Klarinet Archive - Posting 000032.txt from 2003/01

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Peter and the Wolf
Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 10:32:32 -0500

John P. Varineau wrote,
>Peter and the Wolf is no longer in the public domain.
>The GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade)
>treaty of 1998 (?) removed it and most other 20th century
>Russian music from the public domain.
[snip]
>Shortly after GATT, Schirmer let everybody know that the
>music was available, but only for rent.
[snip]
>It is a mess.

Yes. I'm all in favor of copyright protection during a composer's (or
artist's, or writer's) lifetime and for a long enough period afterwards for
any minor children to reach adulthood, but the GATT has gone too far, IMHO.
Movie critics call the corresponding copyright extension on film the "Mickey
Mouse law," because Disney, determined to squat on the rights to the cartoon
characters, was the driving force for extending the copyright on motion
pictures.

I think we're sacrificing an important part of the creative process with
restrictions extended to cover material created by people long dead. Instead
of living documents that filter through society and build cultural tradition
in the form of fresh interpretations at the time when they're most relevant
(as in the old oral tradition of storytelling), we've turned creative works
into relics and monuments that can't be touched until society has moved past
them to the point where the original context exists only in more relics: when
not only the composer but everyone else with living memory of the context has
died. We're losing the natural evolution, communication and ebb and flow of
creative culture, when those who can't afford to pay for permission must
either jump backwards nearly a century or start from scratch. I don't want
to yank food out of the mouths of babes, and I don't approve of violating the
copyright law. However, I'd like for the artistic community to reconsider
whether the present length of copyright really serves the best interests of
society.

Lelia

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