Klarinet Archive - Posting 000288.txt from 2010/06

From: William Patry <williampatry@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Sheet music copyright
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2010 22:24:52 -0400

I have been a full-time copyright lawyer for 28 years, and in lots of capac=
ities: copyright counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives, Policy Plann=
ing Advisor to the Register of Copyrights, a law professor, as a private la=
wyer representing copyright owners including music publishers, and now at G=
oogle. I also have written lots of books and articles about copyright, incl=
uding one last year lamenting the state of conversation about these issues,=
Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars.=A0I was a composition major at univer=
sity.
My own views have evolved over the years. I still believe strongly that cop=
yright laws have an important role to play. I still buy lots of sheet music=
-- almost all of it from Gary -- and I will say I have never bought any sh=
eet music based on whether it was in the public domain or not. I buy it bas=
ed on the value it contains, and I think most people do too: copyright isn'=
t fairy dust automatically giving things value that they don't otherwise ha=
ve. Instead, it protects, after the fact, things that have been created and=
which do have value that can be appropriated without compensation. That's =
important, but its also important to realize that copyright itself doesn't =
create value: giving people what they what does as in any other field.=A0
But I and many others who have spent our whole careers in a field we love, =
are very unhappy about the current state of the law because it is far too o=
ften used to stifle innovation, not further it. In my view the copyright la=
ws need a thorough recasting so that they can again serve their purpose of =
encouraging people to create things that would not have been created otherw=
ise, while not suppressing uses that are socially desirable and which are n=
ot free-riding on others.Of course there are people who copy simply because=
they don't want to pay, but our copyright laws have been quite adequate to=
take care of such miscreants for =A0well over a hundred years.
I agree with others on this thread that there is widespread dissatisfaction=
with the current state of affairs by people who passionately care about pe=
ople who create, including those who create by creatively using others' wor=
ks too.=A0

--- On Wed, 6/30/10, Joseph Wakeling <joseph.wakeling@-----.net> wrote:

From: Joseph Wakeling <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
Subject: Re: [kl] Sheet music copyright
To: klarinet@-----.com
Date: Wednesday, June 30, 2010, 7:56 PM

On 07/01/2010 01:38 AM, Michelle Guajardo wrote:
> And shame on our country for allowing that to happen.

It was a fairly cheap shot of me to make that remark, especially given
that I wasn't even born in the 1950s, but you did rather set yourself up
for it, and I thought it made an appropriate point ... :-)

I'd ask you to consider the more substantial points I'm making, though
-- that whatever the present legal situation, there is a good case to be
made for the law to permit exactly the kind of copying that Eleanor was
arguing in favour of.

It's not good enough to dismiss this as the whining of an uppity
teenager (which, incidentally, I don't think is a fair description of
Eleanor).=A0 There are a lot of different people, highly educated, from
many different fields of work -- authors, composers, artists, scientists
-- who are convinced the present copyright system is seriously,
seriously broken and is an inappropriate solution to the balancing of
creator and consumer needs in the internet age.

If I point out to you that one of the senior members of the French
branch of the Pirate Party (yes, it really exists) is a talented young
composer, perhaps it can at least be recognized that not all creators of
artistic works see their careers as being best supported by the current
copyright system ... ?

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