Klarinet Archive - Posting 000919.txt from 1999/11

From: "Kevin Fay (LCA)" <kevinfay@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] More Copyright Pointyheadedness
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 17:24:31 -0500

More copyright stuff -- delete right away if not interested.

Jim O'Briant noted:

<<<But a COPY is still a COPY, whether photocopied, handwritten or done on a
computer. And even if you copy my arrangement and make changes, my
arrangement is still copyrighted and you are legally required to obtain my
permission first. Until my copyright expires, I have the right to grant or
deny that permission, and if I grant it to require any royalty payment I
want as a condition of permission. If you want to legally copy a published
arrangement without getting permission, that arrangement must be in the
Public Domain.>>>

Jim is exactly correct. The easiest way to illegally copy music -- the
photocopier -- is also the easiest piracy to prove. Copying by hand is just
as illegal, however. Finale is just a more efficient way to copy by hand.

I don't have a lot of time to go through a technically correct explanation
of "derivative works," which is the actual problem here. A good example of
a derivative work is how we all did geography reports in grade school --
paraphrasing what we read in the encyclopedia. Theoretically, the report is
a copyright violation as a derivative work of the encyclopedia -- while not
a word-for-word "copy," it is just as clear a "borrowing" of the
intellectual property.

This is the problem with copyrighted editions of public domain works. As
said before, Mozart's notes (like the telephone numbers in the Feist
decision) are public domain -- anyone can load them on Finale and publish
away. The elements that have been added to the edition are NOT public
domain, however, and may not be freely copied.

The example of the Mozart concerto is perhaps a bad one for teaching this
concept, because many of the notes are clearly not Mozart's. Whose property
they are is at best a mess -- most editions of the concerto have similar
note deviations from what must have been done for the basset clarinet.

If you come out with a "new" edition of the Mozart, the copyright holder of
the prior edition (or editions) that you referenced in compiling your
edition are going to have a nasty little problem of proof. While its will
be clear that you didn't go all the way back to the urtext -- because one
does not exist -- they won't be able to prove that you stole from THEIR
edition. This is probably why there are so many editions of the Mozart
concerto out there.

So technically, if you copy out a public domain work from a copyrighted
edition, you are probably violating a copyright. If there are multiple
editions of the work, however, as a practical matter you are probably safe
because of the proof problem the potential plaintiffs will have in showing
that your edition is a derivative work.

Whew -- this is getting too much like work. Anyone try those new plastic
reeds lately?

kjf

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