IMSLP Forums

In an effort to keep things organized (and so we don't have to read a bajillion separate threads), please post your messages of support in this thread.

Thank you!

emeraldimp

I'm bloody disgusted by this. I would visit this site almost every day, sometimes just to read the sheet music along with the piece I was listening to. It's absolutely terrible they could get away with this.


That said, Thank you so much for it. It was great while it was there.

Agreed. Well done for making it so far. As a college student and musician myself I can imagine what pressure it must be. You did the right thing; I only wish for that sake the website stood still as a testimony to the statements made in that letter of yours. Long live the IMSLP!

Hello


I want to say thank you so much for what you have done for the last couple of year. I'm not a musician but an humble copist and your site was one that i visited regularly to find new score to copy... I shall miss you dearly...

Message forwarded from other thread:

bernborn wrote:Dear Feldmahler, dear IMSLP contributors,

I would like to express my shock and sorrow concerning the closure of the IMSLP site. I am not willing to accept that this should be the end of such an important idea. Sharing musical knowledge is essential to me – and should be to mankind. I suggest to immediately start working on IMSLP 2.0 – and I would be glad to contribute either time, money or law and copyright related research.

I don't believe this is the end of the IMSLP, and neither should anyone else (ever the optimist here!)

UE have been quite clear in their demands - to remove the stuff that comprises copyright. The longest copyright restriction is that in Europe of 70 years and so as to keep everyone happy, IMSLP should reform and use that as it's number one rule. It would be a difficult task to limit IP's and users from certain pages based on their location and country's copyright law so:

'One Law to rule them all, One Law to find them, One Law to bring them all and in the lovely world of IMSLP, bind them!' (I'm sorry ... it was the first thing that came into me head)

If we could get the website back up, remove the pieces that are causing the problem and implement the new rule, then we'll be back up and running.

And by the way, I'm happy to help too!!

Far too many people stand to lose by compromising IMSLP to JUST 70+. It has to be a last resort, it's not that difficult to limit IPs, especially if a organisation is running IMSLP.

One way would be to split the server so to speak, anything with life + 70 in one server, and that server blocks EU and US people. Just an idea.

DON'T JUST IGNORE THE COUNTRIES WITH 50+ BECAUSE IT'S EASIER!

FW from other topic:

Stevie_D wrote:Hi there, i'm sorry to hear this news. i'm currently working on my own project to get the complete piano music of Xaver Scharwenka recorded. At the moment i was working on his polish dances. As a result i use IMSLP site as a main source of his music. It is legal to download seeing as though he died over 80 years ago and his music is never published . can someone send me his music!!!

too bad to lose one of the dozen useful sites on the internet. I hope to see this site in one form or another again someday. Sorry, I don't have any money for you! Good Luck!

IMSLP has been a great resource, particularly to people interested in rare music - most of which is in the public domain with no publisher being interested in using the material.

I've found a lot of rare music there, which I've been hunting for years in libraries and I've been checking regularly new entrees. I've contributed a few of my rare scores, with plans to provide more.

Thanks so much for Feldmahler and his coworkers for setting up and maintaining the site !!!

We cannot allow to let the site die - it's been a much to good resource on the web (much more useful than any other site). I believe the site needs to be operated by some organisation, which has the resource to defend any legal attempts to bully the operators around. I sincerely hope that some pulic library or open source organisation takes up the case and helps to continue IMSLP. I think rightful claims of copyright from publishers need to be respected (e.g. by excluding works not complying to the death+70 rule), so some mechanism to prevent users from providing music still copyrighted needs to be installed. But legal claims lacking any foundation need to turned down by the organisation (like the claims of U.E. of copyright for Berg, Janacek).

I would even accept advertisements (like google ones) on the pages should this be necessary to finance the site and legal support, but the
community MUST find a way to bring the site back online. I support the idea of notenschreiber to bring IMSLP back online without upload / download capability to show "the world" what they loose if IMSLP cannot
be restored.

Like quite a few people, just registered now, but have been using the site for a while.

I started using IMSLP probably back in January or February, and it has been a tremendous help. This UE thing is ridiculous; they shouldn't be allowed to do this. I strongly urge Feldmahler to do what he can to fight back, or, should he choose to obey UE's demand, try to bring back up the site, albeit with the limitations. Of course it wouldn't be quite the same, but it would still be one of the best sheet music resources on the net.

Whether IMSLP returns or not, thanks to Feldmahler and everyone who was a part of it. Truly an excellent site that will be missed.

Thank you Feldmahler and all the IMSLP contributors! I think it is terrible that IMSLP is gone, and I definitely think this is not the end, and that something along the lines of an IMSLP2 should be started. IMSLP had a wonderful vision that was so well realised and I refuse to acknowledge defeat!

