Do we live in a world without copyright law?

[Yagan Kiely]

It seems to me it is the attacks on Universal Edition which are outrageous.

You obviously have not read enough of the situation. The initial C&D letter (for ONE example) demanded $2000 per piece hosted.

[q]The letter from UE's lawyers, reproduced on the imslp website, seems perfectly reasonable. Many publishers, UE certainly included in my experience, provide excellent support for composers living _and dead_ and have a perfectly legitimate right to expect some recompense for it from those who wish to avail themselves of the scores.[/q]Composers who died more than 70 years ago in Europe require no support, neither to those who died 50 years ago when in Canada, or a majority of the world.

The IMSLP intention, to make available out-of-copyright scores, is also perfectly reasonable and indeed admirable, but it was obviously cheeky (at best) to rely on Canadian copyright laws and hope no one noticed. I have some sympathy for Feldmahler but think he was probably a bit naive.

Contrary to belief, Europe is not the governing body of the world, Canadian laws are different, see t

Contact UE's living composers and explain why they think said composers have no right to earn a living.

That has no bearing what so ever on the current situation, so there is no point. I actually AM a living composer and getting frequent commissions.

Do you work for UE at all? The post they made didn't resolve anything and seemed more to discourage the public from disliking them than from actually accomplishing anything, among attacking Feldmahler (yet again) like what you have done.

Hi, Just a quick word of support on behalf of a sister-project, http://LibriVox.org. We've had similar legal threats, pushed back, and succeeded. Copyright lawyers tend to claim rights they do not have. This is the case here.

Anyway, good luck and if there is anything we can do, please let us know.

Best,
Hugh McGuire.

Actually he is *not* right about copyright law. We have had similar issues at LibriVox.org. We follow the lead of the extensive legal work done by gutenberg.org, and our response to such letters and threats is as follows:
Quote:

Project Gutenberg has done exhaustive research over the years on this subject, and has not found any indication that the copyright laws of one country will have any force in any other country, even in cases of publishing materials on the Internet or the World Wide Web…

However, if you do come across any new case law or rulings that might effect some change, please let us know and we will discuss with our informal advisers at Project Gutenberg, so that they can update their research concerning such cases. As always, we will follow the legal standard that Project Gutenberg uses.

[khwaj]

Many publishers, UE certainly included in my experience, provide excellent support for composers living _and dead_ and have a perfectly legitimate right to expect some recompense for it from those who wish to avail themselves of the scores.

Speaking as a composer, most publishers could care less about the composer; they are out to make money for themselves. Many publishers demand composers submit a score in an electronic format ready to print (including the copyright of the publisher) so all the publisher has to do is print the score. Then after the composer, who toiled countless hours creating this music and then set it up for the publisher to print, gets 10% of the sales. What is even worse, 95% of the sales are at a 40 - 60% discount to large distributors. Even if you sell 1000 copies, which is rare, you are not going to make enough to live on.

I am not saying UE is wrong for trying to protect their interests, I just want to make it clear that publishers, in general, are looking out for themselves, not the composer.

[Pit-Trout]

Others have already responded well to this, but a couple more points:

The IMSLP intention, to make available out-of-copyright scores, is also perfectly reasonable and indeed admirable, but it was obviously cheeky (at best) to rely on Canadian copyright laws and hope no one noticed.

Feldmahler was hardly "hoping no-one noticed": every work on IMSLP was tagged with copyright status for Canada, US, and Europe, and links to more detailed breakdowns of international copyright law were prominent on the front page of the site.

I will expect all those musicians who take issue with UE's stance on this subject to do all the following:
(...)
Contact UE's living composers and explain why they think said composers have no right to earn a living.

Buxtehude has already rebutted these points well, but I'd like to point out also that re "UE's living composers": of the few composers cited by UE as (debatably) infringing their copyright, none are living. Joseph Marx died in 1964, and most of the rest much earlier.

[Yagan Kiely]

As is proved by the fact that so many of the composers they listed in their C&D letters are PD even in Europe.

