GMG Classical Music Forum

On the piracy issue, there are lots of considerations:
1.  In my country, it's not "illegal" to download a copy, but it is illegal to "upload" (supply).   So if I don't do peer-to-peer I'm not committing an offence.
2.  Who's going to pay beethoven his royalty?
3.  Most classical music (except in the US) is heavily subsidised by the taxpayer.  I'm a tax-payer.
4.  Copyright is a state-sanctioned monopoly which is particularly virulent in the US.  Why should the state stop people copying what they have brought?
5.There is

Oops - cut myself off mid-rant:

5.   Most artists only get a very small percentage of the total amount that major labels recover for CDs.
6.   Don't think the bread rolls analogy works because most downloading does not cost sales.
7.   If I download from somewhere like darkmp3 and like something, I will usually go and buy it in a richer format (despite my crap ears) because that's what I do.

Quote from: Fred on June 29, 2015, 08:25:12 PM

On the piracy issue, there are lots of considerations:
1.  In my country, it's not "illegal" to download a copy, but it is illegal to "upload" (supply).   So if I don't do peer-to-peer I'm not committing an offence.
2.  Who's going to pay beethoven his royalty?
3.  Most classical music (except in the US) is heavily subsidised by the taxpayer.  I'm a tax-payer.
4.  Copyright is a state-sanctioned monopoly which is particularly virulent in the US.  Why should the state stop people copying what they have brought?
5.   Most artists only get a very small percentage of the total amount that major labels recover for CDs.
6.   Don't think the bread rolls analogy works because most downloading does not cost sales.
7.   If I download from somewhere like darkmp3 and like something, I will usually go and buy it in a richer format (despite my crap ears) because that's what I do.

The ignorance of these statements, possibly (but not certainly) excepting the first, is staggering. There's no way to not put it that bluntly.

Beethoven got his royalties which, however and obviously, were organized in a different manner back then.
Composers / Creators are entitled to royalties, but only for so many years; to speak of a lack of royalties for Beethoven now -- nevermind making this somehow part of an argument that it is OK to indulge in stealing newly created content -- isn't even an argument, it's just daft.

"Banks in many countries are propped up by tax-payers. I'm a tax payer (in some country). Ergo: It's OK to steal from a bank." I think I just heard  Aristotle vomit. One has *nothing* whatsoever to do with the other... and certainly recording projects are not (generally) subsidized and ... why am I even bothering to take this apart as if it could be taken seriously. As if subsidies made it either morally or factually OK to steal. "Wheat is subsidized by taxes. I pay taxes. I can steal all the bread I want."

Why should the state stop people copying what they have bought? The state does not do that; copies for personal use are not prohibited. Even copies (mixed-tapes) to hand to friends, when they were copied onto tapes whose price included a levy to go toward royalties, were not illegal. Online distribution is a whole other kettle of fish.

Most artists are lucky to get ANYTHING from their recordings, major or minor labels. Because making records is expensive and they don't sell many copies.

Stealing of any sort, including downloading, invariably hurts sales... and if only because it dampens the secondary market which in return is one argument for a re-issuing of a recording.

"If I steal a roll and like it, I usually go back and buy a strawberry tart, there."

Bravo. I really hope you aren't out of high-school yet, because with logic (and morals) like that, it'd be a shame to think you an adult, roaming about in society.

Quote from: Fred on June 29, 2015, 08:16:38 PM
2.  Who's going to pay beethoven his royalty?

I mean Andrea Lucchesini could use some income too. Maybe you could write to him and be like 'Hey Andrea, sorry if this is weird, but any idea where one could get a hold of your Beethoven sonatas since the record label deleted them? Love your hair btw!' or whatever it is you want to say. >.>

I do sometimes steal music because a) I'm poor, b) some labels refuse to allow streaming (Qobuz and Spotify subscriptions take up most of my monthly budget), c) no overseas library was willing to interloan the CD to New Zealand for me to listen to it and/or d) the thing is out of print and can't be bought anywhere for less than five times its value. Also e) I really don't care about record label executives and f) down with capitalism. I'm not going to pretend it's ethical though, particularly if the artists are alive.

Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on June 29, 2015, 08:43:55 AM
Digital storage changes everything.

Yes. One of the things it changes is the validity of your arguments, because the music we're talking about is not "out of print".

In fact, part of this conversation started with a statement that the music was available for sale from Amazon as an mp3. Followed by a statement that the same music was available for free somewhere else as an mp3.

If that's the choice - between legal mp3 and illegal mp3, rather than between second-hand CDs with no royalties and illegal mp3 - then huge chunks of what you're trying to say to justify the illegal mp3 are completely invalid. There is a legal method to get the mp3. Use it.

Quote from: Fred on June 29, 2015, 08:16:38 PM
On the piracy issue, there are lots of considerations:
1.  In my country, it's not "illegal" to download a copy, but it is illegal to "upload" (supply).   So if I don't do peer-to-peer I'm not committing an offence.

Your country is my country, and I am a lawyer.

Congratulations, you've not committed a crime. You have, however, exposed yourself to being sued by the copyright owner. That is still breaking the law.  Just because you've not committed an offence does not mean you have done nothing illegal.  If you're going to split hairs, split them properly.

Quote from: orfeo on June 30, 2015, 04:11:32 AM
Yes. One of the things it changes is the validity of your arguments, because the music we're talking about is not "out of print".

In fact, part of this conversation started with a statement that the music was available for sale from Amazon as an mp3. Followed by a statement that the same music was available for free somewhere else as an mp3.

If that's the choice - between legal mp3 and illegal mp3, rather than between second-hand CDs with no royalties and illegal mp3 - then huge chunks of what you're trying to say to justify the illegal mp3 are completely invalid. There is a legal method to get the mp3. Use it.

You say you're a lawyer. May I therefore suggest reading what I actually said, rather than what you'd like to think I said.

I in no way endorsed or activated piracy. Quite the contrary. As I made perfectly clear, my point was solely that there is nothing in practical terms "(other than your sense of legality and conscience) that would preclude you from ripping all those CDs to files . . . . . My point is just to illustrate that in practical terms, there is no limitation on the number of potential copies of the material." And in a previous post, what I actually advocated were legal downloads of digital files from the publisher at reasonable costs. I quote the relevant passage:

QuoteIf the company produces only so many sets and won't make any more due to poor sales, wouldn't it be in the company's best interest to let me buy a set of downloaded files? I'm not saying such a step would eliminate piracy, because it's always fun for a pirate to try to get away with stealing, but I think if more companies would acknowledge the gap and just allowed a willing user to purchase the files for a reasonable price, your objection would largely be met.

If you're going to split hairs, split them properly.

Um, no, the sentence doesn't work when you use it like that...

Nevertheless I apologise.

Quote from: orfeo on June 30, 2015, 04:14:44 AM
Your country is my country, and I am a lawyer.

