Upcoming changes

[Odin]

I have contributed files in the past when I had more access to a scanner, and I dabble in editing/ creating composer pages/ importing files from Sibley when I can, but I feel that my contributions are a humble effort compared to some of the more experienced and knowledgeable members, and it feels all wrong and icky trying to figure out if they "qualify" me to email you and ask for a contributor membership. Kind of like asking a charity store for a discount because I have donated stuff to them in the past. (No, this is not a sneaky or passive-aggressive attempt to ask for a contributor membership. I am still deciding whether to go down that path or whether just to pay for a subscription.)

Hello Aldona

My situation is quite the same. I made quite a number of contributions, but most of them are from my own musical production as a composer and a performer of my own improvisations. IMSLP was my simple way to come into contact with possible users of my humble music production. Now I wonder if I would be counted as a possible candidate for a contributor's membership. I - exactly as other users - had never previously to consider any questions like that. I had already decided to contribute to IMSLP economically as soon as I will get an employment as a church musician, but still so far I am not there. Now I would like to know if my contributions so far are sufficient for a contributor's membership. Right now I have no new works to contribute, I will have to produce some new compositions during the next time.

Frank Zintl
"Odin"

[coulonnus]

2012: CPDL is granted federal tax exempt status: http://www2.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Cho ... mpt_status

[Choralia]

Maybe, more important than the non-profit recognition and tax-exempt status, was that in 2008 the management of CPDL was transfered from the founder (alone) to a "transition group" with seven members (including the founder himself) that then drove the organization to the incorporation as a non-profit.

Max

[aarvinlessy]

I posted yesterday speculating on the likely outcome of recent changes in the access policy to IMSLP. While that post was online for a few hours, it has since disappeared from this forum. Unless this was due to a technical error, I can only conclude that my post was censored, which would be disappointing, coming from a group that aspires to serve public domain discourse.

Aarvin

[Notenschreiber]

I saw your post in the morning and i can´t imagine, that somebody has deleted it. That does not mean, that i trust in your prophetic gifts, but there is no reason at all to eliminate your post here. Perhaps you can repeat your original post.

[aarvinlessy]

it is good to know that my earlier post was not deliberately removed, though it is odd that it disappeared.

In any case, here are the main points:

1) IMSLP is a great service, that is built on the concept of free, annotated, Internet distribution of public-domain scores.

2) The IMSLP concept has evolved in the space of social media, putting it in the same category with services like Facebook, Google apps, and YouTube, among others. That means it is succeptable to the “Myspace” effect of being replaced by a more successful implementation, should its users be motivated to look elsewhere for the provision of public-domain scores.

3) I predict that the move to a subscription service will lead to the demise of the IMSLP project, but not to its underlying concept. Instead a replacement service will arise, most likely along the model of either ad-supported Facebook, or donation-supported Wikipedia. I predict that to happen within 5-10 years.

Many contributors to IMSLP, which has been active since 2006, did so with the expectation that their contributions would be freely available in perpetuity. When this policy was suddenly changed without consulting them or the community, they were understandably unhappy. This means that many former contributors will no longer contribute to the project, but rather seek alternatives. Only a small percentage of current free users will sign up for the subscription model. The majority will be displeased by the 15-second delay and will also seek alternatives. Many potential new users will be turned off by that model and will never adopt IMSLP as a primary source for public domain scores.

IMSLP has already done a great service by demonstrating proof-of-concept. With its recent access policy change, it has now created the opportunity for another social-media, big-data saavy group to reimplement the idea for everyone’s benefit.

Aarvin

[Choralia]

I posted yesterday speculating on the likely outcome of recent changes in the access policy to IMSLP. While that post was online for a few hours, it has since disappeared from this forum.

I checked on the moderation logs, and identified the moderator who deleted it. Probably it was just a human error, anyway I'm checking with him.

The original post was still available in the daily backup, so I paste it verbatim hereinbelow.

Max

I have followed this thread with great interest, as a grateful user of IMSLP. I see no reason to cast aspersions on the reasons behind the recent change in access policy, but rather take Edward's statement at face value. That said, I believe that something quite interesting has happened here. Based on the general tenor of responses here, the IMSLP project has been fatally wounded. Many long-term contributors will no longer contribute to the project. And the 15-second annoyance factor will severely throttle the on-ramping of new users. As a result, I predict that within 5-10 years, the IMSLP project will no longer exist, except perhaps as a stub, very much like Myspace.

