Re: nice stockhausen excerpt

[Hans Aberg]

On 22 Feb 2010, at 04:26, Graham Percival wrote:

> > > see the german wikipedia
> > >
> > >     http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/LilyPond
> > >
> > > too bad it's under dispute.
> >
> > Is it?  I don't see such a remark.  It is only stated that the  
> > picture
> > shows copyrighted material which can only be cited legally as a very
> > small snippet.
>
> I can't read German, or speak about German copyright law.  And for
> that matter, I'm not a trained lawyer in Canadian law (or anywhere
> else).  This email does not constitute legal advice.
>
> That said, I can't see how using that exerpt could possibly
> qualify under Canada's "fair dealing" provisions in the copyright
> act.  Distributing that de.wikipedia.org page in Canada would thus
> constitute an infringement of copyright.

Since it is a small snippet, not affecting the commercial value of the  
original work, it should be acceptable also under Canada's "fair  
dealing" interpretation by its Suporeme Court:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_dealing#Canada

> In answer to any question about using such examples in the
> LilyPond documentation (Jan and Werner haven't raised the issue,
> but I'm certain that many readers will be wondering about this),
> my position has not changed: The official LilyPond documentation
> should not include any material which infringes on copyright in
> any country.

Formally, you only have to comply with the local copyright law.

> In addition to distributing the webpages ourselves,
> a number of people redistribute the lilypond docs; I don't think
> we should try getting Debian in trouble by including any
> copyright-infringing material.

It is really up to them to learn about their local copyright law and  
make sure they comply. If they distribute it from the US:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

You may not want to use such examples, though for other reasons.

  Hans