Congratulations, you've not committed a crime. You have, however, exposed yourself to being sued by the copyright owner. That is still breaking the law.  Just because you've not committed an offence does not mean you have done nothing illegal.  If you're going to split hairs, split them properly.

I am not a lawyer so I don't quite get your distinction. AFAIK if something is illegal, then it is either a misdemeanor or a felony. In both cases there is a penalty attached to it. If downloading unauthorized mp3 files is illegal, but it is not an offence, then what is it, and what is the penalty attached to it?

I'm not arguing for or against illegal downloads, but does anyone have any info on the financial impact it has in the niche realm of classical recordings?  It has had a massive impact on revenues for pop/rock, and less for country, whose fans are the most likely to buy physical media, but what about classical?  Are the woes of classical majors and major minors attributable to downloads, or to something else even harder to reverse, like increasing cultural irrelevance?

I wonder if the mods could move the non-Beethoven sonata discussion elsewhere. Thanks.

Quote from: Todd on June 30, 2015, 05:40:17 AM
I'm not arguing for or against illegal downloads, but does anyone have any info on the financial impact it has in the niche realm of classical recordings?  It has had a massive impact on revenues for pop/rock, and less for country, whose fans are the most likely to buy physical media, but what about classical?  Are the woes of classical majors and major minors attributable to downloads, or to something else even harder to reverse, like increasing cultural irrelevance?

Increasing cultural irrelevance of the music itself, or of the recording industry?

Quote from: orfeo on June 30, 2015, 05:20:10 AM
Um, no, the sentence doesn't work when you use it like that...

Nevertheless I apologise.

Can't admit you're wrong, can you?

Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on June 30, 2015, 05:51:29 AM
Can't admit you're wrong, can you?

??? I just did!

I can't admit to splitting hairs because I wasn't (if anything I was doing the exact opposite by being too broad and imprecise). I did apologise for what I actually did.

Quote from: Florestan on June 30, 2015, 05:36:49 AM
I am not a lawyer so I don't quite get your distinction. AFAIK if something is illegal, then it is either a misdemeanor or a felony. In both cases there is a penalty attached to it. If downloading unauthorized mp3 files is illegal, but it is not an offence, then what is it, and what is the penalty attached to it?

Misdemeanors and felonies are classes of crimes. Committing them is not simply illegal but criminal.

Crimes are not the sum total of ways you can break the law, because criminal law is not the sum total of the law. You can breach a contract, injure your neighbour through a negligent act, defame someone. None of these are crimes. All of them are civil wrongs for which someone can take you to court.

Quote from: orfeo on June 30, 2015, 06:01:20 AM
??? I just did!

I can't admit to splitting hairs because I wasn't (if anything I was doing the exact opposite by being too broad and imprecise). I did apologise for what I actually did.

All right, we'll forget it.

Quote from: orfeo on June 30, 2015, 06:05:06 AM
Misdemeanors and felonies are classes of crimes. Committing them is not simply illegal but criminal.

Crimes are not the sum total of ways you can break the law, because criminal law is not the sum total of the law. You can breach a contract, injure your neighbour through a negligent act, defame someone. None of these are crimes. All of them are civil wrongs for which someone can take you to court.

Okay, things are clear to me now, thanks for the explanation.

What is the penalty for illegal downloads in Australia?

Quote from: Todd on June 30, 2015, 05:40:17 AM
I'm not arguing for or against illegal downloads, but does anyone have any info on the financial impact it has in the niche realm of classical recordings?  It has had a massive impact on revenues for pop/rock, and less for country, whose fans are the most likely to buy physical media, but what about classical?  Are the woes of classical majors and major minors attributable to downloads, or to something else even harder to reverse, like increasing cultural irrelevance?

I heard on a radio broadcast (from an author who has just written a new book on this subject) that just as pop downloads were peaking, at the same time the revenues for the recording companies had never been higher. But if there is more downloading of classical or any other type of music, that would argue for increasing cultural relevance rather than the reverse.

Already done... ;)

8)

Quote from: Florestan on June 30, 2015, 06:14:28 AM
What is the penalty for illegal downloads in Australia?

There's no such thing as a set penalty for a civil wrong. It's whatever damage you've caused the person you've wronged - in this case, the copyright owner.

I don't know what's happened in Australian cases, except that one attempt to force an ISP to hand over customer names failed, and the government is actually looking at changing the law to make sure it doesn't fail again.

I know that in the US, record companies have tried to go after people on the basis that by sharing, they've helped a LOT of other people also break the law. Some of the record company tactics have been questionable, and have relied on people being scared to fight the claims in court.

Quote from: Gurn Blanston on June 30, 2015, 06:20:03 AM
Already done... ;)

8)

Yeah, except that it's not stealing/theft (despite what record companies would have you believe), and it's not Beethoven people are not stealing from.

I guess "Breaching copyright in recordings of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas" didn't quite have the same ring to it, though.

Quote from: George on June 30, 2015, 06:22:08 AM
May I suggest it get moved the diner? At this point, it isn't about great recordings, right?

Damn, George, you are SO pushy! Are you from, like, New York or something?   :D

8)

Quote from: orfeo on June 30, 2015, 06:23:38 AM
Yeah, except that it's not stealing/theft (despite what record companies would have you believe), and it's not Beethoven people are not stealing from.

I guess "Breaching copyright in recordings of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas" didn't quite have the same ring to it, though.

Lets not be overly literal, I doubt there is anyone here who doesn't know exactly what it means. As it happens, I am not a lawyer... ;)

8)

Quote from: Florestan on June 30, 2015, 05:46:10 AMIncreasing cultural irrelevance of the music itself, or of the recording industry?

The former.  The recording industry is changing from mostly being dominated by big companies to big companies, small companies, and artist direct recordings.  More recordings of more material are available now than ever before. 

Quote from: orfeo on June 30, 2015, 06:20:13 AM
There's no such thing as a set penalty for a civil wrong. It's whatever damage you've caused the person you've wronged - in this case, the copyright owner.

This is actually impossible to quantify, isn't it?

Quote
I don't know what's happened in Australian cases, except that one attempt to force an ISP to hand over customer names failed, and the government is actually looking at changing the law to make sure it doesn't fail again.

I know that in the US, record companies have tried to go after people on the basis that by sharing, they've helped a LOT of other people also break the law. Some of the record company tactics have been questionable, and have relied on people being scared to fight the claims in court.

Looks like the whole issue is far from being settled, and it will probably never be.  :)

Quote from: Florestan on June 30, 2015, 06:29:25 AM
This is actually impossible to quantify, isn't it?

It's no more difficult than many other things that courts have to quantify.

At the very least, they could look at all the things you've downloaded without paying, and say "this is how much it would have cost you to buy it. Pay up." That seems pretty quantifiable to me!

Quote from: Todd on June 30, 2015, 06:28:05 AM

The former.  The recording industry is changing from mostly being dominated by big companies to big companies, small companies, and artist direct recordings.  More recordings of more material are available now than ever before.

But that means that there is an expanding demand for recordings, which in turn implies that the music itself is increasingly relevant, not irrelevant. What am I missing?

