On Sun, Jan 02, 2011 at 08:09:52PM -0500, Michael Ellis wrote: > Thanks Graham, it's good to get the straight story! I must say there are > certainly some confusing aspects to copyright law.
First, I must clarify that I cannot give you a straight story. To begin with, I am not a certified lawyer, and certainly not a certified lawyer in your legal jurisdiction. Some jurisdictions have laws against non-lawyers giving legal advice. I am not giving legal advice; I am merely giving my semi-informed opinion on the basis of having read some internet articles and skimming through two sets of copyright legislation (Canadian and UK). Second, there is no such thing as "copyright law". Each country has its own copyright law. There is a Berne convention on copyright, but my understanding is that such a treaty only calls upon its signatories to enact legislation with the specified general terms. Third, even if I *were* a qualified lawyer in a particular jurisdiction (say, Canada), and even if you were in the same country, the global nature of the internet makes it very unclear as to which set of copyright law. If you want a truly "straight story", you would probably need to consult somebody who was familiar with copyright law, and the legal history of copyright cases, of every country in the world. > So If I'm > understanding you correctly, if I were to transcribe a fugue from an out > of copyright source, I have a copyright if I make a mistake and none if I > copy it perfectly! My guess is that if you transcribe a fugue from an out of copyright source, you have copyright over that rendition. That is the only thing that I can think of which would allow transcribers to put such music under different copyright licenses -- for example, Mutopia allows various Creative Commons licenses. If the transcriber did not have copyright over their work, then it would not be legally possible for them to place it under any license. If this guess is correct, then the question of "mistakes" is not relevant. > What if I transcribe from a copyrighted source and > make a mistake (or a lot of mistakes)? Then you have infringed copyright, regardless of the number of mistakes. (unless your actions fall under a narrow set of exceptions as defined in whatever country's copyright law is applicable) > Or copy from a copyrighted source > only those aspects that exist verbatim in a non-copyrighted version, e.g. > notes and rhythms as Bach wrote them but no dynamics or layout added by > the editor? My understanding is that the general consensus of non-lawyers who are involved in this stuff thinks that this is ok. I suggest you look at copyright-oriented pages from mutopia, project gutenburg, and IMSLP. > Anyway, I do appreciate the insights. For the time being I'm interpreting > her publicly granted rights according to the notice on her web site, i.e > free use for purposes other than financial profit. I would be cautious about assuming things, and remember that this type of license is *not* compatible with the GPL -- you certainly would not be able to use them in solfege. This may or may not be a problem for you. Cheers, - Graham _______________________________________________ lilypond-user mailing list lilypond-user@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user