[PI]

To all those, who still don't get UE's point.

Let's agree on one thing: there are works on IMSLP which are still under copyright in Europe. It is irrelevant where the server is located. The only thing that matters is that IMSLP is providing service in Europe and as such it has to abide European law. If IMSLP were restricted for Canadians only, then UE would have no problem at all. The only thing they ask is that works whose copyright they hold should not be accessable from the EU. They don't want to enforce European law in Canada. They enforce it in Europe. By no means would IMSLP be brought to court in Canada, it would happen overseas. The rule is very simple: if you don't own the right to distribute a certain work in a certain country then you can't distribute it there. It doesn't matter that you have the right to do so somewhere else.

The Dover example above is wrong. Even Dover could not sell scores of the works in question in the EU, unless they license them from UE. They can't provide the service in the EU, they don't have the right to do so. You can by the score elsewhere and bring it home, but in that case you may violate some import laws (I'm not quite sure on this). But Dover can't sell it to you.

The fact that IMSLP is not for profit is again irrelevant. In the EU it might hurt the sales of UE. They only worry about how much they lose not how much IMSLP makes. They wouldn't even care if IMSLP were actually selling Bartok's works in Canada.

Of course, it is impossible the review all the copyright laws in the world and implement elaborate IP filters to make sure that every person gets what they have the right to. Noone expects this from anybody. But after some country/organization/company shows up and asks you to remove specific content illegal in their country, your options are limited. Either you believe them and abide or you don't believe and go to court. Actually, UE played it nice, they sent some letters instead of starting a lawsuit right away. They could have.

If you still don't get it, consider this: Do you really think that just because something is legal in your country (weed, weapons, banned literature, allofmp3?) you can sell/transfer it to any other country regardless of the laws there, and leave all the responsibility with the recipient??

Instead of cursing UE, we should look ahead, admit that IMSLP was distributing copyrighted material in the EU, remove it (or just make it unaccessable from Europe) and move on.

Certainly, I do hope IMSLP comes back online very soon after all this has been sorted out. As I haven't followed the internal affairs of IMSLP very closely, I don't know about the other events that led to this complete shutdown.

[Vivaldi]

To Universal Edition Aktien Geselschaft,
I apologize if some comments made in the forums regarding your actions are unpleasant.
But for your company to claim copyright work which the composer died more than 50 years ago, you have to provide evidence that the work is indeed published less than 50 years ago, rather than providing scarcrow copyrights. Otherwise, I doubt your case will even hold up in an EU court.

[Yagan Kiely]

UE played it nice, they sent some letters instead of starting a lawsuit right away. They could have.

They have personally attacked Feldmahler among other things, they have not played it nice. They have not filed a lawsuit because they themselves are not sure of the consequence of the case:

Quote:
Hi, Just a quick word of support on behalf of a sister-project, http://LibriVox.org. We've had similar legal threats, pushed back, and succeeded. Copyright lawyers tend to claim rights they do not have. This is the case here.

Anyway, good luck and if there is anything we can do, please let us know.

Best,
Hugh McGuire.



Quote:
Actually he is *not* right about copyright law. We have had similar issues at LibriVox.org. We follow the lead of the extensive legal work done by gutenberg.org, and our response to such letters and threats is as follows:
Quote:

Project Gutenberg has done exhaustive research over the years on this subject, and has not found any indication that the copyright laws of one country will have any force in any other country, even in cases of publishing materials on the Internet or the World Wide Web…

However, if you do come across any new case law or rulings that might effect some change, please let us know and we will discuss with our informal advisers at Project Gutenberg, so that they can update their research concerning such cases. As always, we will follow the legal standard that Project Gutenberg uses.

Instead of cursing UE, we should look ahead, admit that IMSLP was distributing copyrighted material in the EU

That is just plain wrong. IMSLP was not distributing works into Europe as that implies a conscious decision to illegally provide Europeans with scores and promote this. That is a lie.

