IMSLP on DVD
Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 1:38 am
During the period starting October 17, 2007, when IMSLP went dark,
I fully expected a mirror site to appear. Surely, I thought, someone
unaffected by the takedown notice would have a complete backup in their
posession, and after a brief delay while hosting arrangements were made
and legal advice sought, the site (or at least a read-only mirror of
it) would reappear, perhaps hosted in the United States where the legal
climate would have been more favorable in the face of takedown notices
from foreign copyright holders (Notably, the Wikimedia Foundation,
which operates the Wikipedia servers, routinely posts material covered
by copyright claims valid only outside the U.S. and has not been the
target of any lawsuit as a result).
No mirror appeared, and it was not until June 30, 2008 -- nearly nine
months later -- that IMSLP reopened, a significant loss to the music
making and musicological community that had grown to depend upon IMSLP,
as well as a source of frustration to those who had contributed to
the project.
I believe that there were two main reasons that no mirror site appeared.
First of all, there were few if any complete copies of the web site
in independent hands. Second, rehosting IMSLP in its entirety is a
technically daunting task even for a competent IT specialist in posession
of all the pieces, because of the extent of customization required.
I made a promise to myself to solve both these problems as soon as
IMSLP or its successor was back on line. There were delays, however.
On the date IMSLP reopened, there was such a backlog of items in copyright
review that only a fraction of the archive was available. The sheer
size of IMSLP posed problems and its structure is such that a certain
amount of new software had to be written to accomplish a download of the
entire site. Finally, the site download had to be performed, slowly,
with care, over a period of several weeks, to be sure that IMSLP's
servers were not overloaded or otherwise adversely affected.
The last of the copyright review by IMSLP reviewers was completed on
March 22. The downloading and DVD production effort is now nearly
complete, and I present to the community a collection of eighteen DVDs.
The DVDs include the complete contents of the image library available
to users in the U.S., together with rudimentary, static index files, in
HTML, organized by composer. It has been updated with changes through
March 28, 2009.
My goal is to place copies copies of the DVD collection in a sufficient
number of hands that IMSLP will never again completely disappear.
It is my hope that everyone who is a part of the IMSLP community
will order a copy.
Using the DVDs, it is a simple matter to create a static IMSLP mirror
site using any common web server platform, including Apache and IIS.
The DVD collection can also serve as a starting point for the many users
who have expressed interest in making IMSLP available via bittorrent.
It will also be of use to those users who do not have broadband internet
connections available, for whom browsing the score library online is not
practical. It can also be used by those IMSLP project participants who
wish to perform automated analysis or maintenance on the score collection
as a whole.
Sample content, index files only with no PDFs, is available at
http://www.nerstrand.net/mirror.
At present, I am offering the DVDs at cost to IMSLP contributors, other
open source contributors, libraries and museums, college and university
faculty, and those who wish to establish mirror sites outside the U.S.,
Canada, and the E.U.
Pricing and ordering information, and requirements for qualifying
to purchase, will be emailed to you if you send a blank email to the
auto-responder at dvdset@nerstrand.net.
It is my intention to offer update DVDs every few months that contain
new material added to IMSLP so that the DVD collction will remain current.
I fully expected a mirror site to appear. Surely, I thought, someone
unaffected by the takedown notice would have a complete backup in their
posession, and after a brief delay while hosting arrangements were made
and legal advice sought, the site (or at least a read-only mirror of
it) would reappear, perhaps hosted in the United States where the legal
climate would have been more favorable in the face of takedown notices
from foreign copyright holders (Notably, the Wikimedia Foundation,
which operates the Wikipedia servers, routinely posts material covered
by copyright claims valid only outside the U.S. and has not been the
target of any lawsuit as a result).
No mirror appeared, and it was not until June 30, 2008 -- nearly nine
months later -- that IMSLP reopened, a significant loss to the music
making and musicological community that had grown to depend upon IMSLP,
as well as a source of frustration to those who had contributed to
the project.
I believe that there were two main reasons that no mirror site appeared.
First of all, there were few if any complete copies of the web site
in independent hands. Second, rehosting IMSLP in its entirety is a
technically daunting task even for a competent IT specialist in posession
of all the pieces, because of the extent of customization required.
I made a promise to myself to solve both these problems as soon as
IMSLP or its successor was back on line. There were delays, however.
On the date IMSLP reopened, there was such a backlog of items in copyright
review that only a fraction of the archive was available. The sheer
size of IMSLP posed problems and its structure is such that a certain
amount of new software had to be written to accomplish a download of the
entire site. Finally, the site download had to be performed, slowly,
with care, over a period of several weeks, to be sure that IMSLP's
servers were not overloaded or otherwise adversely affected.
The last of the copyright review by IMSLP reviewers was completed on
March 22. The downloading and DVD production effort is now nearly
complete, and I present to the community a collection of eighteen DVDs.
The DVDs include the complete contents of the image library available
to users in the U.S., together with rudimentary, static index files, in
HTML, organized by composer. It has been updated with changes through
March 28, 2009.
My goal is to place copies copies of the DVD collection in a sufficient
number of hands that IMSLP will never again completely disappear.
It is my hope that everyone who is a part of the IMSLP community
will order a copy.
Using the DVDs, it is a simple matter to create a static IMSLP mirror
site using any common web server platform, including Apache and IIS.
The DVD collection can also serve as a starting point for the many users
who have expressed interest in making IMSLP available via bittorrent.
It will also be of use to those users who do not have broadband internet
connections available, for whom browsing the score library online is not
practical. It can also be used by those IMSLP project participants who
wish to perform automated analysis or maintenance on the score collection
as a whole.
Sample content, index files only with no PDFs, is available at
http://www.nerstrand.net/mirror.
At present, I am offering the DVDs at cost to IMSLP contributors, other
open source contributors, libraries and museums, college and university
faculty, and those who wish to establish mirror sites outside the U.S.,
Canada, and the E.U.
Pricing and ordering information, and requirements for qualifying
to purchase, will be emailed to you if you send a blank email to the
auto-responder at dvdset@nerstrand.net.
It is my intention to offer update DVDs every few months that contain
new material added to IMSLP so that the DVD collction will remain current.