Hi,
See also my reply to Christian.
Michael> SO for Mutopia, whatever you do: GET A BULLETPROOF LEGAL
ADVICE.
Chris Sawer wrote:
> Perhaps I wasn't being clear in my previous message. Mutopia will
> initially only contain music which is entirely out of copyright, ie.
> the Composer, Lyricist/Poet (If appropriate), Editor (If appropriate)
> and Arranger (If appropriate) have all been dead for more than seventy
> years.
Okay, that was what I thought you wrote, but it wasn't all that clear
to me I think ;-).
> The lawsuits against people who have put music on the web are generally
> running against people who have put very much in-copyright music up,
> ie. MP3s (as Christian has pointed out), or in the case of OLGA most of
> the composers of guitar music are still alive or died less than seventy
> years ago.
Yes, but this is a new praksis which has been initiated within the last
few years. So in other words, nothing is rocksolid, even if you think
it is, as the copyright orgs. have a lot of resourses, and you can not
tell, what they will be going after next year - sheetmusic ? protecting
musicpublishers ?
Did you know that it in Europe it is possible to copyright the
design of a font, so Barenreiter may just do that, and claim Lilypond
violates their rights, when we use a musicfont, which *looks like*
Barenreiters.
Also OLGA had AFAIK a mixture of copyrighted and out-of-copyright music,
but it got completely shut down. Mutopia could suffer the same problem,
if just a few tunes slipped in which was not cleared (and Werner takes
the same risk currently I think). You should not underestimate the
legal issues, as things move very fast regarding this in relation
to the net.
Also considering MIDI files, that may be considered equal to mp3,
by the copyright orgs, if people can play them at your site.
> In my message I was asking if anyone was objecting to this entirely
> out-of-copyright music that is submitted to Mutopia being placed in the
> public domain. I can't see how we could possibly get away with
> copylefting or copyrighting it anyway as it has been typeset in
> Lilypond, which is placed under the GPL.
No not copyrighting, but I agree with Glen Priedeaux when he writes:
"It's not the music you'd be copylefting, it's the typesetting
as represented by the mudela code."
and following this, I would say that it should be copylefted, and
not in the public domain. Remember copylefting is essentially meant
to assure that it remains free, and no editor grabs the Mudela stuff,
and put it into a nonfree publication. With Mutopia so close related
to gnu.org I also think it would be good form to do it that way.
Also as Lilypond is GPL, then is the Mudela source not a derived work,
and therefore covered by GPL ?
> In our previous discussions we have been discussing the possibility of
> putting up some music which is not entirely out-of-copyright, eg.
> modern editions, modern arrangements or even modern compositions. This
> would have to have been submitted by the owner of the copyright, eg.
> the composer, and would have to be placed under some sort of copyleft
> license, the details of which have not yet been worked out. This is all
> in the future, however, and I would just like to get Mutopia up and
> running in the present with music that is completely out-of-copyright.
Yes I understand that, and I think it is a good idea to get it up and
running now, as you say. But be sure to read my comment to Christian.
> I hope this clears things up slightly,
It do, and good luck with it ! :-)
My best regards,
Michael Nyvang.
