Klarinet Archive - Posting 000075.txt from 2010/07

From: Joseph Wakeling <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Sheet music copyright
Date: Wed, 07 Jul 2010 11:23:10 -0400

On 07/07/2010 06:15 AM, Bill Hausmann wrote:
> Have you any experience with how musicals are done? Whether the
> performers are commercial-for-profit or non-profit does not
> matter. Copyright is guarded most jealously and vigorously. ALL
> parts are rental only. There is no such thing as a "study
> score." They have no incentive to produce such a thing and much
> DIS-incentive, since some people would see no problem with
> distributing copies of it for free.

Those would be _publishers_ we are talking about, not theatres? :-)

The theatres _need_ a score. They _need_ piano reductions. They _need_
parts. It's in their interests to have all available at very little
cost, so if they can do deals direct with composers such that afterwards
both can be made freely available, that's a good thing for them. Why
would they do such a thing? Because if the originating theatre, acting
as "publisher", gets performance fees, and they also have a benefit in
access to scores, piano reductions and parts, they have an interest in
going down this double line -- free distribution of musical material =
more performances = more fees, but in addition free distribution of
musical material = more access to interesting new music = reduced cost
of production.

Existing publishers might lose, but the two strands of creative artistry
-- composers and performers/performing institutions, benefit.

I'm not convinced it'd work, but I don't think it's as daft or
impossible as you make out. I won't defend it further though. It's a
throwaway idea (I hope someone makes something of it).
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