[Melodia]

The Dover example above is wrong. Even Dover could not sell scores of the works in question in the EU, unless they license them from UE. They can't provide the service in the EU, they don't have the right to do so. You can by the score elsewhere and bring it home, but in that case you may violate some import laws (I'm not quite sure on this). But Dover can't sell it to you.

You actually make OUR point with this. You CAN import it. You violate the laws if you do it, but you still can. Similarly, you could DL from the IMSLP. They specifically tell people "Don't if you live here! It's illegal!". They don't even do that for books! Hell, for music, I could link to CDs sold on Amazon.com -- THROUGH Amazon.com -- that are most likely illegal in the US. But they are legal in Canada and Europe. Should the US bully Canada for making those CDs?

Again, a lot of things that are legal in one place, violate the law in others. Porn (some/all) is illegal in a lot of countries, yet people online could easily access them. Lots of other examples I'm sure. Hell, Wikipedia was banned in China for a while or something (I can't remember the exact details).

-Lala-

[PI]

IMSLP was not distributing works into Europe

So where was IMSLP was distributing the works? Nowhere? Or all over the world?

You CAN import it. You violate the laws if you do it, but you still can. Similarly, you could DL from the IMSLP.

Downloading is the equivalent of purchasing not importing. Importing woud be if your buddy downloads it in Canda, you go visit him, get the stuff on a CD, then bring it home. And yes, if a foreign company offers banned products in your country, they are legally responsible. Both under the criminal code and in a civil lawsuit.

[Yagan Kiely]

Wikipedia IS banned in Iran right now.

A lot of fetish pornography (bestiality is a good example) is illegal in a lot of countries yet no filter or blocking has been put up. They also say that "if you are under 18, do not enter this site" yet they have a button to enter right bellow that. Imagine if "under 18" was replaces with "European" and "enter" with "download"?

To avoid any legal hassles, IP banning (although censorship {Google in China}) is better than crippling the majority of the world that has death + 50.

[PI]

A lot of fetish pornography (bestiality is a good example) is illegal in a lot of countries yet no filter or blocking has been put up. They also say that "if you are under 18, do not enter this site" yet they have a button to enter right bellow that. Imagine if "under 18" was replaces with "European" and "enter" with "download"?

The comparison is wrong.

The question is: Who is losing money by letting minors enter the site?

[PI]

A lot of fetish pornography (bestiality is a good example) is illegal in a lot of countries yet no filter or blocking has been put up. They also say that "if you are under 18, do not enter this site" yet they have a button to enter right bellow that. Imagine if "under 18" was replaces with "European" and "enter" with "download"?

And also they might be responsibla for "providing pornographic content to a minor" under the criminal code, if such a things exists in their country.

[Vivaldi]

ArticWind7 is right. Many websites like the ones he mentioned provide warnings that prohibit a person from entering a site if he is underage or (though I've never seen this before) if he is from a particular region or country. But without any internet control or such, he could still enter the site, legally or otherwise. There is no way to control how a person will act, either he obeys the rules are not.

[Yagan Kiely]

UE loses very little money from IMSLP. an overwhelming majority of IMSLP users (even the few in Europe) would not use the scores Publicly, they are not of good enough quality. Imagine trying to conduct Berlioz symphonie fantastique with a score you can barely read. The money UE loses is extremely small as they make less of there money out of selling scores to the public than by getting large royalties from performances etc.

And also they might be responsibla for "providing pornographic content to a minor" under the criminal code, if such a things exists in their country.

They are not, they provide adequate legal security.

[PI]

UE loses very little money from IMSLP.

But they do lose some money, that's why they sent the letter.

And also they might be responsibla for "providing pornographic content to a minor" under the criminal code, if such a things exists in their country.

They are not, they provide adequate legal security.

To decide if a warning message without even the attempt to block an unauthorized user is adequate legal security is left to the judge and to the details of the legal system where the trial is taking place. It may not be enough.