[Foundation-l] Dream a little...

Tue Oct 17 18:14:13 UTC 2006

P. Birken wrote:

> Classical music recordings are what I would call the classical
>
>copyright nightmare. It might be possible to get solo pieces under a
>free licence, but orchestra pieces... I talked to a Conductor of the
>local university orchestra about putting some of their recordings
>under a free license. You have to get forty people (the recorders) to
>put this under a free licence. The next part is that while the music
>is free, orchestras usually rent the notes from some music publishing
>company (because it's too expensive to buy a complete set of notes for
>every piece). These companies in turn put demands on your use of their
>notes, most often fees for commercial use, which would in a way apply
>if you put this under the GNU-FDL or CC-by-SA.
>
>Nevertheless, it sounds like a good idea to fund a piano player to
>record the major Bach, Beethoven and Mozart piano pieces.
>
I think that a lot of this material has already been recorded.  Much of 
this is already in the public domain in better versions than we could 
ever hope to produce cheaply.  We would do better to research this 
thoroughly before we start commissioning piano players. 

I don't really want to carry on at length about copyrights in the music 
industry, but the residual payments that orchestra members receive for 
this sort of thing are pitiful.  Well established symphony musicians 
would count themselves lucky to get $100 a year for all their musical 
rights combined.  This is all to the advantage of the music industry, 
and not the artists, not the management of small local orchestras.  I'm 
sure that the industry is aware of how difficult it would be to get 40 
musicians to agree to anything that would put the industry's "rights" in 
danger.  They are not above taking advantage of musicians' ignorance of 
copyright law.

The concept of "renting the notes" strikes me as preposterous.  I 
suspect that the material is not copyrightable, but could not verify 
that without significant further research.  If the material is not 
copyrightable it is more likely that the mentioned restrictions are 
solely a product of contracts where the orchestra agrees to conditions 
that could have been ignored but for the contract. 

Going ahead.  Based on what you say it might be more worthwhile to "Free 
the notes."  If, for whatever reason, small symphony orchestras can't 
afford to buy complete sets of notes our efforts might be better spent 
in providing scores that these orchestras can use at no cost beyond the 
expense of running a printer.

By making these scores musically editable we could spawn an endless 
number of fully GFDL "Wiki-variations on a theme by Bach."

The other point to be made is "Do your research."  It would be a great 
waste of money to set about freeing what is already free.

Ec