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

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.

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.