File talk:Schubert-D.935-2.ogg
The piano player should first practice, before uploading a take full of mistakes!
In an IRC conversation UninvitedCompany was instructing another user to go ahead and upload their performances of copyrighted musical score, when he admitted: "<UninvitedCompany> eratosthenes: My opinion. The Schubert recording is played from a Henle score. So what.". I must confess, I was somewhat angered by this because I had contacted UninvitedCompany when I saw his recording go up for the contest: I was concerned that the score was not unencumbered by copyright because of the great complexity of this subject, my own inability to find a PD copy of the same score, and UninvitedCompany's stylized interpretation of copyright law in the past. He assured me that it was okay, but went unresponsive when I pushed for a copy so I could submit it to the Mutopia project. I was left with concerns but didn't want people to think that I was objecting because his content was my only competition in the contest ;), I'd since forgotten about the matter. I did not suspect I was being so outrageously mislead. Because the Henle score is a derived work of the Schubert which does not have a lapsed copyright, UninvitedCompany does not have the authority to grant us an unencumbered license to his recording under the Creative commons license. We can not legally distribute this content in the US, and obviously it fails to meet the criteria for inclusion on the commons. I wish copyright law were different as there are dozens of recordings I could upload were it not copyrighted sheet. --Gmaxwell 03:55, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
- Schubert died in 1828, so his music is public domain. In Image:Schubert-D.935-2.ogg, which the uploader played at a piano, can you actually hear which score UninvitedCompany used while playing the piece? I seriously doubt it. Unless you can actually say "oh, this was definitely played from a Henle score" just from listening to the music, there's no copyright issue. User:dbenbenn 15:26, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
- What exactly is the Henle score and how is it different from the original? Fred Chess 15:37, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
- What you said would applied to a scan of the score, to which the publishing house would have a copyright. But for a performance of PD music, placed under a free license by the performer, I don't see how it would be relevant what score he used: nothing byond the original music (PD) and the performance (copyleft) is contained in the regording.
- Or am I mistaken and the "Henle score" actually constitutes a derived composition, i.e. not the original music by Schubert? In that case, the composer of the derivative would indeed have rights, if the modifications are substantial and original. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 15:41, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
- Well, I thought I was pretty clear. Yes, the Henle transcription is a derived work. However, since I can not find a copy of the original score, I can't tell you exactly how they differ. What I can tell you is that it would be unusual for any transcription to be the same as the original score, even in an urtext edition. Take a look at the Mutopia legal page [1], or if you can find a copy of it... Althouse, Jay. Copyright: The Complete Guide For Music Educators. 2nd ed. Van Nuys, CA: Alfred Pub. Co., 1997, also see the general text at [2] and the helpfully specific text at [3]. This is an established aspect of copyright law today. Small groups routinely make limited-performance rental payments for modern transcriptions of otherwise long lapsed works in order to cover their performance rights, while halls and universities often negotiate wider contracts. I've asked, and these contracts are not permissive enough to allow such groups to produce CC or GFDL recordings. This is not a new issue for Wikipedia either, the difficulty in obtaining usable scores for a great many works is fairly great, and although there are many otherwise free recordings available we are limited by the rights on the scores. The solution is to ask people to perform works available from Mutopia rather than to fuss with all the issues ourselves. --Gmaxwell 19:22, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
- Ok, then we indeed have a problem. I thik the confusion arose from the term "score", which (at least to me, but i'm not a native speaker) can mean either mean sheet music in it's physical form and layout, or the musical composition itself. I was thinking about the former, you where talking about the latter, it seems. -- Duesentrieb(?!) 19:24, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
- The last reference cited states, "I am not aware of any case law on the subject [as of June 2004].", which is rather at variance with the assertion that "this is an established aspect of copyright law today." - anon
- Well, I thought I was pretty clear. Yes, the Henle transcription is a derived work. However, since I can not find a copy of the original score, I can't tell you exactly how they differ. What I can tell you is that it would be unusual for any transcription to be the same as the original score, even in an urtext edition. Take a look at the Mutopia legal page [1], or if you can find a copy of it... Althouse, Jay. Copyright: The Complete Guide For Music Educators. 2nd ed. Van Nuys, CA: Alfred Pub. Co., 1997, also see the general text at [2] and the helpfully specific text at [3]. This is an established aspect of copyright law today. Small groups routinely make limited-performance rental payments for modern transcriptions of otherwise long lapsed works in order to cover their performance rights, while halls and universities often negotiate wider contracts. I've asked, and these contracts are not permissive enough to allow such groups to produce CC or GFDL recordings. This is not a new issue for Wikipedia either, the difficulty in obtaining usable scores for a great many works is fairly great, and although there are many otherwise free recordings available we are limited by the rights on the scores. The solution is to ask people to perform works available from Mutopia rather than to fuss with all the issues ourselves. --Gmaxwell 19:22, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
This is quite complicated. I think this discussion belongs on COM:VP or elsewhere, not in a deletion request. pfctdayelise 14:43, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
Put simply, if the version used by UninvitedCompany was an urtext edition (that is, "musically identical" to what schubert wrote - e.g, no notes changed), then his recording is OK for use on the commons; if not, then it is a derivative work of whoever wrote the score and it should not be used here. Raul654 21:18, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
- The work was played on the recording chiefly from memory. Most of my study and memorization of the work was based on score that bears this copyright: "Copyright MCMXII by Oliver Ditson Company." I would be happy to share this score with anyone who wishes to transcribe it for publication on mutopia; as it is a family heirloom I would require assurances of the score's safety and ultimate return. I also have a Henle score in my possession, which is in far better condition and more convenient to use. I also had a Schirmer edition of it at one time. The Ditson score is identical note-for-note with Henle and most other published editions; the only difference notation-wise between the Ditson and Henle editions are that a few high passages written with numerous leger lines in the Ditson edition are instead written with octava notation in the Henle edition. There are differences in the layout of the score (that is, the size and spacing of the notes and the location of line breaks and page breaks), and the Ditson edition has numerous extraneous expressive marks. Both editions contain editorial fingering by different editors, which is largely the same and which I have in any case ignored.
- Regarding the broader issue, I note that Mutopia operates under an extremely conservative copyright policy, due to the fact that they wish to protect international mirrors, and the fact that relevant case law is very different in the U.S. than in Europe. The salient difference is that in the U.S. nothing receives copyright protection unless creative effort was involved in its production. The courts have ruled that mere typography and layout of text or notes does not make for sufficient creative effort to achieve protection. Further, there is, in the U.S., no concept of a "copyright tainted" source for public domain material: that is, when nominal creative content is added to an existing public domain work, only the new creative content is protected by copyright law. Any derived work is infringing only if the new creative content is copied.
- In summary, (a) the recording was prepared based on several sources and is not a copy of any one source, and (b) the recording itself does not contain any creative content added by the score publishers, but is instead derived only from the underlying music first published in 1838.
- Thank you for clarifying, and, most of all, thank you for contributing your work, it's much appreciated! It's sad that we even have to talk about this - copyright law is a mess, especially when applying it to an international online project. The tendency of copmpanies to claim copyright on just about anything doesn't help either.
- As I have no means to verify what you said, I for one will just take your word for it. Maybe you can add some of your clarification above to the file's description page.
- keep! -- Duesentrieb(?!) 10:17, 19 December 2005 (UTC)