IMSLP Forums

Hi,

I'd like to upload scans of Jean-Marie Leclair's violin concertos op. 7, which came out last year in a very nice facsimile edition by Fuzeau (ISMN M 049 05969 5). After reading some comments about peculiarities regarding French law which might make uploading these scans illegal, I would very much like to hear your opinion. The sheet music is definitely the original, without any editorial changes, except (most likely) post-processing to get a clean black-white print.
Would this upload be acceptable?

I really do not understand how reprinting an 18th-century score entitles one to a type of IP protection. The entire notion is really quite insane and effectively abolishes public domain for all intents and purposes. Perhaps pierre chepelov, who seems well-versed in some of the intricacies of French copyright, could inform us about the twisted reasoning (such as it is) behind such a law - if that's what it really says. At any rate, a reprint of an 18th century published score is not eligible for copyright in any other country I am aware of. As long as you are not reproducing an editor's preface, corporate logos or something of that nature, you are perfectly free to post a scan of the score here as long as it is legal to do so in your own country. (Thanks, Notenschreiber)

"At any rate, a reprint of an 18th century published score is not public domain in any other country I am aware of." Should the "not" be canceled?

Thanks for the clarifications!
I would be uploading from Germany, so this shouldn't be a real concern, but I'd still be grateful for confirmation from Pierre or another expert on these matters.
As far as I understand the (quite frightening) copyright notice in the foreword, Fuzeau claim to be the sole owner of the cleaned manuscript, and from that fact they derive some extensive rights regarding its reproduction. I don't have the text here, but can post it later if required.

The following text (in german and for germany) may be interesting:
http://www.musikrecht-meyer.de/download ... _04_09.pdf

Interesting ... but this text seems to contain quite a lot of weasel words.
The only relevant sentence (as far as I can tell), is:

"Allerdings hat der Verlag, welcher die Noten gedruckt hat, ein Interesse daran, dass seine Leistungen (Notendruck) nicht einfach durch Kopieren unterlaufen werden."

Very coarsely translated, this means
"It is in the publisher's interest that their work (i.e. printing the sheet music) is not devalued by someone simply copying it".

Well, sure this is in the publisher's interest, but isn't the real question whether they have any _legal_ means of prohibiting reproduction? This is not answered at all by the text.

In my understanding (and I'm aware I could be completely wrong), the publisher only can prohibit reproduction if they made any creative or scientific alteration or enhancement to the original work. Trying to produce something that looks as much as possible like the original is, by definition, not this kind of alteration or enhancement.

I think, that if you don´t want to make profit, the "Gesetz über den unlauteren Wettbewerb" cannot be applied and you can make copies of a public domain work even
if the original is an improved version of a manuscript of that work or a new typeset, which is not an "Urtext" or an "Erstausgabe".

OK, I have uploaded the files. Please have a look!

Even if we may upload this reprint, shouldn't we acknowledge Fuzeau's very nice facsimile job by adding a |Reprint=<City>: Fuzeau, <date> line after the Publisher info.: line?

There's no problem with including the info on the Fuzeau reprint. We've certainly done it on other items.