Re: GDP: welcome, helpers!

[Graham Percival]

Trevor Bača wrote:
> Please understand that there is a difference between piracy and
> citation. No one is proposing the addition of a playable or readable
> copy of anything to Mutopia or any other resource.
>
> Turns out ...
>
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
>
> ... that fair use is American law. Perhaps that explains the confusion
> on the list.

Trevor,

Unfortunately you are incorrect.  Instead of pointing to wikipedia, at 
the very least I would recommend reading

http://www.templetons.com/brad//copymyths.html

This page is not authoritative by any means, but it is much more 
trustworthy than wikipedia.

"Fair use" is an American construct, but countries in the British 
Commonwealth have "Fair dealing".  Similar legislation exists for 
non-commonwealth countries, although I wouldn't presume to be able to 
spell whatever the Dutch or Finnish law is.

"Fair use" is not a blanket allowance for copying small sections of a 
copywritten work.  In my non-expert, no-legal-training opinion, it is 
designed for copying a small portion for the purpose of reviewing the 
work, such as a scholarly article or newspaper review.  Unfortunately, 
the lilypond manual is not such a document.


I would also like to reinforce my distinction between morality and 
legality.  I have infringed on copyrights -- I have photocopied an 
entire cello concerto from a friend so that I could see her fingerings 
and bowings.  I owned my own copy of the concerto, but I wanted to see 
her personal annotations.  This was illegal -- I should have copied her 
markings by hand, or borrowed her music for a few weeks.  But I was 
certain that my action was morally justified (I owned an identical copy 
of the music, and I only wanted to see her annotations so I could 
combine them with my own, I wasn't seeking or offering financial 
compensation, etc), so I infringed the copyright without any guilt.

However, my personal beliefs about the morality of copyright should not 
influence whether we include material in the lilypond manual.  Do I 
think that there are any _moral_ problems with including that short 
fragment of Ravel?  No, not at all.  The notion that this might be 
ethically wrong is laughable.  Am I certain that there are no _legal_ 
problems?  Unfortunately, no.

With the deepest of regret, I have removed this example until 1 January 
1, 2008.  At least this date is not too far away; the example will 
certainly be in the 2.14 release.

- Graham