Upcoming changes

[Melodia]

The CC licensed scores don't have the wait. So....one COULD say people are only paying for the PD scores (which of course is completely legal and ethical). Granted the money is more going to the backend of things and if the site 'only' had the CC content it'd still cost money, but do it at it that way.

Also I think a lot of people overblow the issue of people getting paid -- pretty much all charities have people who /work/ there, and get payed. This doesn't make them less of a charity.

That said, me previous post still applies -- I do think having the wait for EVERY single applicable download makes the site look shady. Having it only sometimes (perhaps every 50MB or after two hours? Something like that) would be a lot better. IMO.

[amdevereux]

First, I want to say that I am a subscribing member to IMSLP. Every organization that IMSLP has been compared to on this thread has one very important thing that it doesn't: financial transparency. For a non-profit (which IMSLP should be, but that can come at a later time), financial statements are required to be published by law. IMSLP can raise subscribers and donators confidence by releasing financial information to prove that our money is being used in an honest way. Some simple accounting and publishing of tax statements can show everyone numerically what the financial situation is, why a subscription plan was necessitated and how funds are being used. For the health of the community, I think that financial transparency is crucial.

[KB2004]

I use imslp quite a lot and have no problem with the changes. I understand the need for funds to keep the servers running, and even funds for employees who keep the site working.

For individuals who have transcribed public domain pieces using their own composing programs, and then uploaded them with the idea that the public will have open access to it, I can understand if they have concerns because of the time they have put into the pieces they've uploaded and concerns they may have with compensation vs free access. However, for scans that have come from music that had at one time been sold by a publisher, I extend my sincere appreciation for the contribution to the library, but after all, it is a public domain work that comes from a printing that was once owned by a publishing company. If anyone has a concern about compensation, I would expect that concern to come from the publisher that originally printed and sold the scores.

$22 dollars per year is generally less than the cost of one work that I might purchase from a publisher/distributor and have shipped to my house. So, I still consider the library a great resource for affordable public domain music... just an idea popping into my head... this might be too large a technical feat to attempt because of the variance in copyright regulations from country to country, but for pieces that have been uploaded to the imslp site that are not yet public domain in our country, I would find it beneficial if there were a way to pay a royalty (maybe a download fee?) and then download the piece (especially if it the piece is out of print). That might be a kettle of fish that you'd rather not open, but I thought I'd throw it out there anyway.

At any rate, thanks for this resource. Wishing you continued success.

[Richety]

Further to my earlier posts, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has contributed particularly those who have run the site. More information about the reasons for the changes have been very enlightening.

In particular, Daphnis post has been quite an important contribution for me personally and I value the fact that any apparent lack of transparency in the decision to implement the change is perhaps just an oversight that I am sure (and hope) will not lead to contributors no longer uploading to the site.

As some others have said, if we can just get some transparency and acknowledgement of the many who contribute, and also perhaps responding to each concern (such as how the site makes it clear which uploads have the wait and which dont adn why) over time then the community that has built up will reinstate their trust.

Overall, I feel the sudden implementation of it produced some understandable shock that might have been avoided. But perhaps those who run the site, had not realised the extent of how many people now feel they have a stake in the site. IMSLP long ago moved past a tipping point in terms of use and cultural consciousness amongst musicians. The success of a site like this does partly rely on the perception of its contributors and users, even if that perception is incorrect. So the site needs to ensure those perceptions are the right ones and based on facts.

I continue to wish IMSLP all the success in its aims, and hope in the future people will look back at this event as a blip and something to learn from rather than the beginning of the end of a wonderful project.

[lxh5032]

That being said, I am a "member" of other charitable organizations that have employees and expenses, like World Wildlife, the Nature Conservancy, or PBS. Paying to be a member doesn't really detract from their noble mission in any way.

The difference, of course, is that IMSLP does not have the same charity status that those organizations have.

