Had Hyperion settled with Dr Sawkins at the onset, they would have paid him 3000.00 UK Sterling Pounds, versus 3 million they lost after going to trial --and then losing on appeal.
And the issue isn't a single judge's 'bad decision' ( Hyperion lost in the first trial and then on appeal). The statue itself needs modification.
And while I am fearful of what this will do to Hyperion, Dr. Sawkin's was hardly a Simon LeGreed in this matter. He was asking for modest compensation early on.
But this case illustrates exactly the thorny issues involved in preparing music editions of older music; and the editor's rights.
On 2/13/06, David W. Fenton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On 14 Feb 2006 at 0:01, Johannes Gebauer wrote:
> On 13.02.2006 Kim Patrick Clow wrote:
> > I'm publishing my performing edition of 18th century baroque music.
> > None of what I have prepared has never been published.
>
> I can only tell you what is true in Germany, but I assume that Europe
> is very similar: As long as you note the copyright in the edition,
> there is nothing else you have to do. The music itself obviously
> cannot be copyrighted, nor can you (or do you have to) get the sole
> publication rights (since the music had been published before, it
> makes no difference when this was).
>
> Don't take my word for it, I don't know the UK laws, nor am I an
> expert on music copyrights, but I don't think there is anything else
> you need to do.
The UK is a different animal after the conclusion of the
Sawkins/Hyperion case, where an editor was given rights in the
recording equal to a composer (more or less). I'm not sure how this
effects printed copyright, but it definitely shows that things in the
UK are not like elsewhere in regard to copyright law.
Personally, even as a musicologist, I think the Sawkins decision was
woefully misguided. The judge really didn't understand the issues,
seems to me, and Sawkins seemed to want to have his cake and eat it,
too. If his goal was to recover the composer's original (lost) text,
how could he claim authorship in it? And the judge took evidence
about a different edition of the same work where the reconstructed
parts differed from Sawkins's parts by only a few notes, and took
these tiny differences as evidence of Sawkins's right to authorship!
The commonsense conclusion from my point of view is that the near-
identical reconstructions demonstrate precisely how much the notes
were dictated by the original composer's work.
I have a long article posted in a different forum that criticises the
Sawkins decision in some detail. I'll send it to anyone who's
interested.
--
David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com
David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
Finale@shsu.edu
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
--
Kim Patrick Clow
"There's really only two types of music: good and bad." ~ Rossini
_______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
