IMSLP Forums

Hello all,
We now have a page under for publisher's catalogues, see: http://imslp.org/wiki/Publishers%E2%80% ... Various%29.
1) Have we any interest in single page summaries of publishers' works? I have always left these out of my uploaded documents, but some are very old and interesting. These are often catalogue subsets, typically with similar instrumentation to the works to which they are affixed.
2) what is the copyright status of such pages?

Thanks.

1) Yes, the single- or multiple-page catalogues are sometimes useful or illuminating. It might however clog that page even more so (than it already is) so some thought into planning additions like this would be helpful; we don’t normally want multiple identical scans of the same edition of a given work, which would go doubly for catalogue pages I think.

2) In theory, the listing itself should not be copyrightable: but often a printed catalogue does include some trivial work by the compiler and the publisher that can just scrape through under originality or typography. I wouldn’t see any problem (theoretically) with including the current catalogues of publishers today (since they usually give them away on their websites), but in practice these do have a copyright claim, which means IMSLP would have to ask for permission to obtain this use of them: “Dear Universal-Edition, in the interest of mutual harmony, could we please host a current catalogue of your complete published editions? Best wishes, Ottaviano”

Some composer catalogues would be rather nice, I must say. A few years ago there was a rather nice Salabert catalogue listing Poulenc’s complete works available under their brand (not cheaply, alas) and filled with photos and other goodies. Some composers who self-published their work (Stockhausen, notably so amongst the recently deceased) would probably be more open to the reproduction of their catalogues, even if their works are generally not available to be hosted here.

Cheers, PML