With respect to the non-profit vs. for-profit debate, we did indeed investigate the non-profit route. As Choralia knows, I asked for CPDL's 501(c)(3) paperwork as reference a few months ago. But as I mentioned in one of my e-mail discussions recently, I keep on getting stuck on the question of where funding comes from. Publishers are certainly not going to provide us charitable funding. Many of the great European music libraries exist in large part because of governmental funding for the arts - a level of funding not matched in the United States or Canada to any extent.

If you're not a traditional music library, why do you only focus on the traditional sources of funding for such libraries? Was any attempt made to exploring crowdsourcing? Was any thought given to taking advantage of the massive international user-base of IMSLP - something that no library bound to a physical location can claim - to create a donation drive in order to secure the funding needed? If the answer to either question is no, then I must seriously question the thought and research that has gone into this.

Before this, I reckon IMSLP might have had enough credibility to write to music departments, conservatories and musical associations across the nation and the globe if it wanted to engage on a one-time fund-raising campaign to form a foundation. The schools themselves didn't even have to donate; they could simply have been asked to forward the message to their faculty and students and let each individual decide whether to donate. Now, after IMSLP has taken a torch to its own credibility? Who knows.

Again, things like this have to happen after making a commitment to be non-profit, not before.

And, where are the grants? No foundation I know of will give a significantly large grant for maintaining an online score library that has already stuck around for 10 years (and has stirred some legal controversy in the past to boot). Plus, significant grant dollars are not usually given without an agenda or request on the part of the giver, and I do not wish IMSLP to be subject to the whims of a single foundation (or even several foundations) who does not necessarily have IMSLP's best interests at heart (not blaming them - they have their priorities).

Do these statements reflect the actual results of grant proposals written, or are they conjectures? As far as agendas or requests on the part of the giver, I don't see how they can be a problem, as long as they are of a nature that enables certain things without restricting others. If someone offers a $500 grant stipulating that it be used in maintaining the music of Jewish composers, for example, is it not better to have the grant and redistribute your other resources elsewhere, than to not have the grant at all?

If one is concerned about autonomy, the right thing to do is to be mindful of a grant's terms and be judicious about accepting them. It's the same as donations, and I say it's severely hampering oneself to shut out the possibility of donors expressing a preference on how their donations are used. It's absolutely ok, as long as they don't have any say in other people's donations.

Not to mention, who is going to spend the time writing all the grants, doing the research and making the contacts?

What the heck, if IMSLP had a management structure I could believe in, I would do it.
Of course in reality I doubt you would trust a complete stranger to do it, but how hard have you tried to mine your population of contributors for people who might have the relevant knowledge?

With respect to an annoucement and discussion with the general public prior to the rollout, I wanted to avoid panic and rumours before people got a chance to actually see what it is and realize that it is optional and not a "paywall" or the typical membership scheme.

This logic is absolutely absurd.

It also represents a thorough rejection of IMSLP as a community effort. What you say essentially translates to this: I know better and I'm making the decision because it's good for you. It's very patriarchical, a very 'L'etat c'est moi' kind of thinking, and it's of course your right to do so as sole private owner, but in that case I just find it incredibly disingenuous that IMSLP continues to claim that it is a community project.

"Honey, I'm moving the family to Iceland. I didn't tell you because I was afraid that you would freak out if I talked to you about it."
This could have come straight out of a comedy show, except even funnier because people are getting a chance to actually see it and they do see it as your typical membership scheme, a paywall. Even people who support the plan on principle. The plan really could not have failed more miserably, could it.

I did solicit feedback early December in the administrator forum (when the membership project was just starting), and had gotten generally positive feedback which eased my concerns

For the record, Feldmahler announced this in the Moderation Forum on December the 13th. It was presented as a done deal at that time, essentially.

Some discussion it seems to have been.

And, sometime in the midst of all of this, I decided to try being more aggressive in asking for donations. As some of you may (or may not) have noticed, in addition to the "Donate" button in the sidebar, you will get a prompt to donate once for every 50 downloads you make. Very little happened. I don't think most people even notice the popup and go straight for the "X" in the upper right corner.