But the idea behind IMSLP - a comprehensive, annotated online repository of public-domain musical scores - will not die. Instead, I predict that a "Facebook" version of IMSLP will appear in the not-too-distant future. Whether built along the commercial model of Facebook, donation model of Wikipedia, or something else, remains to be seen. IMSLP is fundamentally a social media phenomenon, and the concept will continue to evolve in that space.

I am doubly grateful to the creators of IMSLP, first for creating a wonderful shared resource, and second for creating a most interesting "nodal point" in Internet information exchange. I look forward to what happens next.

Aarvin

[jdiet]

Let me give some remarks from a music library perspective. I am involved in the International Association of Music Libraries (IAML, see www.iaml.info) and currently the president of the German IAML-branch. IMSLP is a great resource, and most music libraries are glad when their digitized scores are also available via IMSLP. I organized a round table at the IAML-congress in New York in June 2015 with the title "IMSLP round table - Success stories and pitfalls for cooperations between IMSLP and music libraries" for which we invited Edward Guo. The panelists who came from several large music libraries and from a music publishing house also had the chance to discuss IMSLP issues with Edward in a closed meeting. Two of the issues that we raised were IMSLP's sustainability and financing. Therefore, Edward's attempt to get durable financial resources is a step in the right direction in my opinion. But there should also be a second step that deals with the current organizational structure of IMSLP. Most of the panelist in New York have been concerned that such a valuable resource as IMSLP is heavily dependant on one or two persons and that the company Project Petrucci LLC is not very transparent. Why not try to establish a foundation instead of a commercial company and include more people in the decision making process of important questions, e.g. in form of an advisory board? The IAML community is certainly willing to be engaged in such a process.

Best wishes,
Jürgen Diet

[nic-jenner]

I strongly agree with most of the previous comments, and I can add the following important remark:
If the changes are maintained, the trust that was in IMSLP project will be really broken, and nobody will continue to contribute.
I have not yet contributed, and I intended to do so with arrangements made for private use in a group of musicians, in order to be of assistance to other musicians in the world. I will certainly not, because I understand that the people that want to get money from the copyright systems have won over the musicians community for IMSLP project. Today's price is low, but what will it be in the future?
After all, IMSLP was a miracle in a world driven by interest, not culture. The contributions already on IMSLP will become commercially "stolen" from their contributors or keepers, including many manuscripts from national or regional archives. They will surely withdraw their contributions.
Of course the authors, editors and distributors must get their reward, but not with this system where the "copyright people" profit with their creation and their work without deserving it (see the story of Maurice Ravel's copyright owner, it will convince you - no comment on the French librarians attacking IMSLP). And the price for a clean and well edited scoresheet or for a PD copy should be sufficiently low to discourage the use of bad illegal copies. Today, with a few exceptions, it is too high. There is a real concern, and I understand that Music Libraries work on this problem (it was solved for videos copyright or public domain medecine).
On the other side, I propose that IMSLP project be funded:
- by the copyright associations, in exchange for their outstanding privilege and power over the amateur musicians (1% of copyright could be given to IMSLP?)
- by the sites that have links to IMSLP advertised as "free" scores, like many music scores sites or also Wikipedia.
- by all the schools of music, colleges, universities, professionals... that have a budget and/or fiscal aid for the scores.
Did you ask all of them to donate on a voluntary basis? Did you prospect the levy of a fee on these commercial or educational users, in consideration of the public service of maintaining a good access to the public domain and public archives?
Of course it requires IMSLP as a foundation and not as a commercial company. But it would solve the concerns of transparency and sustainability.
The result of today's changes is a punishment to the amateur musician, who is not a "significant contributor", with absolutely no assurance of a continuing and better service...and a severe drawback for the good edition and publication of our common heritage !
And thanks again to IMSLP.

[dtoub]

I echo a lot of the sentiments here. All of my compositions have been made available by me on IMSLP and they have been there for years. I'd like to continue that. But I've been frustrated by many of the unnecessary limitations of this site (eg, the inability to actually display score titles as intended; for example, a piece of mine entitled 'bs piece' was automatically changed by your system to "B's piece" which was totally incorrect and required me to contact one of the editors to try to fix it to something better; it's still not right).

