Klarinet Archive - Posting 000607.txt from 1997/03

From: R Tennenbaum <rtenn@-----.COM>
Subj: Re: More copyright law
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 19:23:53 -0500

>The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of
>authors, but "[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts."
>To this end, copyright assures authors the right to their original
>expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and
>information conveyed by a work....This result is neither unfair nor
>unfortunate. It is the means by which copyright advances the progress
>of science and art.
>
> -- Justice Sandra Day O'Connor

Feh.

I admit I'm of two minds on this. As someone who hates to pay
excessively high prices for sheet music, and doesn't like to have to
worry about issues of rights when he's putting together one sort of
package or another, I think copyright stinks.

But as someone who originates material, on the other hand, these
forces which seem to perpetually erode at my copyright are anathema.
As if it weren't difficult enough to establish one's claim to one's
*own* work, to begin with, you've got people like Justice O'Connor
blathering about artistic principles. The fact is -- now more than
ever -- who profits from "build[ing] freely upon the ideas and
information conveyed by a work" is for the most part neither science
nor art, but large media conglomerates. I wonder if Justice O'Connor
has stopped to consider how many great songs, novels, might have been
produced had any number of artists not seen their careers cut short
because they could not assert their right to profit from what they
had created.

Granted, there are certainly plenty of excesses, but so long as
copyright is the artist's last refuge, I'm all for enforcing it.

IMHO, that cadenza is Stoltzman's to give or take to the public
domain. (Actually I'm one of the few people here who hasn't heard
it, though this will change soon). It would be nice if he gave it --
but it should be remembered that it used to be that the best
instrumentalists were of course expected to come up with their own.

If he did release it, anyone using it should credit Stoltzman, no? --
but how many do you think would?

Rafe T.
http://www.quicklink.com/~rtenn

   
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