So basically, you're saying that you haven't tried. This is like girl scout's putting up a stall in their own bedrooms and expecting to sell cookies that way. By your own admission you didn't try any Wikipedia-style banners, any front-page fund-raising campaigns redirects once per browser session, but only something that was guaranteed to be ineffective. And if you have reservations about collecting donations this way because of the lack of non-profit status, that is an entirely self-inflicted issue.

I presume that downloads are tracked through logged-in accounts, because I don't know how you can track guest downloads. I would guess that at least 99% of all IMSLP users visit as guests without ever creating an account. If that is indeed the case, then no wonder nothing came out of a method that ignores virtually the entire IMSLP user base.



In that light,

If everyone here thought that the site can be sustainable forever with purely donations, especially with a site like this that host pages of text and files, this sort of thing won't last and isn't sustainable.

simply rings hollow. How can you know that a donation model is not sustainable without ever seriously trying?

If you think trying comparing Wikipedia to IMSLP, it doesn't exactly compare because WIkipedia doesn't host PDF files like IMSLP does, they have millions of pages of text but IMSLP goes a step further and host not just hundreds of thousands of pages of text, but also hundreds of thousands of large files, which consumes more bandwidth and data.

So does Wikimedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alex ... ped%29.jpg
A high-resolution image file is often larger than a scan of an entire sonata.

The reason Wikipedia exists still is because of there massive Userbase, which is hundreds of thousands of times larger than IMSLP, they can rely on donations as there main source of funding because they have the Userbase for it, IMSLP is much smaller.

I'm getting tired of hearing people bring up this as a defense without addressing how CPDL continues to operate.

This is not an empty suggestion: as part owner of the Canadian and EU servers and I can say that this simple appeal has been successful in generating enough donor funding to operate not only the two servers, but this forum web site. Note that in a subscription process we could even have the user agree in advance to the terms of the disclaimer, thus eliminating any additional page displays for times the user chooses to log in.

We could find months where the donations start declining and then the site could be faced with a total shutdown, which nobody wants.

When that happens, then you introduce a subscription. It's perfectly acceptable to establish a plan for implementing subscriptions for a rainy day, but not when alternative means have not been exhausted. Not as a panic reaction to something that may or may not happen sometime in the unknown future, which this is.

Is IMSLP's operations so tight that it cannot maintain a reserve? It doesn't look like it. Maintain a reserve as buffer, keep plans for subscription membership in the back pocket, and start seriously considering it if the reserve is being drained.

Again I emphasis that I'm not saying you cannot implement a subscription model, but it's something that should be done only when other reasonable and obvious means have actually been tried and deemed ineffective. Edward Guo's own statement indicate that it is not the case. He claims that he has exhausted his imagination, and this statement has been put under serious challenge.

Implementing an earnest donation-based model does NOT preclude the possibility of introducing subscription in the future. Introducing subscription now, without evidence of having sufficiently explored other venues, DOES significantly and negatively impact IMSLP's ability to obtain donations in the future, and I hold that it does more harm than good in ensuring IMSLP's long-term sustainability. I question the lack of judgment and thought going into this process demonstrated by IMSLP's management and its attempts at justifying them have simply made things even more questionable.

Believe it or not, there are in fact other people championing worthy causes too. To adopt a daddy-knows-best attitude that everybody else is just too spoiled or stupid to recognize that you are the messiah of the music world and your word is God's word, to feel smugly that you have monopoly over your field and that people have no choice but to take whatever comes, to say that "sure you can try, but nobody will go to your site because they're all coming here", is the very definition of entitlement and does absolutely nothing to help IMSLP's cause.

=========================================

Lastly.

If IMSLP does consider itself a community effort - and the "if" is getting bigger by the minute - then perception IS reality. Support from the community is as important as money; in fact, it is where the money comes from. At this point, it doesn't matter if we are in fact all imbeciles who are just too stupid to understand that Christ is the saviour. The community backlash is real, and there will be consequences if they are not addressed; there will be consequences if IMSLP chooses to go down this path single-mindedly.

I could be wrong and in five years people might get used to it. Eels get used to skinning, after all. IMSLP might continue to exist as the top dog in the free music scores realm, and newcomers will only know the world where they either pay for membership or waiting their 15 seconds, not knowing the original mission under which these scores were submitted. Enough scores have been uploaded to IMSLP that it could probably remain commercially viable even if from this point on no new scores are ever added, if it chooses this form of existence.