Quote from: orfeo on June 30, 2015, 06:31:59 AM
At the very least, they could look at all the things you've downloaded without paying

How can they do that? What law gives them access to one's computer(s) and hard disk(s), provided they can find them?  ;D

EDIT: modified the pronoun in order to make it impersonal.

Quote from: Florestan on June 30, 2015, 06:34:57 AMBut that means that there is an expanding demand for recordings, which in turn implies that the music itself is increasingly relevant, not irrelevant. What am I missing?

I was writing about music more broadly, not about classical music, specifically.  And even if the number of available recordings increases, the total sales volume and audience can actually shrink, or remain constant.  I've seen no evidence that classical music has become more relevant over the period that it has interested me.  I have seen the opposite.  By all means, provide some evidence of the increasing relevance of classical music. 

Quote from: Todd on June 30, 2015, 06:42:11 AM
I was writing about music more broadly, not about classical music, specifically.

Ah, I see.

Quote
And even if the number of available recordings increases, the total sales volume and audience can actually shrink, or remain constant.

True, but that would mean that the recording labels or the artists themselves actually record music just for the sake of recording it, without any marketing and/or financial considerations. I find it hard to believe.

Quote
  I've seen no evidence that classical music is becoming more relevant over the period that it has interested me.  I have seen the opposite. 

What is the period you refer to, and what evidence do you have for classical music becoming more irrelevant over it?

Quote from: Florestan on June 30, 2015, 06:47:09 AMWhat is the period you refer to, and what evidence do you have for classical music becoming more irrelevant over it?

Your standard riposte.  When asked to present evidence, you ask for evidence.  Yawn.

Quote from: Todd on June 30, 2015, 07:04:57 AM
Your standard riposte.  When asked to present evidence, you ask for evidence.  Yawn.

You kidding? You asked me to present evidence for a period you did not specify. How am I supposed to do that?

Furthermore, you made yourself a claim without substantiating it. It was only too logical for me to invite you to practice what you preach.

Quote from: Florestan on June 30, 2015, 07:11:10 AMYou kidding? You asked me to present evidence for a period you did not specify. How am I supposed to do that?

You kidding? 

Allow me to illustrate:

Quote from: Florestan's fictional rejoinderAccording to [reliable, objective sources], over the past [10, 20, 30, 50, 75, 100, other] years, classical recording sales have increased x%, funding for major classical music institutions has increased y% in [worldwide; countries a, b, or c], the average age of concert attendees in [countries or cities d, e, or f] has declined by z%, and more young and middle aged people cite classical music as their favorite form of music in [markets g, h, or i].

Various negative trends have been reported on in this very forum for literally years, not to mention the world at large, and occasionally some positive ones (a Nightline report of increased opera attendance that I posted years ago, for instance) have been posted here, too, and in the world at large.

There, now that I have presented a template, can you actually provide evidence on your own?  Choose your own time period, your own countries, your own metrics.

Quote from: Todd on June 30, 2015, 07:22:53 AM
Various negative trends have been reported on in this very forum for literally years

Links?

Quote
There, now that I have presented a template, can you actually provide evidence on your own?  Choose your own time period, your own countries, your own metrics.

Aha, so you ask me something but you won't take as an answer anything else than what satisfies your own terms and criteria. I'm not playing, thank you.

Quote from: orfeo on June 30, 2015, 06:23:38 AM
Yeah, except that it's not stealing/theft (despite what record companies would have you believe), and it's not Beethoven people are not stealing from.

I guess "Breaching copyright in recordings of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas" didn't quite have the same ring to it, though.

Is is stealing: you are stealing the artist's work and label's product, no differently than stashing a CD under your vest and walking out of a store.

Quote from: Florestan on June 30, 2015, 07:28:16 AM
Links?

Aha, so you ask me something but you won't take as an answer anything else than what satisfies your own terms and criteria. I'm not playing, thank you.

Another yawn.

Quote from: Todd on June 30, 2015, 07:36:00 AM

Another yawn.

Take a cup of coffee, it might help you stay awake.  ;D

Quote from: Florestan on June 30, 2015, 07:40:07 AM
Take a cup of coffee, it might help you stay awake.

As it happens, I am halfway through a big cup, but the predictable nature of your replies is acting as a soporific.

Positive trends.

One positive trend in Early music is to do with the way the sheer number of recordings has grown. I remember once looking at some evidence for this with Don Satz here - we looked at the growing number of recorded performances of The Goldberg Variations, which is easily obtainable from the Bach Cantatas website. More recently I've been impressed by ambitious projects for new works - The complete keyboard works of Arrauxo for instance, and Samuel Scheidt.

You've seen the same in Beethoven I suppose.

How it relates to sales is problematic. I also think that the artists involved make hardly any money from the projects. My prediction is that we'll see a large number of artisanal performances, produced by academics and amateurs in the best sense of the world, released cheaply via clouds. And live recordings.

This may be progress in a sense.

One general reflection on this discussion. How thin the veneer of civilsation is! To save a few dollars and to get instant satisfaction of a whim, people break the law knowing they won't get caught. I suppose it's like tax evasion.

Since I (most likely) was the person who initially raised this topic, but not under stealing music... ;)

The original hardcopy version of Andrea Lucchesini's LvB sonatas was circa $40.  That version is definitely OOP, and used copies are going for USD230 at amazon.  The hardcopy (discs, holders, and box) is far removed from digital downloads, at whatever SQ.

Presto Classical has the entire set at USD80 for 320kbps mp3s, or USD112 for 16/44 flacs.  This is about as expensive as the used copies, since I would want to burn them to disc (costs for media, cases, and my time).

And if I simply want the op.106 Adagio sostenuto, I have to purchase the complete set. 

amazon usa offers roughly 256kbps downloads -- not good enough for me, especially since the entire set has been uploaded to youtube (perhaps only google can determine if this is "legal" or not), and can be downloaded from there.

Selling digital tracks, whether that be one-at-a-time (they are called "songs" ???) or an entire album, is far from a costly venture (one-time cost of purchasing the digital rights, very inexpensive server storage, endless selling of zeros and ones, and no investment in hardcopy materials).

And how much does Andrea receive from all this???

Quote from: Mandryka on June 30, 2015, 08:01:01 AMHow it relates to sales is problematic. I also think that the artists involved make hardly any money from the projects. My prediction is that we'll see a large number of artisanal performances, produced by academics and amateurs in the best sense of the world, released cheaply via clouds. And live recordings.

There are more recordings available now, at lower price to the consumer, than at any time since I have been listening, at least in solo and chamber and small-scale repertoire.  This is good.  (And yes, there are more LvB sonata recordings than one can shake a stick at.)  New, Big Orchestra recordings (NYPO, BP, etc) and new opera recordings have dropped in number compared to the 80s and 90s, and Big Stars are less frequently recorded.  This is probably not good.  I suspect you are right about the future direction of recordings, and some artists have adapted better than others to new delivery methods.  Some artists self-record and post videos on YouTube for free from the get-go.  You gotta get seen (or heard) somehow.  Even in the pop and rock realms, recordings are increasingly used as a form of advertisement for live performances, at least if artists themselves are to be believed.

