[Foundation-l] Implications of IMSLP case

Mon Oct 22 08:04:18 UTC 2007

Brianna Laugher wrote:
> Their C&D letter ( http://imslpforums.org/viewtopic.php?t=615 )
> mentions specifically the following artists, and I copied their death
> years from Wikipedia:
>
> B Bartok d. 1945
> I Friedman d. 1948
> J Marx d. 1964
> A Schonberg d. 1951
> R Strauss d. 1949
> A von Zemlinski d. 1942
>
> G Mahler d. 1911
> L Janacek d. 1928
> A Berg d. 1935
> O Respighi d. 1936
> K Szymanowski d. 1937 (well, in a few months)
>
> So it seems we should have no problem to host around half of these works.
>   
At first glance all of these people would normally be in the public 
domain in Canada except Marx, assuming that there is only one J. Marx.  
(Groucho Marx died in 1977, and did write some songs.  His legal name 
was Julius. :-) )
> The letter says, "As you are aware, [Europe has copyright author death
> +70, Canada has author death + 50]. Certain of these composers' works
> are further protected in Canada or the United States under the
> appropriate /Copyright Act/ of these jurisdictions."
>
> Further protected, what are they talking about? Any ideas?
>   
No.  If they are making such a claim it's up to them to provide a basis 
for it - perhaps a section of the Copyright Act.

An amusing sentence in the letter is "It is our understanding that it is 
possible to filter IP addresses of those who take part in copying files 
from your site to prevent such unauthorized copyright infringement."  If 
these lawyers believe that Canadian copyright law is being infringed why 
are they talking about filters?

The expression "we reserve our client's rights" doesn't really mean that 
they will do anything.  Beginning a court action in Europe is 
conceivable, but there is no mechanism for enforcing the decision in 
Canada when the actions would not be illegal in Canada.  Canada does 
have laws for the reciprocal enforcement of court orders, but these are 
a matter of provincial jurisdiction, and they appear limited to very 
specific circumstances covering such things as commercial debt and child 
support.

Intimidation letters like this can be very effective against people who 
are naïve about the law.  A person running a one man operation is 
especially vulnerable to these tactics.  The optimum would be to push 
back against such actions that are based on questionable abuses of law. 
Until people have the guts to do that these tactics will not stop.

Ec