Or not. One should not feel entitled to the community's goodwill for ever and ever when one has strayed from the original mission.

If IMSLP chooses to take the chance, so be it. Just don't say that you weren't warned.


Lincoln Hui

[mmtuk]

As an infrequent user of IMSLP and having read all of the posts in this thread, I make my own observations of what I feel are the issues that people find most frustrating in recent developments.

Firstly, on behalf of the hundreds of contributors.

I fully sympathise with the sentiments many of them have voiced regarding the prospect of their painstaking efforts to provide free access to all of their output only to find that their work has been hijacked into a potentially commercial world where persons or bodies, if not now but later, will make a profit from them. It is extremely unlikely that any one of them will ever get a just reward for their efforts. If it was me in their position I would feel cheated, violated and full of despair. The fact that they weren't consulted en masse, as the backbone of IMSLP regarding the changes that were instituted, beggars belief. My heart goes out to them.

Secondly, finances.

I cannot understand why the issue of financial transparency, the many calls for it within this thread and the issue of fund raising has not been adequately addressed or responded to by the owner. He seems to have garnered support from a few but otherwise seems contemptuous in his responses to the questions and suggestions put forward by many. There seems to be no acknowledgement that he might have got it wrong, no comment on the many serious concerns people have expressed regarding the potential consequences of his autocratic changes, and has displayed an apparent disregard for the many people who have got IMSLP to where it is today.

Subscription charges.

Personally, I don't have a problem with the amounts charged. When you consider that for less than the cost of a family meal at MacDonalds, a round of drinks or a Chinese take away, you get access for a whole year to an enormous library that is the result of thousands of man hours of effort. It's incredible value for money. But to justify to the masses that such charges ARE necessary, there has to be financial transparency and accountability. I hear the voices of despair regarding the fact that as a community project it was never envisioned that people would be denied access, even if momentary, but the reality is that the need for more funding has been made an issue by the owner.

If Edward is to garner support for his visions then he needs to go to the community and create a council of volunteers that represent the masses and whose presence will ensure that all future decisions are made with consultation and allay the fears of many regarding the future finances and direction of IMSLP.

[Bruckner8]

IMSLP is merely a convenience on my life's Grande Schema. It's not indispensable. For some, I suppose IMSLP *is* indispensable, and they'll be happy to pay for the subscription.

My days of "indiscriminate daily browsing" are over, since I'm not keen on the 2-3 day wait. (Which is it? Is the specific wait period even documented anywhere?)

Anyway, when I really need something, most likely it will have been written before the 1925, and it will be for orchestra. I can wait 15 seconds in those rare circumstances.

Mark my words: Someday, the IMSLP owners will make it "subscription only." I'll be done with it by then.

[sono]

I'm a semi-regular user of IMSLP and recognize the importance of making public domain scores digitally available for free to the general public. And I would be happy to regularly support an organization formed for the general public benefit. Public support would, as others have previously argued, naturally fall into place if IMSLP were to reorganize as a nonprofit.

Alternately, has IMSLP considered re-organizing Project Petrucci / IMSLP as a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC)? This would allow IMSLP to continue as a for-profit entity while committing in its corporate charter to operating for the public good. It would signal to the larger musical worlds that IMSLP would continue to exist for a clear social purpose and would increase transparency by reporting the ways in which it pursues its general public benefit.

Kickstarter is a good example of a high-profile, for-profit, company that recently reincorporated as a PBC in an effort, as they stated in their annoucement, to "hard-code [their] mission at the deepest level possible to guide us, and [its] future leaders".

In the end, public reaction and public support turn on public perception. If IMSLP would flesh out the 'who' and the 'why' of the entity that operates IMSLP by framing its operations within a clearly defined mission statement and a transparent entity structure, then when making changes of this nature, the public would be unlikely to impeach its motives and more likely to offer generous support.

[Rob Peters]

Mark my words: Someday, the IMSLP owners will make it "subscription only." I'll be done with it by then.