Most articles I have read about this topic point to long-term decreases in concert attendance and funding troubles for various arts and education institutions, though, of course, managers of such organizations will always say they need more money.  There are bright spots, of course, and classical music recordings and performances will never disappear, but how culturally important is classical music?  In this forum, its importance is likely to be overstated to begin with.  Wander out into the world, and inquire about people's musical tastes and concert attendance behaviors, and classical music isn't even a blip on the radar.  I wonder how many classical composers the random, average American or Briton or even German could name if asked.  I also wonder how many current performing classical artists could be named. 

Quote from: merlin on June 30, 2015, 08:33:01 AMPresto Classical has the entire set at USD80 for 320kbps mp3s, or USD112 for 16/44 flacs.

And how much does Andrea receive from all this???

For my money, Lucchesini's set is easily worth $112 for proper sound, but then I buy sets that are much more expensive than that, so YMMV.

I doubt Lucchesini has received a significant royalty from Stradivarius records for a good long time.

Quote from: Todd on June 30, 2015, 08:35:37 AM
(And yes, there are more LvB sonata recordings than one can shake a stick at.)

I think it possible I know someone who has seen the stick you've tried to shake at them.

Usually an artist will receive an advance and the record label will recoup the expenses related to the recording through sales.  Only after all expenses are recouped would an artist share in any future revenue.  Record labels need to make money in order to survive, and reductions in staff is one place cost cutting will occur if profits are hurt by illegal downloading. 

I feel very excited about the future of recordings in the areas which interest me. It's never been easier to distribute, and never been easier to record, both in and out of the studio. My one (slight) anxiety is that the artisists themselves can hardly earn a living from performing. Andrea could use  all the dosh he can put his hands on  I expect. But the performers will find other ways, in universities, through teaching, or some other line like with Rubsam. The days of stars making big numbers are coming to an end, because no one is giving out contracts like they used to.

Are people interested in classical music? Do they find it speaks to them? Well opera always seems to do OK in Covent Garden and Glyndebourne. The rich at their leisure. And interestingly in Paris, someone as obscure as Céline Frisch can sell out a major theatre on a Saturday afternoon, and a long festival of Bach on original instruments can sell out for every concert. And a exhibition devoted to a modernist can run for weeks and weeks (Boulez) 

And let's not forget one of the most remarkable musical business success stories of recent years, Leusink. There's a model to replicate there, a way of making money, which only works because people do indeed find early music relevant.

The

Quote from: Todd on June 30, 2015, 08:37:59 AM

For my money, Lucchesini's set is easily worth $112 for proper sound, but then I buy sets that are much more expensive than that, so YMMV.

I would probably pay $112 for a hardcopy version, since that is only a bit more than what I paid for Annie Fischer's set.  But as I wrote, for a download this seems quite costly when factoring in downloading, burning to high-quality discs, storage options, and my time.

Quote from: merlin on June 30, 2015, 09:48:16 AM
I would probably pay $112 for a hardcopy version, since that is only a bit more than what I paid for Annie Fischer's set.  But as I wrote, for a download this seems quite costly when factoring in burning to high-quality discs, storage options, and my time.

I know that small labels watch 3rd party prices on Amazon to determine whether a new (and expensive) edition of a box set is viable or not. We forget that most of these labels operate on shoestring budgets and can't just willy-nily re-issue something when it's oop. (Even medium labels like the soon-to-be-broken-up Haenssler Classics are suffering... which is a particular shame, since they've done so much good work in the last few years.)

Okay, while Todd was taking his nap I did a bit of research, respecting strictly his rules:

Quote from: Todd on June 30, 2015, 07:22:53 AM
Choose your own time period, your own countries, your own metrics.

Here is what I found.

Time period: 1615 - 2015

Countries: Worldwide.

Metrics:

1. Number of symphonic orchestras: 1615 - zero, 2015 - probably in the hundreds
2. Number of chamber orchestras: 1615 - probably in the tens, 2015 - probably in the hundreds, possibly more
3. Number of chamber ensembles: 1615 - probably in the tens, 2015 - probably in the hundreds, possibly more
4. Number of opera houses: 1615 - zero, 2015 - probably in the hundreds
5. Number of conservatories: 1615 - probably a dozen; 2015 - probably in the hundreds
6. Number of regular concert attendants: 1615 - probably in the hundreds, 2015 - probably in the hundreds of thousands, possibly more
7. Average age of concert attendants: 1615 - probably in the 20s-30s, 2015 - probably in the 40s-50s; adjusting for the longer life span of 2015, probably not much difference between the two years.
8. Number of recording labels: 1615 - zero, 2015 - probably in the tens
9. Number of people citing classical music as their favorite type of music: 1615 - probably in the hundreds, 2015 - probably in the hundreds of thousands, possibly more
10. Number of yearly or other time period classical music festivals and competitions: 1615 - probably zero, 2015 - probably in the hundreds.

Ergo, classical music metrics has known an average increase of roughly 1000% over the researched period. How one can conclude from this that classical music is increasingly irrelevant is beyond me.

Quote from: Florestan on June 30, 2015, 10:26:42 AMErgo, classical music metrics has known an average increase of roughly 1000% over the researched period. How one can conclude from this that classical music is increasingly irrelevant is beyond me.

Yawn.

Quote from: Todd on June 30, 2015, 10:35:47 AM
Yawn.

Your jaws must be already aching. Take care not to be left with a permanently open mouth.

Quote from: merlin on June 30, 2015, 08:33:01 AM
Since I (most likely) was the person who initially raised this topic, but not under stealing music... ;)

The original hardcopy version of Andrea Lucchesini's LvB sonatas was circa $40.  That version is definitely OOP, and used copies are going for USD230 at amazon.  The hardcopy (discs, holders, and box) is far removed from digital downloads, at whatever SQ.

Presto Classical has the entire set at USD80 for 320kbps mp3s, or USD112 for 16/44 flacs.  This is about as expensive as the used copies, since I would want to burn them to disc (costs for media, cases, and my time).

And if I simply want the op.106 Adagio sostenuto, I have to purchase the complete set. 

amazon usa offers roughly 256kbps downloads -- not good enough for me, especially since the entire set has been uploaded to youtube (perhaps only google can determine if this is "legal" or not), and can be downloaded from there.

Selling digital tracks, whether that be one-at-a-time (they are called "songs" ???) or an entire album, is far from a costly venture (one-time cost of purchasing the digital rights, very inexpensive server storage, endless selling of zeros and ones, and no investment in hardcopy materials).

And how much does Andrea receive from all this???

Andrea probably gets nothing any more as he is not the holder of copyright.