Greetings to Feldmahler and all other readers,

I am another in the lengthy list of folks who have joined the forums since the IMSLP closure. I stumbled across IMSLP in the early days when it had about 500 scores uploaded. I almost signed up at that time to help, but decided I didn't have the time to contribute to such a worthy effort in a meaningful way. However, as an avocational musician who posts MP3s of digital realizations of music on the Internet, I have used IMSLP continuously since then, and have used several scores to create realizations of works on my web site. Not surprisingly, I have also become quite interested in copyright law, and I thought I would offer a few thoughts on this whole affair.

1. Public domain music is a gift of the finest aspirations of humanity to the world. It must continue to remain broadly accessible. The Internet is a perfect medium for this, and IMSLP was/is the premier site for promoting this. I sincerely hope IMSLP resurfaces in some form. If it does, I will sign up to help. Even if I have time to review the copyright status of only a single score per week, that will be better than sitting on the sidelines while a superb resource gets crushed.

2. All the intemperate posts on these boards about the "criminals" at UE, and the rants and raves about boycotts, should also cease and desist. It appears to me that in a few cases UE may have a point; but even if I am wrong about this, there is never an upside to vilifying your antagonists. You don't have to look hard to find blatant copyright violations on the Internet, and IMSLP will do best at this point to assume that the intentions of the folks at UE are honorable. Beyond the "baseline" regulations of life+70, or pre-1923 in the USA, and so on, there appear to be numerous variations by composer and even by individual work. Taking a deep breath, understanding precisely what has UE up in arms, addressing it precisely, and complying with the law down to its last minutiae will allow IMSLP to forge ahead in as nearly complete fashion as possible.

3. Some posts indicate that the UE demand is absurd. I have my opinion, but not really the knowledge to absolutely confirm or refute those posts. But I will say: this is not a setback for IMSLP, but an opportunity. I have admired the singular effort of this site to clearly explain the copyright status of the posted scores, and on the remote chance you haven't noticed, this is creating quite the storm in the blogosphere, and lots of folks are watching. It's irrelevant if you think the original IMSLP was in the wrong or not, and more importantly, it's irrelevant if you think the law as written on the books is sensible or stupid. The great historian Will Durant reminded us that cultural treasures are irrelevant in a lawless society, and a resource as prominent as IMSLP needs to set the standard that puts the pirate sites to shame, perhaps helping the security of other excellent sources like WIMA, Choral Wiki, and so forth.

4. My greatest admiration goes out to the founder of this site. It's a brave new world when a college student can lead an effort that burgeons to 15000 scores, many from composers that I, with a lifelong love of music, have never heard of. I also suspect that IMSLP has just about spiraled out of the control of a college student and a shoestring volunteer staff. Taking the site down and thinking thoroughly about the options is probably a very good thing, and the scores will wait for us. In a paradoxical way, perhaps this whole business is just the tonic this site needed to sort out its growing pains.

Thanks for your forbearance with this excessively long post.

Hello

For a few minutes ago I wrote a formal letter of protest (in german)
to Universal editions headquarter in Vienna/Austria. There I claimed
that they should drop all actiaons against Feldmahler and IMSLP,
that they should apologize for these actions and that they should
agree in a revival of the project. Below you can find the german text
of the letter:

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren

Ich protestiere auf das Schärfste gegen das Vorgehen Ihres Unternehmens
gegen Herrn Feldmahler und gegen sein Projekt "International Music Score
Library Project" (IMSLP). Sie haben ihn zum Schliessen seiner Datenbank
gezwungen. Ich fordere Sie auf Ihr offenbar kulturfeindliches Verhalten
umgehend zu überdenken und alle Aktionen gegen Herrn Feldmahler
einzustellen. Ihr Unternehmen sollte sich bei Herrn Feldmahler entschuldigen
und ihm freistellen sein Projekt wieder aufzunehmen.

Das Vorgehen Ihres Unternehmens und ähnlicher Akteure - hier imk konkreten
Fall gegen IMSLP - ist dafür verantwortlich, dass Amateure wie ich heute in
immer grösserem Ausmass mit den Piratenparteien sympathisieren.

Ich schreibe dies als Privatperson und Musikamateur. Sollten Sie von Ihrer
einstelklung nicht Abstand nehmen, könnte es sein, dass ich bald dasselbe
noch einmal im Namen der schwedischen Piratenpartei schreibe, in der ich
bislang (noch !) nicht Mitglied bin. Von Ihrem Verhalten im Fall Feldmahler
wird abhängen, ob ich dieser Partei beitrete.

Hochachtungsvoll

Sincerely

I simply want to say that this site was very helpful. I am a student in musicology and I used this site so much to prepare my exams... I am also tenor and the were so much repertory... Thank you all for all your effort,