They can't, since a big portion of the site consists of Creative Commons material with strict non-commercial conditions.
Theoretically the owner could turn IMSLP into a pay site with only PD-scores, of course. But then all CC-material with non-commercial attributes would have to be deleted. I surely hope this isn't the chosen path for IMSLP, that would be an even bigger insult to the volunteering community than the present subscription model already is.

[Sallen112]

Mark my words: Someday, the IMSLP owners will make it "subscription only." I'll be done with it by then.

They can't, since a big portion of the site consists of Creative Commons material with strict non-commercial conditions.
Theoretically the owner could turn IMSLP into a pay site with only PD-scores, of course. But then all CC-material with non-commercial attributes would have to be deleted. I surely hope this isn't the chosen path for IMSLP, that would be an even bigger insult to the volunteering community than the present subscription model already is.

I don't believe Edward would ever go down this route. He resisted for a long time to not even go and implement this new subscription program since he wanted to have the "Free and Open access" to all files on the site to the public but pretty much had to change his thinking now with this, long term, while still retaining some form of the original philosophy of this site.

[azumbrunn]

Having followed this thread for some time now I think there are some lessons to learn from it. For us contributors and users and for the "management".
Specially referring to the long and detailed post by lxh5032 I would come to the following summary:

1. Consider what would have happened if this thing had been rolled out just a little differently: At the download command you'd see the text: Please take 15 second to consider a donation to IMSLP, maybe $20?. Everything else being the same. When someone donates this text doesn't pop up for a year to this particular user. Now it would be an in-your-face way of collecting donations, not a paywall or a membership scheme (mind you I don't necessarily advocate being this aggressive, my point is about framing). And this is really what it practically amounts to. Which is why I have criticized some posters for overblown rhetoric.

2. lxh's post does indeed suffer from overblown rhetoric--as well as from plain rudeness: It is a good idea in debates of this kind not to imply your opponent is an incompetent fool or even a disingenuous plotter behind the scenes. We should all operate on the (almost certainly 100% true) assumption that Edward has no intention to damage IMSLP or to turn it to profit for himself and is not incompetent. After all you are trying to convince him, not to antagonize him.

And now to Edward's case: It does indeed suffer from weaknesses that have been pointed out in the thread.

3. Financial transparency: This is self evidently mandatory as soon as donations or membership fees are in play. There has to be regular budgeting and accounting, probably at this point even auditing. A link ought to be put on the homepage that leads to financial information. And the users ought to be able to find there the budget for the present year and accounting for previous years in clear and readable tables. Every enterprise of the sort of IMSLP starts as a pioneering effort and things are improvised and improved informally as one goes along. But at some point and at some stage of success (which for IMSLP happened a few years ago really) the organization must be run more professionally with formal decision making and documenting. I know this is work, but it will also save work as it keeps people better informed.

4. This point about organized decision making also applies to non financial matters. We need a "constitution". I continue to think that much of the blowback came form people feeling blindsided--a sign of lack of transparency. I know that it is hard to let your baby go out into the world without you, but the baby will go anyway at some point--or die. It is the duty of the founders of such enterprises to make sure they can survive without the founder's constant input. Edward must be aware of this and must respond to those concerns not just in threads, but through actions. I personally think that hiring staff for clerical work will help the transition to transparency.

5. It is also true that Edward's accounting of his attempts to raise funds is somewhat incomplete. For example no good reason is given for the decision--if it was a decision and not just procrastination--not to choose non profit status, we read just the non sequitur that he doesn't know where the funds will come from. I would strongly urge to reverse this decision and get going on it ASAP. It will help transparency as well as fund raising. As to applications for grants lxh has another very good point. Edward says he is afraid of potential donor's "own agendas" without specifying any examples where that was a problem for IMSLP. There is no mention of any grant applications actually having been submitted and followed up that failed or produced unacceptable conditions. As to the esthetic reason the Amazon banners (or whatever it was) were taken down: I'd prefer living ugly over failing beautifully. If Amazon pays for advertising (which is basically what they are paying for) the ads have to be visible and they will reflect Amazon's general self presentation. If you stay a virgin all your life you won't have any children.