Does Stradivarius still exist as a label?

http://www.stradivarius.it/index.php

Quote from: sanantonio on June 30, 2015, 07:31:34 AM
Is is stealing: you are stealing the artist's work and label's product, no differently than stashing a CD under your vest and walking out of a store.

Morally I agree with you. But the law doesn't. It is not theft because, unlike with a CD, you have not deprived anyone of something they had. You have not taken away someone's mp3 files.

What you have done is fail to provide them with money.

Quote from: merlin on June 30, 2015, 08:33:01 AM
And if I simply want the op.106 Adagio sostenuto, I have to purchase the complete set. 

I always find this particular kind of argument bewildering. If you were buying a physical CD, could you walk into a shop and say "I just want the CD that has op.106 Adagio sostenuto on it"?

No. You couldn't. You would have to purchase the complete set.

Much as it is quite useful sometimes to be able to buy a single track, people seem to have become so used to it that they forget how they used to have to buy an entire CD (or LP) even if they only wanted one thing on it.

I hear you.  However, it is not just buying a CD of the Hammerklavier, but in this case having to shell out $112 for the entire set of sonatas.  Somewhat different, imo.

N.B. Interestingly, the op. 106 Adagio sostenuto is not available singly at amazon either, only by purchasing the complete set (same as at Presto Classical).

Collusion?  Part of the digital licensing agreement?  Quien sabe...

But it is certainly available at youtube, free of charge. 

Quote from: orfeo on June 30, 2015, 02:22:41 PM
I always find this particular kind of argument bewildering. If you were buying a physical CD, could you walk into a shop and say "I just want the CD that has op.106 Adagio sostenuto on it"?

No. You couldn't. You would have to purchase the complete set.

Much as it is quite useful sometimes to be able to buy a single track, people seem to have become so used to it that they forget how they used to have to buy an entire CD (or LP) even if they only wanted one thing on it.

Not altogether. Back in the LP days, it was not unusual for operas to be issued in complete form and as highlights discs, based on what the company figured most users were likely to want. And I still remember the 45s that might contain one or two hit songs for those who didn't want to buy the whole album. Of course the choice was being made for you, but the principle is similar.

Today those who don't want to buy Lucchesini's Op. 49 1 and 2 but want his Op. 109 can download just the "songs" they want. Legally.

Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on June 30, 2015, 03:19:41 PM

Today those who don't want to buy Lucchesini's Op. 49 1 and 2 but want his Op. 109 can download just the "songs" they want. Legally.

Op. 109, sure, but see my post just above.  So not every "song" can be purchased individually at Presto or amazon, and the Adagio sostenuto is not the only one (e.g. op. 111 second movement).

Quote from: merlin on June 30, 2015, 05:02:32 PM
Op. 109, sure, but see my post just above.  So not every "song" can be purchased individually at Presto or amazon, and the Adagio sostenuto is not the only one (e.g. op. 111 second movement).

I know. They've made 100 tracks available for download, and for the longest songs you have to buy the whole album. Personally, I'll pass on the whole thing.

Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on June 30, 2015, 05:27:56 PM
I know. They've made 100 tracks available for download, and for the longest songs you have to buy the whole album. Personally, I'll pass on the whole thing.

I agree completely.  And then "they" wonder why there are torrents and youtube postings.

Quote from: sanantonio on June 30, 2015, 07:31:34 AM
Is is stealing: you are stealing the artist's work and label's product, no differently than stashing a CD under your vest and walking out of a store.

Practically, this is not so true, I think. If you steal a physical object, this object is subtracted from the use of its owner, who suffers a lost, a minus. He won't be able to obtain any benefit of that object. But that's not so true when we are talking about "digital objects" because if, for instance, I copy a disk or a program, this won't avoid their owner to obtain all the benefits of the "original" product copied. I mean, the inner economy of digital products is quite similar to the economy of the ideas in general, frequently expressed under this attractive aphorism: "If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas."

Copyrights have always been as a sort of monopoly; that's the reason because they have a term. A protection for creators during a reasonable term, as a form of balancing the general interest and the particular interest of the creators. But with digital technologies even the practical possibility of this protection has been put into question. 

Quote from: Gordo on June 30, 2015, 06:01:16 PM
Practically, this is not so true, I think. If you steal a physical object, this object is subtracted from the use of its owner, who suffers a lost, a minus. He won't be able to obtain any benefit of that object. But that's not so true when we are talking about "digital objects" because if, for instance, I copy a disk or a program, this won't avoid their owner to obtain all the benefits of the "original" product copied. I mean, the inner economy of digital products is quite similar to the economy of the ideas in general, frequently expressed under this attractive aphorism: "If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas."

Copyrights have always been as a sort of monopoly; that's the reason because they have a term. A protection for creators during a reasonable term, as a form of balancing the general interest and the particular interest of the creators. But with digital technologies even the practical possibility of this protection has been put into question.

I can tell you that no creator of intellectual property, like music content, will agree with you.  When a recording is offered for sale, either as a physical item or a digital artifact, the creators, publishers and distributors only accrue royalties when it is bought (or sold in some fashion, used as ringtone, or streaming services, pay royalties, etc.).  Illegal downloads take money out of the pockets of all the creators involved in the project. 

You might dance around this simple logic all you want, but the bottomline (pun intended) is that creators of content are hurt by illegal downloads.  Also, even if the music is in the public domain, like much of classical music, the recording itself is copyrighted by the record label and the performer shares in this income.

Addressing your last point, digital technology has changed nothing about copyright protections.  It is the same term for composers and songwriters no matter how the music is presented to the market.  The clock on copyright starts ticking the minute it is registered (which usually is just before a recording is released) - and if it is a digital track or a CD it does not change the length of the time the content is protected or falls into public domain.

I think there are good arguments against intellectual property, especially in software and related fields, but the copyright in a performance is more justifiable I think than in a software technique. regardless, the existence of the copyright is part of how musicians get paid. The law has affected the business practices. Musicians might get paid differently if the law changes. But as it is, san antonio is right. Even if downloading doesn't affect that performer it does affect the next, prospective, one.

Quote from: sanantonio on June 30, 2015, 06:12:39 PM
I can tell you that no creator of intellectual property, like music content, will agree with you.  When a recording is offered for sale, either as a physical item or a digital artifact, the creators, publishers and distributors only accrue royalties when it is bought (or sold in some fashion, used as ringtone, or streaming services, pay royalties, etc.).  Illegal downloads take money out of the pockets of all the creators involved in the project. 

You might dance around this simple logic all you want, but the bottomline (pun intended) is that creators of content are hurt by illegal downloads.  Also, even if the music is in the public domain, like much of classical music, the recording itself is copyrighted by the record label and the performer shares in this income.

Addressing your last point, digital technology has changed nothing about copyright protections.  It is the same term for composers and songwriters no matter how the music is presented to the market.  The clock on copyright starts ticking the minute it is registered (which usually is just before a recording is released) - and if it is a digital track or a CD it does not change the length of the time the content is protected or falls into public domain.

Thank you!

