IMSLP Forums

Carolus wrote:There have been a large number of users asking why certain files are being blocked from download despite the fact that they are a) public domain in Canada; and b) IMSLP is hosted in Canada and follows Canada's copyright laws. In each case, the files in question have a [TB] tag attached, which stands for "Temporarily Blocked." The reason for this unfortunate situation is due to the following circumstances:

1. Despite our server's location in Canada, the corporate entity which owns the IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library site - Project Petrucci, LLC - is chartered in Delaware, USA and is headquartered in Illinois, USA. As we have a definite US footprint, we are also obligated to be careful about observing USA copyright law, since violations might subject us to liability in the US.

To simplify the problem, would it be feasible / worthwhile to move the cooperate entity completely from USA to Canada, so that anything PD in Canada can be published outright?

After that, some beaurecat / admins residing in USA (exclude Feldmahler) can set up a sister cooperate entity (but totally unrelated to IMSLP) to deal with any items that are PD in USA but not PD in Canada? All fileservers for this sister site is of course located within USA.

We can follow the same model as IMSLP-EU, and call this sister cooperative-entity IMSLP-USA, which is totally unaffiliated with IMSLP proper, and we copyright-review and refer scores to each other in the same way as the IMSLP-EU mechanism.

However, since IMSLP proper is in USA at the moment, we will need to relocate the cooperate-entity of IMSLP to Canada.

For IMSLP-USA, there are two ways:

- Pertucci LLC assumes the IMSLP-USA role and we make a new entity in Canada assuming IMSLP Proper's role. However this can make the Pertucci's situation complicated, as it has dealt with USA-non-PD score before, so alternatively, we can:

- move the cooperate entity of IMSLP to Canada so it has nothing to do with USA. File service, web hosting and cooperate entity all in Canada, only subject to Canadian law, and headed by a Canadian citizen residing in Canada. Then we set up the new IMSLP-USA fresh, which all services and admin entities are solely located in USA and headed by a USA citizen residing in USA, and therefore only affected by the USA laws.

Would the second option clear up our legal situation?

kcleung

P.S. After we clean up the administrative structures in this way, it will also be easier for us to ask for other people (such as universities) to mirror our service, as they are now only answerable to the law of their country (Canada, USA or EU) and in the case of USA or EU mirrors, their workload will substantively decrease.

Moving the corporate entity to Canada is not that simple at this stage. However, a separate IMSLP-US entity would be free to host items like Daphnis' Stravinsky catalog, plus a number of other works by composers not free in Canada (of course any composer not free in Canada will not be free in the EU either).

Carolus wrote:Moving the corporate entity to Canada is not that simple at this stage. However, a separate IMSLP-US entity would be free to host items like Daphnis' Stravinsky catalog, plus a number of other works by composers not free in Canada (of course any composer not free in Canada will not be free in the EU either).

Okay, but just setting up IMSLP-US alone (while IMSLP proper still has its base in USA) still does *not* allow publication of USA-non-PD material that are PD in Canada and this comprises thousands of works on the notorous TB blockage.

I think you realize that there are much more work that are PD in Canada but non-PD in USA than vice versa.

If moving the corporate entity of IMSLP proper to Canada is not feasible, how about if we set up a new entity called (IMSLP-Canada) that solely operates in Canada and only answerable to Canadian laws? Then all USA-non-PD material that are PD in Canada can be hosted there. Problem solved.

A work should not be barred from everyone in the world just because it is not PD in a country