Symphony Parts

horndude77 · Post by **horndude77** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 2:14 am

Important: This product is licensed for one computer. By opening any of the files on this CD-ROM, you agree to the terms of the license. Click on the bookmark to the left to view the complete license. While the works on this CD-ROM are in the Public Domain, the PDF files are copyrighted and may be printed by the licensee for his/her personal use, but not otherwise copied or reproduced.

A pdf cannot be copyrighted, only the content (correct me if I'm wrong). As long as the edition can be identified and the logos removed it is legal to add. In copyright law (in the US at least) there is the "sweat of the brow" doctrine which basically says that time and effort does not constitute a copyright. Therefore all the hard work they did scanning those public domain pieces does not mean the have a copyright on the result so they add their logos. (see also copyfraud)

One of my past complaints about IMSLP has been the lack of orchestral parts.

I agree. The hard thing about orchestral parts is that players usually don't have a easy access to them (in my experience at least) except when playing that piece. We need more librarian allies who manage orchestra or university libraries. We seem to have at few already. Check out http://www.dundasvalleyorchestra.ca/MemberInfo.html. The librarian there has posted here as homerdundas. In any case it will take time and assuming IMSLP will last longer than before I have no doubts that many parts will show up in the coming years. In the long run I can see having freely available part greatly benefiting orchestras and individuals.

Melodia · Post by **Melodia** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 2:14 am

Hmmm, well looking, it looks like they covered their tracks pretty well. The have "CD Sheet Music" at the top of every (?) page, not a logo, just text.
There also seems to be a certain uniformity to the way it looks which now makes me think they did actually do all the work themselves (as opposed to, say, a Dover score which is just a reprint of an older source).

So I guess that idea is off...

But anyone who has more knowledge on the law and on what they did should chime in.

-Lala-

ras1 · Post by **ras1** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 2:37 am

I don't think so. They say that everything there is public domain in the US. If it were their copyright, they'd say so.

On the other hand...

In a few cases, we have typeset and made our own editions of important works for which a suitable public domain edition was available.

I wonder if they state which ones?[/quote]

Post by **daphnis** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 4:39 am

As magnanimous a gesture scanning public domain music, even making electronic typesets of public domain music is, it does not constitute copyright. Even going to the lengths of compiling (and encrypting) PDFs like the CDSM folks and these orchestral musician compilations does not warrant a copyright. Basically, so long as any logos or later added materials are removed, the "base" work is legal here. Keep in mind that just because something printed is available for sale from a company does not necessarily mean it isn't already free

ras1 · Post by **ras1** » Tue Jul 01, 2008 6:57 pm

So before I go ahead and order, are we sure these are okay to upload?

kendrickkoo · Post by **kendrickkoo** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 10:59 am

Are you planning on ordering ALL the parts for all instruments? that'd be pretty pricey i'd imagine. Also, it might be hard to remove the tags on the pdf documents from the cds considering that they have all been locked.......

would be fantastic if you managed it though!

ras1 · Post by **ras1** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 12:43 pm

I was going to start fairly small, and I never planned on doing too much; I don't have a whole lot of funds, or, during the school year, time.

Post by **Peter** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 12:52 pm

btw we have this category for pieces with available parts. I don't think the category is complete.

jsnfmn · Post by **jsnfmn** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 3:32 pm

I've got almost all of the volumes of the CD-ROM orchestral parts library, but for Trumpet only. I have taken the time already to split the files into separate parts and as a result they the pdfs are all unlocked as well (as each piece is one pdf with all of the trumpet parts). A somewhat roundabout way to unlock the files that I found a while back is to open them in a pdf program that simply does not support this feature (many linux programs that edit pdfs are this way). So, it shouldn't be that difficult to remove the logos, especially with Acrobat's new redacting feature and all of the files unlocked, just time consuming. As I doubt I will have the time to do this, if someone else wants to take this on I'd be happy to send them the files...

ras1 · Post by **ras1** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 3:40 pm

I would, but I'm busy with the violin ones...

I wonder if I could use an ImageMagick script to draw a white rectangle in the same place on each page. I'm pretty inexperienced - does anyone have ideas?

Post by **imslp** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 4:57 pm

I used to have a ruby (or was it bash...) script to do exactly that, and it might still be wandering around the site somewhere. Uses xpdf-tools, imagemagick and PDFtk to automatically process CDSM files. Unfortunately, it seems like there is no uniform position for the logos (it differs slightly by scan), though there is generally two positions that would cover most of them (but you have to choose which two per scan, or you can just let both run and chose the best result).

Even if that script can't be found (which is likely), it should be trivial to write a bash script to do the same. Simply use pdfimages from xpdf-tools to extract the images, imagemagick to block out a rectangle and to convert back into PDF, and PDFtk to merge the pages. One trick that might improve compression is to use imagemagick to convert the processed images to TIFF (and not PDF), and then use tiff2pdf to convert it to PDF (tiff2pdf seems to do better at PDF conversion than imagemagick itself, though imagemagick suffices in most cases).

The logic is not hard, though trials and errors are necessary.

kendrickkoo · Post by **kendrickkoo** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 9:34 am

Just wondering though for legal reasons: if we posted the parts from the cd on the site (with watermark removed etc) and somehow the people who published the cd can show that the parts were from their cd, would there be legal liabilities?

(and proof could even constitute this forum thread where there is discussion of removal of their labels and passwords...if so, should we consider editing out the posts completely and only discussing this by personal messages?)

just wanted to be 100% sure.

Post by **Peter** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 2:38 pm

ras1 wrote: Keeping in mind the only thing they print is the logo, can they do this? Or is there a way to get around it?

They can't, it's copyfraud but it's not illegal.

ras1 wrote:Aside from that, not to condone breaking the law, but if a file shows up on IMSLP that is actually one of their files with the logo removed, how would they know?

I think you can identify a scan pretty easily on small artifacts etc. Or they may have left a watermark...

Vivaldi · Post by **Vivaldi** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 10:36 am

Also, if they print some sort of header or footer on each page of the score and it is not removed, then of course they would recognize them easily.

ras1 · Post by **ras1** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 2:43 pm

I've been removing all the logos. It seems like a pretty dirty trick to sell PD music, and say on the CD that "by opening these files you agree not to remove the logos or copy them." They also claim to have added "many editorial additions," but I've compared with the original B&H score for a couple of the pieces, and that's absolutely false. They were identical.