Plus:

Quote from: Gordo on June 30, 2015, 06:01:16 PM
"If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas."

Unless the idea is stupid!  How valuable is a stupid idea vs. one that leads to e.g. heavier-than-air flight?  Are all ideas equal then? 

I know of a company that has had numerous ideas stolen by "entertainment" companies and others, after they had "pitched" the idea to do business with the other company.  The cheated company chalks it up as the price of being in a business where "ideas" are seen as fair game and not protected by property rights or copyright law, and they have undoubtedly lost millions.

Occasionally the other company will say "Stop!" during a presentation, and say sorry, but they are already working on a similar concept.  In some cases they are honest and actually do have a similar idea in development.   In other cases they have heard enough and steal what was presented!

I have a hard time believing that illegal downloads (or some years ago, mostly legal burning copies from/for friends) have a large impact on recorded classical music sales. There was a big impact on popular music but this was more than 10 years ago and one reason was that the industry itself had missed getting commercial downloads on the way. They probably recouped some of their losses since then with selling overpriced ringtones to kids.

Classical music listeners are comparably old and affluent. It took them years to get even interested in Downloads (and many, especially those older than ca. 50 still are not interested). Sure, I have no hard statistics but from my anecdotal evidence and the demographics of classical buyers I simply cannot imagine that filesharing etc. would have had a huge impact. (And now we have legal downloads and spotify etc. so the situation has changed again.)

I think the main bias in most of these discussions is that the decline of the last 15 years in the recorded music industry starts from a wrong baseline, namely the boom because of the CD replacing Vinyl in the late 1980s and early 90s. Here we have the factors of a new medium (which is also more expensive at first), additional purchases because older collectors were replacing their LPs and affluent buyers because the middle class in most western countries was doing quite well in that time. Parts of (South) East Asia like South Korea rising to almost first world economic conditions might be another factor.
And there was the original instruments movement going on to Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert which could justify recording this repertoire once again with different ensembles and conductors.

And in the 1980s we still had some of the most famous classical musicians of the 20th century recording stuff (Karajan, Bernstein, Arrau, Horowitz etc.) Apparently the industry believed that it could keep going like that forever. Of course it could not. This was probably aggravated by too many recordings of large scale works in the 80s and early 90s that were not all that distinctive and lost money in a mature market already saturated with recordings of Beethoven symphonies and La Traviata.
Briefly, a lot of the "decline" is actually regression to "normal" and if below normal, this could probably explained by saturation.

I believe that the fate of recorded music is only loosely connected with classical music as a whole. In hindsight, some people got very rich with recorded classical music within the 40 years from the late 1950s to the late 1990s. Hardly anyone became rich with classical recordings in the 1920s or 30s and the situation is maybe similar now.

Therefore the state and status of classical music is a different question from the state of the recording industry.

Audiences for orchestras in the UK have grown by 16% since 2010 with over 4.5m people now attending an orchestral concert every year, according to a new report by the Association of British Orchestras.

The survey also pointed out that public funding for orchestras has fallen by 14%, due to further pressure on arts budgets across the country. Donations and sponsorship, however, have gone up by 30%.

More encouragingly, the report states that "UK orchestras now reach over 660,000 children, young people and others in the community in education and outreach sessions". (http://www.classicfm.com/music-news/latest-news/uk-orchestra-audiences-up-since-2010/#cXOylqGezUHJaT78.97)

As the musicologist and pianist Charles Rosen so eloquently put it, "The death of classical music is perhaps its oldest continuing tradition." To place that tradition in context, consider the infographic below.

[...]

To play the numbers game briefly: Vanhoenacker professes to be alarmed that classical recording presently constitutes only 2.8 per cent of the market. A cursory glance at industry reports would show that the market share has hovered around three per cent since the mid-nineteen-eighties. The stability of that share might actually be a sign of health. Yes, it's a niche market, but so is most music in our polyglot society—not reigning supreme is not the same as ceasing to exist.

The doomsayers also like to cherry-pick a few crisis-ridden institutions and use them to generalize about the art form itself. Classical music is the sum of all its institutions, performers, and listeners, plus a thousand-year-old cultural lineage; it can't be snuffed out through any combination of bankrupt orchestras and mediocre album sales. What's most remarkable, perhaps, is that the industry remains relatively vibrant in the face of an American media culture that appears so determined to marginalize it. The classical-music declinists rarely consider the value in having a few of the greatest orchestras in the world located in America, the so-called homeland of pop culture. Or the civic pride that the citizens of Chicago and Minnesota take in their symphonies. Or the lifelong bonds forged between musicians and their audience. Or the uncanny thrill of hearing Mahler live, an experience like no other.

American classical music launched in earnest on Christmas Day of 1815. The Boston Handel and Haydn Society—comprised of middle-class music lovers—unveiled excerpts from European oratorios, and concluded with a rousing "Hallelujah" chorus. "There is nothing to compare with it; it is the wonder of the nation," proclaimed one critic. Next year, the Society will celebrate its two-hundredth anniversary. How many other American phenomena have endured for two centuries? Those are not the sounds of death throes you hear; they are a steady heartbeat.

(http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-fat-lady-is-still-singing)

Don´t miss the opportunity of guaranteed great fun: check the infographic in the article.

Quote from: merlin on June 30, 2015, 03:07:26 PM
I hear you.  However, it is not just buying a CD of the Hammerklavier, but in this case having to shell out $112 for the entire set of sonatas.  Somewhat different, imo.

In this case, yes.

And poco sforzando has also talked about things like single CDs of opera highlights

But it's not even true that each and every performance would always be released on single CDs so that you could get just one disc if that's what you wanted. There've always been things that have only come in box sets. I can think of a Hyperion collection of Poulenc songs I've been thinking about, and it's 4 discs, and I'm not aware of any evidence that it's ever been anything other than a 4-disc box. In that case, iTunes allowing everything other than Babar the Elephant to be downloaded individually arguably provides more flexibility.

It's simply up to the record company how to present and offer things, just as it's always been. You don't have some inherent right to what you consider a good deal, and you never have. They make an offer, it's up to you whether you accept that offer or not - but if you don't like the offer they make, that doesn't constitute permission to go and invent your own deal that you like, any more than you have a right to take a physical object from a shop if you think the price is a bad deal.  If something is for sale for $70 but you think it's only worth $50, you're not allowed to grab it and leave $50 on the table. There is an air in some of your posts that you think unilateral action is fine the moment that you're frustrated because the seller's offer isn't convenient to your own wants.

In fact, what you're entitled to do is negotiate. If you don't like the way that something is presented, then write to the record company and say "I don't like it this way and I'm not willing to buy it, but I'd be willing to buy it this other way". If they have any sense they'll listen - in my experience, most of the smaller companies will at least reply to you when you write to them about something, and I even managed to get a response out of Sony Classical Germany with a bit of effort.

If it's simply a case of second-hand physical copies being more expensive than you'd like, then message the seller of one and ask "would you be willing to accept $X for it".