This brouhaha could be a chance to start putting IMSLP on a sustainable footing. I hope everybody is willing to take advantage of it.

[Loubourib]

The Internet Archives site recently put a big banner at the top of its home page, asking for donations and stating the amount already collected. Its aim of 2 000 000$ was more than achieved within a very short period.
This shows that a sufficient number of users are aware of the colossal amount of work needed to set up and maintain a site such as Internet Archives, or IMSLP — and the costs. Please trust grateful IMSLP users enough to ask for their help when needed.
Many, many thanks to you and all IMSLP volunteers.
PS I can't remember ever seeing any fund-raising link / window / menu item / popup on IMSLP.

[coulonnus]

Could you please provide the URL with this big banner? I saw it last year and the site changed.

[s59438msl0]

Your assertion that the the scores are still free when you have just added a bandwidth tax on every download is simply a lie. By delaying each transaction you are charging your users time, which is arguably a more precious resource than money. Money I may replace, time I never get back. That is part of the human condition. You are simply making the cynical calculation that time will indeed be more valuable than money to most of your users, certainly to those with means and poor people's time is worthless anyway, right?

In doing this you have betrayed the faith of every one of your contributors who have donated their precious and irreplaceable time, typesetting scanning, uploading scores etc. under the false promise that these would be offered free to our human community as a common good. You further insult the intelligence of your users and contributors by offering us such transparent weasel words. The fact that you will get no profit from wasting the time of your users does not change the fact that the time is a real and serious cost to us and that you are outright stealing the time and work of your contributors. Did you really think we wouldn't get it? Or did just not care?

I have no doubt that IMSLP needs or at least wants more money to operate. But aping the tactics of cynical corporations who try to turn public resources into private sources of profit is not the way to do it.

FOR SHAME - ALL OF YOU.

[bicinium]

Hi. I feel a little silly for registering just to talk about licenses a bit, but I just wanted to clear up some things regarding Creative Commons, as I fear some members are being dissuaded from contributing because they underestimate the freedom that all contributions already have.

When you contribute a score to IMSLP, you're not giving it to IMSLP specifically; all CC licenses allow free redistribution, so it doesn't matter which library you submit it to, since any other library can simply copy and mirror it without needing to ask for anyone's permission. Accordingly, anything that has been and is still being submitted to IMSLP isn't lost in any sense, since anyone could just grab all the content and redistribute it on their terms (while complying with the restrictions of the specific CC licenses). What I'm trying to say is, what IMSLP is jeopardizing isn't its library, but just its brand and status, and it's baseless to avoid contributing because you fear that your scores will be locked behind a paywall (if that happened, the Creative Commons license gives anyone the right to subsequently take it from IMSLP and offer it for free); if you want to boycott IMSLP specifically because you want to punish it for its decisions, then that's a different matter, but I would beg you to find a different channel to get your contributions out to the world under free licenses, because everyone would lose if you didn't (and it would be a shame to let one internet site be the cause of that).

I also wanted to argue against using CC-NonCommercial as a way to protect your content from misuse, because once you put a NonCommercial or NoDerivs clause on your work, you are keeping yourself exclusively in control of your work, making it non-free (as in freedom). The ones that suffer from this are the users; a budding string quartet looking to make a career or a high school ensemble collecting funds for charity would first have to ask you for permission, and you are giving yourself the right to refuse them. And if you can't be contacted, those performers would either have to break the law or find other material, making your contribution pointless. CC-NC is a fine license if you want to profit commercially from your work and have exclusive rights to do so, but I think most people choose it because they think it's more free, when it perversely is anything but. Besides, the free redistribution of all CC works is sufficient protection against the whims of any organization. So again, if you want to boycott IMSLP, I implore you to take all of its content and host it somewhere else under conditions you do find reconcilable, as this is entirely legal and within the spirit of Creative Commons, rather than refusing to submit more contributions or only under freedom-restricting licenses.

I, myself, don't have a strong opinion on IMSLP's new strategy.