Klarinet Archive - Posting 000035.txt from 2010/07

From: "Kevin Fay" <kevin.fay.home@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Sheet music copyright
Date: Mon, 05 Jul 2010 13:17:41 -0400

Oliver Seely asked about the Hyperion case:

<<<It isn't nearly as interesting, though, as the Feist Publications, Inc.
vs. Rural Telephone Services, Inc. case of 1991 because the "sweat of the
brow" argument was rather thrown out and the prose considerably more
straightforward, in my opinion. Over and over again in the text of Sawkins
vs. Hyperion is the thought that "Dr. Sawkins worked really, really hard on
his editions for about 300 hours." Admittedly, Sawkins vs. Hyperion was in
England and Feist vs. Rural in the U.S., so the view about the importance of
the "sweat of the brow" as regards copyright is shown to be different.>>>

Two points here.

First, Joseph correctly notes:

<<<(Note that IMSLP is based in Canada, where they have a higher
'originality threshold' than many other countries; this certainly seems like
an aspect of copyright law that is strongly non-uniform across different
territories.)>>>

The U.S. is somewhere in between the U.K. (low threshold of required
originality) and Canada (much higher). Until there is an appellate court
decision on the issue, it's not clear where the line is drawn here in the
U.S.

Second - Feist is *not* that decision. The critical point in Feist is that
raw data (telephone numbers) cannot be copyrighted, through sweat of the
brow or otherwise. Music - even music of dead composers long in the public
domain - is not raw data. An elaborate arrangement of a Mozart aria can
most certainly be copyrighted in the U.S. An "edition" of the K622 concerto
is an open question - the amount of "editing" may or may not be
determinative, depending on the judge.

kjf

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