But fundamentally, the world does not owe you the music collection of your dreams. Any more than it owes you the house of your dreams, the car of your dreams, the spouse of your dreams. It certainly doesn't owe you one particular recording of Beethoven's piano sonatas out of the myriads available.

Quote from: orfeo on July 01, 2015, 02:11:34 AM
...You don't have some inherent right to what you consider a good deal, and you never have. They make an offer, it's up to you whether you accept that offer or not - but if you don't like the offer they make, that doesn't constitute permission to go and invent your own deal that you like, any more than you have a right to take a physical object from a shop if you think the price is a bad deal.  If something is for sale for $70 but you think it's only worth $50, you're not allowed to grab it and leave $50 on the table. There is an air in some of your posts that you think unilateral action is fine the moment that you're frustrated because the seller's offer isn't convenient to your own wants....

...fundamentally, the world does not owe you the music collection of your dreams any more than it owes you the house of your dreams, the car of your dreams, the spouse of your dreams. It certainly doesn't owe you one particular recording of Beethoven's piano sonatas out of the myriads available.

Ah, thanks for that! Had a very calming effect on my pulse, to read this, and a lifting effect on the corners of my mouth.

Quote from: Jo498 on June 30, 2015, 11:58:43 PM
I have a hard time believing that illegal downloads (or some years ago, mostly legal burning copies from/for friends) have a large impact on recorded classical music sales.

So stealing is therefore allowed, because one believes that the impact will be negligible?  Stealing a dollar from Scrooge McDuck's money bin is not really stealing, because he would not notice the loss? 

This is the rationalizing of thieves throughout the millenia.

Quote from: orfeo on July 01, 2015, 02:11:34 AM
But fundamentally, the world does not owe you the music collection of your dreams. Any more than it owes you the house of your dreams, the car of your dreams, the spouse of your dreams. It certainly doesn't owe you one particular recording of Beethoven's piano sonatas out of the myriads available.

Amen!   0:)

Quote from: jlaurson on July 01, 2015, 02:30:00 AM
Ah, thanks for that! Had a very calming effect on my pulse, to read this, and a lifting effect on the corners of my mouth.

Amen again!   0:) 0:)

To paraphrase a famous lady, the problem with musical socialism, is that eventually you run out of other people's patience with your non-payment for their productions.  The "entitlement mentality" is certainly the disease of our day.

Yes.

I already mentioned one of a couple of relevant quotes from my own favourite musician, Tori Amos, on another thread where a slice of this topic came up. Very much about musical socialism: http://www.yessaid.com/talk/5baronsofsuburbia.html (the last, longer paragraph)

But it's worth also mentioning the other one here. Unfortunately, I can't find the exact quote at the moment, but it goes something like this:

Vineyards will often let you sample their wares. They give you a tasting opportunity. And you can try lots of wines, and you'll only like some, and that's fine. You might even be able to get the odd bottle for free. But if you want the vineyards that you like to keep making the wines that you like, sooner or later you've got to buy bottles. If you just keep taking bottles, eventually there won't be a vineyard anymore.

Having said that, I finally found a copy. It's on this site - http://www.musicaldiscoveries.com/reviews/toriamos.htm - but as the relevant bit is buried in the middle, allow me to quote it in full. Yes it's lengthy, but to me it's also a pretty good summation of how a musician feels about this.

QuoteSpeaking of laws of the land, what are your feelings about others individual covering your work and also downloading music from the internet?

OK. Obviously there are two separate questions there.

Although they are associated: music as community property.

Yes, fair point, which we'll talk about. I think that other people covering my work is exciting. I'm really open to that kind of thing because I think interpreation is an artform so yeah, I'm open to that. Community property fascinates me because let's not dodge it, this subject, by going back and forth. The core of this issue is do you value this musician? Do you value this artist?

Like when I walk into a painter's workshop, I just don't start putting things in my purse. Because I want them to continue to create and I want them to pay people well and not have nine year olds in the back getting say 20 cents an hour doing God knows what for them in that room where they do sculpture.

I think what it is important to me is that people have to look at themselves in the mirror and they can call this filesharing, they call it whatever they want. But you know it's about how do you show an artist if you value what they do? By taking it? That's the question.

Now that's what you have to ask yourself. Because I'm very clear on it. I don't feel comfortable taking stuff because it shows that I don't value what you do. Because music is ether now, we can, you can shroud it by saying it's sharing doing this, but I see it very simply. Taking is taking. And valuing is valuing. And these are the questions that we have ask ourselves.

If there's a wine that I like, winetasing is something that I'm all for. Tasting music and then deciding, well do you want to buy a case? Do you want to buy a bottle of it? Well I don't really want that one, but I want that one. But then you know putting a case in the back of your trunk after you've tasted it is a very different thing. Do you follow what I am saying?

Sure, yeah.

It shows that I don't respect the winemaker. You know what, at the end of the day, I want them to keep making that wine. So they are a small vineyard or a medium size vineyard. They have people working at that vineyard depending on that. People don't think about all the people, the busses and the trucks and the roadies. When I pass by Texaco, I don't say, "Well you know you guys downloaded my songs, so give me free petrol." It just doesn't work that way.

If we were in a bartering system and so everybody that downloaded my music came by and dropped some carrots by, we'd be fine. We'd be clearer. But you see we are not in a bartering system so how do you show value. And this is a question that I'm asking you. Because at the end of the day, we all have to sit with ourselves on this and it's not can you get away with it or and I've always said "If you don't have it, if you don't have a way to show you value it, financially, then take it because I'd rather you have it."

But, and sometimes it's "Tori, I'm strapped this week." Then take it, but at a certain point when do you become a taker. That's the question. And that's something a whole generation is going to have to ask itself.

Please do not claim that consequences you want to draw were implied by what I wrote.
I have not said a single word in favor of illegal downloads and the like (except that it certainly hurt the popular music industry), even less defended them!
But I also think that "intellectual property" is not a straightforward concept and there are obvious disanalogies to normal theft that have been mentioned already. It clearly does not help to claim that this is exactly the same as theft. (Especially because there are some things which are *legal* (as "fair use") in many countries, e.g. burning a copy for a friend, that also deprive artists/industry of possible revenue.)

Maybe this was not clear. I only tried to give some perspective and list causes I hold to be serious contenders for the decline of some parts of the classical recording industry because this wider question has also been discussed in this thread.
I am pretty sure, illegal downloads do not belong to the salient causes (again, the situation is probably different for popular music but there the industry recovered considerably since the options for paid downloads/streams have improved).

If Tori Amos lived exclusively off selling her music she'd be right. But...

51-year-old Tori Amos has taken the No. 1 spot on People With Money's top 10 highest-paid singers for 2015 with an estimated $96 million in combined earnings.

