Re: website: why do you use lilypond?

[Graham Percival]

On Mon, Aug 03, 2009 at 11:02:31PM +0200, Federico Bruni wrote:
> Tim Rowe wrote:
>> 2009/8/1 Federico Bruni <address@hidden>:
>>
>>> What about a Scott Joplin ragtime arranged for guitar? (it is in the public
>>> domain)
>>
>> Scott Joplin rags may be public domain, but are any guitar
>> arrangements of them? Or were you offering to do one?
>
> I'm not sure at all, but...
> .. I think that an arrangement of a public domain piece of music can be 
> copyrighted just if it's a kind of 'original' elaboration by the  
> musician; I mean something different, somehow.
>
> As far as I use an arrangement which is very close to the original  
> music, it should be fine, shouldn't?

No.  An "arrangement", by the very nature of the word, indicates
that it is "something different, somehow" from the original.  So
yes, it would be covered by copyright.

Look, just make up your own arrangement.  We're talking about
three bars!

a8 b g e ~ e fis d4 |
a8 b g e ~ e fis d4 |
a'4 r a4 d8 dis |
e b' ~ b e, b' ~ b e, b' |


(from memory)  Now just add some slides or hits or fargles or
whatever guitars do, and you're done!  Oh, also add the tabstaff.
And maybe remove one bar of the intro, if the horizontal space is
too large.

Cheers,
- Graham