So, if one has contributed many scores, is it assumed the subscription is waived?

Regardless, this seems like a really bad decision. Why is archive.org free, for example?

[Choralia]

Probably it was just a human error, anyway I'm checking with him.

Just to confirm that it was a human error. The phpBB software used on these forums is a little bit tricky because a post may be deleted by mistake by clicking on the wrong button, and there is no command to revert the deletion then.

Max

[aarvinlessy]

Probably it was just a human error, anyway I'm checking with him.

Just to confirm that it was a human error. The phpBB software used on these forums is a little bit tricky because a post may be deleted by mistake by clicking on the wrong button, and there is no command to revert the deletion then.

Max

I also received the following private message to my inbox from a Copyright Reviewer in the Wiki Admins group:

Dear aarvinlessy,

I do not think it is a wise decision to leave the first point of your post online. That idea could be worth a lot of money one day and you are posting it in public for others to take!

In the US, at least theoretically, it's not possible to copyright an idea, only the expression of that idea. This is important because the underlying idea of IMSLP, namely an annotated public repository of public-domain music scores, could be replicated by any other group for profit, or not.

Currently, IMSLP has the advantage of 10 years worth of uploads over any new startup repository. But that advantage could evaporate quickly. While the focus in this discussion has been on sustainable financial support for the project, community buy-in is equally important. And in this case, there seems to be an inverse relationship between the new financial support model and long-term community buy-in.

Aarvin

[mixmegapol]

Hi all

I've read the first three pages of this thread.
I was a unregular user of imslp.org and told a friend of mine from this site.
Yes, I was badly surprised that there was this issue with the 15 seconds. Otherwise I thought; ok, everything will be paid (server costs etc) so I'll get a membership. Then I came to this thread and now I'm glad _not_ to be a member.

Someone has proposed to create a new site and copy the content of imslp.org to the new one. Yes, why not?
If there would be a non-commercial gremium with at least 10 members who will take care of not getting commercial how about that?

Then I know at least three sites where to get free scores:
- imslp.org (the very very best one)
- free-scores.com
- flutetones.com
- https://musescore.com/sheetmusic (can be viewed with freely available musescore program upon free registration)

How about creating a new site, get in contact with the owners of other site and do a big score-site centralized? Everyone want's many scores in his page, but together it would be better.

If I would pay the membership than I would also ask for a new filtering/search system. In the moment when I search scores, I do that via google "piano flute andante site:imslp.org" , not via imslp.org directly. The type of filtering of free-scores works better for me (which instruments, which style, easy/intermediate). But I wont request that as long scores are freely available.

Yes, I'm concerned too. New webpage, new leadership non-profit, costs only(!) for infrastructure costs.

Kind regards
Daniel

[reccmo]

Quite a few participants in this discussion are suspecting that the new membership 'nagging' give IMSLP guests the impression of a commercial, paid for service. Through a private correspondence with a - as it turns out - involuntary contributor I can confirm this suspicion as you'll see in this reply

I prefer avoid publishing it on IMSLP, whose practice of publishing my files without any kind of agreement is not politically correct. In addition they now require payment for membership, while my transcriptions [] are completely free of charge.

Let me underline that I didn't mention the new membership plan at all in my questions to the contributor. We do, however, get an indication of how IMSLP users experience the nature of the new membership recruitment.

In addition I want to warn IMSLP editors against copying scores from other sites without explicitly asking for permission to do so. While I maintained WIMA actively I always adhered to that principle.

[rkram53]

HI,
Frankly I have no problems paying a small fee to help IMSLP and I contribute a lot of content here. But I think the model is flawed. People can save $1000s of dollars coming here and (legally) downloading things. If financial stability is the goal, and I think we all want IMSLP to be stable, then the model should have levels. Free if you download x files a day or week and then require a nominal charge after that. The whole point is that if you are not charging major contributors (which I agree with because they are the ones who give you the content) and you let everyone else download as much as they want then how are you going to raise $?

No one wanting to get a music score will care about ads. Most won't mind waiting - because I bet 90% of the downloads are for well known pieces that have been here for years. You might actually be better off asking for donations like Wikipedia.

Just my 2 cents.
Rich