Re: OT: How to become a mutopia-writer

[Chris Sawer]

Hi,

Sorry for not responding earlier to this thread; I am extremely busy at the
moment, but have read the messages with interest.

I agree with all that's been written - copyright is a complete minefield,
with rules varying all over the world. To try and cover all possibilities, we
ask that music contributed to Mutopia fulfils two criteria:

1) The music was published before 1923 (ensures it's out of copyright in USA)

2) All copyright holders must have died more than seventy years ago, ie. the
   composer, arranger (if applicable) and editor (if applicable).

The problem with old editions, particularly late 19th Century editions, is
that you're lucky if they list the editor at all, and even when they do it's
often nearly impossible to work out when he died, unless it's someone famous
like Brahms or Debussy. Every so often Google throws up some pleasant
surprises, but generally it's hard to find out editors' dates.

As Mats has explained, Urtext editions can be problematic as the editor may
have had to do lots of work to unearth the composer's "original intentions".
If you have typeset from an Urtext edition, I strongly recommend checking
against several other editions as well. This is what I've done with Fur Elise
- the first piece I typeset for Mutopia, nearly five years ago (!) - although
I have yet to add the information to the website. We no longer recommend
typesetting from Urtext editions - as I said above, editions entirely out of
copyright are by far the best to use.

It should be noted that we (ie. I) don't have time to check the copyright of
any of the music submitted. We rely on the honesty of contributors, although
if the composer is obviously too recent I will reject the piece.

Regarding the Mutopia discussion mailing list, it has been coming "real soon
now" for far too long, and for this I apologise. Ongoing problems with the MX
record of our domain name (entirely out of my control) have delayed this,
which is annoying for all concerned, particularly as I've been paying for the
hosting of the list since November. If the problems are not resolved in the
next few weeks, I will set up the list on the hosting company's domain as it
is, without worrying about having an @mutopiaproject.org address.

One of the things that had worried me was whether I'd have enough time to
answer questions posed on the list, but the response to this thread has
persuaded me that there are plenty of people more knowledgable than I ready
to jump in and answer questions, which is great!  :-)

Can I apologise to anyone who is waiting for their contribution to be added
to Mutopia or for a reply to a private e-mail. I am incredibly busy at the
moment, and have had to change my Linux distribution to get some software
running for work. I haven't succeeded in getting LilyPond up and running on
the new setup yet, although this should just be a question of sitting down
and recompiling / reinstalling everything again. I hope to catch up on this
(as well as sleeping, eating, etc.) next week!

Chris

-- 
Chris Sawer   -   address@hidden   -   Mutopia team leader
Free sheet music for all at Mutopia:  http://www.MutopiaProject.org