drive to create profit.

I agree that it's Bad Form to leverage copyright as they are, but at the same time ... don't many copyright provisions state that you have to aggressively pursue infringement, or risk losing your copyright? Otherwise, next time they sue a real infringer, they risk his defense being, "well, you didn't care when X did it, so why do you care now that I did?".

The globalization of copyright is a scary thought, though. It's a sticky wicket no matter how you look at it.

a day late and a dollar short

[cwtrex]

I've been looking for a free site with no flash ads to kill my eyes where I can find clarinet sheet music for free. Not just pirate free btw. I mean a decent selection of legally free music where I can work my way back up to where I used to be back in high school.

It is unfortunate that I had not heard about this site until it made slashdot news. :(

Re:A few duties.

[Pete]

[...] don't many copyright provisions state that you have to aggressively pursue infringement, or risk losing your copyright?

That's a trademark rule, not copyright. Trademarks, copyrights and patents are the unholy trinity of intellectual property, and they're so very different that it doesn't make much sense to categorise them under the same banner. They each have their own arcane weirdnesses that don't apply to the other two.

Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

because that's money. An "artist" can save their money OR INVEST IN STOCKS and give those stocks as inheritance.

When you inherit your parents' basement (this is ./ after all), you pay tax on it, but it's a continuing real thing purchased with money for work done. With "IP" your children inherit, there's no death tax and it is the work itself, continuing to pay out.

Decomposing Composers

[HTH NE1]

Beethoven's gone but his music lives on,
And Mozart don't go shoppin' no more,
You'll never meet Liszt or Brahms again,
And Elgar doesn't answer the door.

Schübert and Chopin used to chuckle and laugh,
Whilst composing a long symphony,
But one hundred and fifty years later,
There's very little of them left to see.

  They're decomposing composers,
  There's nothing much anyone can do,
  You can still hear Beethoven,
  But Beethoven cannot hear you.

Händel and Haydn and Rachmaninov,
Enjoyed a nice drink with their meal,
But nowadays no-one will serve them,
And their gravy is left to congeal.

Verdi and Wagner delighted the crowds,
With their highly original sound,
The pianos they played, they're still working,
But they're both six feet underground.

  They're decomposing composers,
  There's less of them every year,
  You can say what you like to Debussy,
  But there's not much of him left to hear.

Claude Achille Debussy, died 1918.
Christoph Willibald Gluck, died 1787.
Carl Maria von Weber, not at all well 1825, died 1826.
Giacomo Meyerbeer: still alive 1863, not still alive 1864.
Modeste Mussorgsky. 1880, going to parties; no fun anymore, 1881.
Johan Nepomuk Hummel. Chattin' away nineteen to the dozen with his mates down the pub every evening, 1836. 1837 nothing.

So the first rule of watching a football game...

[adminstring]

...is that you do not talk about the football game.

"I'm sorry honey, but I can't tell you how the game went. That would be illegal."

Apparently the powers-that-be want to turn the NFL into an NSL!

Oh, come on.

[Grendel Drago]

It used heavily-customized Mediawiki software to act as a catalog. What kind of catalog would be subject to legendarily lame edit wars? You don't see that kind of thing at Wikisource, for instance; it's just not in scope. None of this takes away from the accomplishment that was the IMSLP, but comparing its culture to that of Wikipedia doesn't make sense.

That doesn't make sense.

[Grendel Drago]

Works that are derivative of public domain works are copyrightable--you just don't need permission from anyone to make them. Consider West Side Story, or pretty much anything Disney's ever made.

Oh really?

[Grendel Drago]

The letter is from the publisher's Canadian representative and objects to the distribution of scores that are still under copyright in Canada.

Really? Where? They certainly weren't listed in the posted C&D letter. Which composers was the IMSLP distributing works by which were copyrighted in Canada? (I'm aware that they had a US server for works in the public domain only in the US; I uploaded to it. But again, none of that was mentioned in the C&D letter. You appear to be making this all up.)

Furthermore, insofar as the site is available to people in the EU, the publisher can claim that it is engaged in copyright violation in the EU and take legal action in the EU resulting in a judgment that would be enforceable in Canada.

They could argue that, yes, but they'd be wrong. Project Gutenberg has gotten takedown requests very similar to this, and has responded with a (polite) "piss off, mate". The difference is that PG has legal representation and can stand up to the threat of barratry. On the other hand, the IMSLP was just one guy who maintained a fantastic resource. Without legal backing, he could have his life ruined by this. I'm sad that it's gone, but the blame goes squarely on the company doing the suing, with a smidge left over for the whole system that screws over people without legal retainers. The claim never needed to be enforceable in court, it only needed to take the guy to court.

No, that doesn't work.

[Grendel Drago]

Project Gutenberg is US-based. Project Gutenberg Canada might be willing to help, but I don't think they have anything like the resources that the main branch does.

Merry Christmas.

[Grendel Drago]

Well, there's always the Internet Archive. Until, I suppose, they take that down. (Apart from the searching not working, you should be able to get to pretty much everything by browsing.) There are nearly nine thousand scores up on the last available snapshot. It's pretty slow, but it's there.

Whoops.

[znerk]

I seem to remember something a couple days ago about Gutenberg picking up the unprotected works. I could be misremembering, or dreaming, or something, but I do seem to recall reading that.

As an aside, I hadn't even thought about the country that the files reside in having anything to do with it... despite the copyright lengths being different in the US than in Canada, which is half the issue at stake here. Color me embarassed, and allow me to freely state here, for the record... "Whoops"

--
There are 2 kinds of people in this world. There's the one kind, and then there's the other.

Happy New Year

[cwtrex]

Awesome!!! Thank you very much! Visited and now a permanent bookmark. :-D

And I'm an idiot.

[Grendel Drago]

The robots.txt exclusion excluded all of the files in the images/ directory; what this means is that the Internet Archive doesn't actually have those files archived. Drat, and double drat. The catalog is there, which may mean that you can find out who uploaded what and possibly contact them, or discover the source that a file came from, but it's nowhere near as useful as the resource itself. The US-only files on imslpforums.org/files are down at the moment, and the Wayback Machine appears to have archived few if any of them. You might be able to find something at the old list of other music score websites, but that's about all.

Re:And I'm an idiot.

[cwtrex]

Nah, it's okay. At least you tried to help me and I appreciated it greatly.

Not really sure why these sites are being taken down all the way. A lot of that music should be in public domain and only some of it might be territorial in their conflict of laws. You'd think that at least half of those scores wouldn't have that robots.txt limitation let alone that redirect to the recent letter he wrote on his site.

Oh well, if you happen to find another site though, I'd appreciate it. Maybe we can catch it before the next one gets a take down notice.