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

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....

[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....

[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....

[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....

[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....

[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.

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]

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?

[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.

Which has been dead longer?

[darkhitman]

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

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

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?

[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?

[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

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?

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: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?

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: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.

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: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.

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: 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 ....