



Project Gutenberg Volunteers Partial IMSLP Hosting 100
bbc writes "Project Gutenberg has volunteered to host all it legally can of the IMSLP's catalog. The Canadian provider of free public domain music recently caved to legal threats from an Austrian sheet music seller. On the Book People mailing list, Project Gutenberg's founder Michael Hart wrote: 'Project Gutenberg has volunteered to keep as much of the IMSL Project online as is legally possible, including a few of the items that were demanded to be withdrawn, as well as, when legal, to provide a backup of the entire site, for when the legalities have finally been worked out.'"
Re:What in the? (Score:3, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I don't even understand that sentence. (Score:5, Informative)
Project Gutenberg [gutenberg.org] - the first and largest single collection of free electronic books - has volunteered to host IMSLP's (International Music Score Library Project) collection of scores.
Related story: Provider of Free Public Domain Music Shuts Down [slashdot.org]
Props to Gutenberg. Donate [gutenberg.org] if you can spare a few bucks.
Re:Donations (Score:5, Informative)
And I think that Project Gutenberg is one of the best initiatives on the Internet.
Where else could you get, for free, electronic versions of books in the public domain? And they provide multiple file formats as well.
Re:Donations (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Good god, kdawson (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Classical music is the new Rock'n'Roll (Score:3, Informative)
I thought that this was an absurd legal opinion, and if really pushed it may eventually be overturned... at least with some future court case that tries the same kind of stunt. Still, it does beg the question to ask when something ought to enter the public domain.
Another interesting thing to think about: The King James Version [wikipedia.org] of the Christian Bible, who some suspect may have had parts written/translated by William Shakespeare, is still under copyright. I admit that this is an exception among books, but doesn't this seem to be something that should have its copyright expire and simply placed in the hands of the rest of mankind to work with, rather than trying to see if you might step on somebody's toes accidentally in a legal sense?
Re:Classical music is the new Rock'n'Roll (Score:3, Informative)
Letters Patent (Score:3, Informative)
In the 70s (or somewhere around then), when the original Gilbert and Sullivan copyrights were about to expire, there were some people who wanted to have them perpetually extended in the style of the KJV as a sort of 'national treasure.' Thankfully, smarter heads prevailed, and they were allowed to expire and enter the public domain, which is surely the best way to make sure they're remembered and enjoyed in the future. But the fact that such a thing was even considered, by anyone, and that the legal framework either existed or could have been created to do it, ought to be chilling.
Wikipedia also claims [wikipedia.org] that J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan also falls under something similar, and while I'm sure it's well-intentioned (it gives the royalties, in perpetuity, to a children's hospital), it's a rather dangerous precedent. (There apparently is quite a debate over its ordinary copyright status in the U.S. [wikipedia.org] as well. Bonus irony: Disney arguing in favor of the public domain in an intellectual-property dispute, against a children's hospital. Nice, guys, nice.)
Project Gutenberg's Problem (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Gutenberg site (Score:3, Informative)
A few extra things:
- Thanks to everyone who has said nice things about Project Gutenberg
- Yes, we pledge to continue "fighting the good fight" for appropriateness of copyright enforcement
- The Universal music claims are, as others have noted, legally unsupported here in the US. (I don't know whether anything relevant is different in Canada)
- We maintain some of our past letters to these types of claims at http://cand.pglaf.org/ [pglaf.org] (cand == Cease And Desist
- We have also argued many times that *if* there is infringement (say in the UK, an EU country, etc.) then it is up to the infringed-upon party to take action, not Project Gutenberg. (We even offer to help, by writing a general letter explaining that people should check the laws of their country before downloading...as stated in every public domain eBook and on the gutenberg.org Web site)
- Among other things, the rejection of IP address blocking (as proposed by Universal) can rest on the simple fact that even downloading a copyright item might not be a copyright violation:
-- many countries have notions of "fair use" that allow such use of copyrighted content
-- what if the downloader owns the item in question already (say, they own the sheet music in print form, and want it digitally)?
-- what if the downloader is not where the IP address maps to?
-- other examples you can think of...
Greg Newby (of Project Gutenberg)