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Re: OT: How to become a mutopia-writer
From: |
Erik Sandberg |
Subject: |
Re: OT: How to become a mutopia-writer |
Date: |
Mon, 22 Mar 2004 14:29:45 +0100 |
User-agent: |
KMail/1.5.4 |
> There are two main concepts - 'copyright' and 'public domain'. The
> copyright (das Recht Kopien, Aenderungen und Ausgaben herzustellen) belongs
> to a person or to an organization unless that person has assigned it, for
> example to a publishing copmpany. OR it is passed into the Public Domain
> and then it belongs to everyone.
>
> All published work, including music, has several 'copyrights' that need to
> be respected. Some of the copyrights belong to:
>
> - the music composer;
> - the poet or libretist;
> - the typeset 'editor';
I'm quite interested in this: Exactly what does the editor own? If it is an
Urtext edition, then basically the editor has done 3 things: He has done
research to examine which notes the work contains. This work should really be
more scientific than artistical. Then he may have added fairly ad-hoc
modernisations such as dynamics (usually written within brackets). This is,
at least partially, artistical work. Then, finally, he has typeset the music.
This is also artistical (as opposed to scientific) work, unless a completely
automated engraver such as Lilypond has been used.
Now, unless the laws are very strange (which they well might be), scientific
research is not copyrightable. E.g., if you do some research and find out
that Bach was born in 1685 (btw yesterday was his 319th birthday!), then you
can, AFAIK, not copyright this fact. Strange things would happen if you
could. E.g., someone else might, without knowing about your work, do the same
research and find out about Bach's birth year. Doing research is legal, but
without being able to know, this person would now violate your copyright.
Now, the question is whether anyone else than Bach himself can have a
copyright on the fact that the first note of Bach's 1st cello suite (1CS) is
g,16.
Suppose that an editor A finds the manuscript of Bach's 1st cello suite and
determines that the first note is a g,16, the second a d16, etc. Suppose he
publishes this information in a pure form, adding no extra information (say
he writes it as a lilypond \notes block). Now suppose that he copyrights this
\notes block in a very restrictive way. And suppose that some other editor B
independently finds the same manuscript and does the very same transcription
to a \notes block, and releases his work to Public Domain. The file is
identical to the copyrighted one. If now somebody would have a copy of
A:s .ly file, this would be illegal, while if he would have a copy of B:s
identical .ly file, this would be perfectly legal. To me this really feels
weird; that the same piece of information can belong to different persons
depending on who gave it to you.
So my question now is: was it be possible for A to take this copyright?
Which really boils down to: Is it the information itself that is copyrighted,
or is it a particular instance of the information?
> Each country has their own copyright laws. You must become familiar with
> the copyright law in your country before you start publishing using
> Lilypond. (Copyright lawyers have a nasty habit of sneaking up behind a
> person.)
Suppose that you have an Urtext edition X, which is copyrighted in one country
A, and has expired to PD in another country B, and that you live in country
A. Will it be possible for you to bring a copy of X to your friend in country
B, and let him transcribe it to Lilypond, and upload to, say, Mutopia, as PD?
What will happen legally when you go home to country A and download it?
Erik
- Re: OT: How to become a mutopia-writer, (continued)
- Re: OT: How to become a mutopia-writer, Roland Goretzki, 2004/03/21
- key signatures, James Fay, 2004/03/21
- Re: key signatures, Edward Sanford Sutton, III, 2004/03/21
- Re: key signatures, Mats Bengtsson, 2004/03/22
- Re: key signatures, Han-Wen Nienhuys, 2004/03/22
- Re: key signatures, Paul Scott, 2004/03/22
- Re: OT: How to become a mutopia-writer, Mats Bengtsson, 2004/03/22
- Re: OT: How to become a mutopia-writer, Thorkil Wolvendans, 2004/03/22
- Re: OT: How to become a mutopia-writer, Hans Forbrich, 2004/03/22
Re: OT: How to become a mutopia-writer, Hans Forbrich, 2004/03/21
- Re: OT: How to become a mutopia-writer,
Erik Sandberg <=
Re: OT: How to become a mutopia-writer, David Raleigh Arnold, 2004/03/22