Klarinet Archive - Posting 000946.txt from 1999/03

From: "Rosanne Marie Ritch" <rritch@-----.edu>
Subj: RE: [kl] Copyright (was [kl] Gilbert and Sullivan parody)
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 23:38:22 -0500

A couple of things. First, as writers and musicians, we all do (or should)
have an interest in copyright laws. While I'm sure most of us have
photocopied music, we probably also know that for performance purposes, we
should buy an actual copy for ourselves. This little bit aside, we do need
to remember that we are simply lucky that most of us i presume live in
countries where there is freedom of the press, where writers can write and
publish without fear of government involvement. With that said, we also
need to be aware of the fact that writers and anyone who creates something
(whether it be musical, scientific or whatever) wants to be recognized and
compensated, especially if that is their life work. Imagine what would
happen on the literature list serv if someone posted a Shakespeare sonnet
without attributing it.

That said, I don't think that in any case, the first poster of the parody
had any intention of passing it off as hers, and i'm sure she didn't even
know who wrote it. With this thing we call the internet, conventional
methods of dealing with issues don't work. If anyone has followed the MP3
debate you understand. Breifly an MP3 is a music file that can be read with
an encoder device (Winamp). Songs that would normally stay on someone's
hard drive as .wav files can now be condensed into the new MP3 format. At
various websites, you can collect these files and have your whole sound
system run from your computer. See problems with this? The record
companies sure do. They have been meeting to try to figure out what to do
about these MP3s. Why buy cds when you can get all the songs you want off
the internet at near-cd quality? And with the only cost to you being hard
drive space?

I think what will work (taking James' suggestions as humorous) is if we are
all careful about what we post and where we get our info. Certainly the
original poster wasn't trying to start a war here, and I also don't believe
Leila meant what she said to be a personal attack on the author. I am not
trying to take sides here-I think both sides have made valid points but have
flown off the deep end a little bit. This is the Internet. While presently
US copyright laws apply, I don't think that will be the case for long.
Eventually, the big guns are going to have to deal with these issues, like
the music producing industry is trying to do with MP3s. So that I don't get
myself in trouble, here is a link to a USA Tosay article that talks about
MP3s. It's a good basic article.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/cte630.htm

I hope in this I found some middle ground. Feel free to disagree with me,
but as I have not personally attacked anyone, there is no need to attack me
as a person.
-rosanne

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