The American singer-songwriter-pianist has an estimated net worth of $275 million. She owes her fortune to smart stock investments, substantial property holdings, lucrative endorsement deals with CoverGirl cosmetics. She also owns several restaurants (the "Fat Amos Burger" chain) in Washington, a Football Team (the "Newton Angels"), has launched her own brand of Vodka (Pure Wonderamos - US), and is tackling the juniors market with a top-selling perfume (With Love from Tori) and a fashion line called "Tori Amos Seduction". (http://en.mediamass.net/people/tori-amos/highest-paid.html)

Seems to me that she can afford losing some hundred, or even thousand, bucks a year because some people value her music high enough to want to listen to it but not that high as to want to pay a few bucks per individual songs or complete albums.  ;D

EDIT: possessive pronoun corrected

Quote from: orfeo on July 01, 2015, 03:48:21 AM
Yes.

I already mentioned one of a couple of relevant quotes from my own favourite musician, Tori Amos, on another thread where a slice of this topic came up. Very much about musical socialism: http://www.yessaid.com/talk/5baronsofsuburbia.html (the last, longer paragraph)

But it's worth also mentioning the other one here. Unfortunately, I can't find the exact quote at the moment, but it goes something like this:

Vineyards will often let you sample their wares. They give you a tasting opportunity. And you can try lots of wines, and you'll only like some, and that's fine. You might even be able to get the odd bottle for free. But if you want the vineyards that you like to keep making the wines that you like, sooner or later you've got to buy bottles. If you just keep taking bottles, eventually there won't be a vineyard anymore.

Well, yes. But let me play the devil's advocate here, since digital files, which are infinitely reproducible, are not the same thing as bottles of wine which are not. And it's not just playing devil's advocate: I genuinely want some clarification of the law and its rationale.

Say that record company X puts out 500 CD sets for $35 each of Vikram Gupta's new version of the Beethoven quartets transcribed for sitar and tabla. There are no plans for further sets, but all the copies sell. After this, however, three other willing buyers (we'll call them DD, FF, and GG) emerge who would have been happy to pay their $35 for a set if they could. Company X however is firm and refuses to issue additional sets; the cost of producing just another three sets is prohibitive and they don't offer company-sponsored digital downloads either.

The following then happens:
a) DD persuades his kind-hearted friend VV to let him rip the digital files from VV's set. VV asks for no money.
b) FF finds a used copy on Amazon for $950, and wants it so badly that he buy its, this making the seller a nice profit of $915 that the record company and artists never see.
c) GG finds the files uploaded to YouTube, downloads them, and stores them on his computer or burns his own CDs.

Who is being damaged in each case, and are all these situations illegal?

Would the situation change too if company X had issued 1000 sets of which only 500 sell, and DD, FF, and GG had still behaved (for whatever reasons) as above?

In the US the law is very clear: aside from fair use, which generally means quoting small parts of copyrighted material for the purposes of scholarship, critical review, etc. which is allowed, all other consumption of the intellectual property is prohibited unless you pay for it.  It is common for file-sharing advocates to attempt to make a fair use argument.  These specious arguments have been deemed unconvincing by every court that has reviewed these cases.

Scenarios trying to make the case for hardship are irrelevant.

Quote from: Florestan on July 01, 2015, 04:11:33 AM
Seems to me that she can afford losing some hundred, or even thousand, bucks a year because some people value her music high enough to want to listen to it but not that high as to want to pay a few bucks per individual songs or complete albums.  ;D

So what? Stealing is stealing is stealing, regardless of how well off (or not) the seller.

Quote from: Florestan on July 01, 2015, 04:11:33 AM

Seems to me that she can afford losing some hundred, or even thousand, bucks a year because some people value her music high enough to want to listen to it but not that high as to want to pay a few bucks per individual songs or complete albums.  ;D

Seems to me if you think she was talking specifically about her own music, you've missed the point utterly.

You're very, very good at minimising things.

I think b) is legal everywhere (undeserved speculative windfall profits are after all what our civilization is based on ;)), c) will probably get the person who uploaded it into legal trouble almost everywhere and the person who downloaded it at least in some jurisdictions, and a) depends but is often legal per "fair use".
For burned copies (similar to case a) in Germany "fair use" included the right to give away a copy to a friend (it's illegal to sell it to him, though, and it would certainly be stretching it to give away 100 copies to your 100 friends). It seems also perfectly legal to rip a disc I bought to my computer and sell the original used. (Something I consider morally rather fishy, at least if done a scale of 100s or 1000s of discs.) There is a legal difference to computer software here where such a procedure is clearly illegal. For music it's only illegal to sell copies.

Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on July 01, 2015, 04:12:47 AM
Well, yes. But let me play the devil's advocate here, since digital files, which are infinitely reproducible, are not the same thing as bottles of wine which are not. And it's not just playing devil's advocate: I genuinely want some clarification of the law and its rationale.

Say that record company X puts out 500 CD sets for $35 each of Vikram Gupta's new version of the Beethoven quartets transcribed for sitar and tabla. There are no plans for further sets, but all the copies sell. After this, however, three other willing buyers (we'll call them DD, FF, and GG) emerge who would have been happy to pay their $35 for a set if they could. Company X however is firm and refuses to issue additional sets; the cost of producing just another three sets is prohibitive and they don't offer company-sponsored digital downloads either.

The following then happens:
a) DD persuades his kind-hearted friend VV to let him rip the digital files from VV's set. VV asks for no money.
b) FF finds a used copy on Amazon for $950, and wants it so badly that he buy its, this making the seller a nice profit of $915 that the record company and artists never see.
c) GG finds the files uploaded to YouTube, downloads them, and stores them on his computer or burns his own CDs.

Who is being damaged in each case, and are all these situations illegal?

Would the situation change too if company X had issued 1000 sets of which only 500 sell, and DD, FF, and GG had still behaved (for whatever reasons) as above?

The situation you're describing with 500 sets is to my mind quite different from everything I've been talking about, because I've been very focused on the situation where buying the music and remunerating the creators of it is possible. You're now describing a situation where buying the music is not possible.

Honestly, I don't know exactly how the law deals with this. I personally think that copyright should have a certain "use it or lose it" element, but I don't think that's actually the legal situation. The tricky thing for the company in a situation like this would be showing any damage from the breach of copyright, because that's a crucial component of suing someone. If no sale was possible, there's a good argument that the loss suffered by the company was zero.

I will admit to having downloaded some music for free because it has been impossible to buy. Not just expensive, but simply not obtainable in a transaction. That is a situation I ethically allow myself, but that is my personal ethics.

Well, let's say John Doe is sued by Abracadabra Records because he downloaded Symphony No. 165.32 by Max Mustermann, performed by Juan Tal conducting the Middle-Of-Nowhere Philharmonic Orchestra from Youtube as mp3 instead of buying the CD they released and ask from him $10, the price of the CD.

In the court, he says:

Your honor, they offer for sale a physical CD, I downloaded an mp3. Now, they don't sell mp3s. Why then should I have to pay them for something they cannot sell me?

Your honor, furthermore, I ask them to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the mp3 I downloaded was ripped from their CD. On Youtube it was labelled Symphony No. 165.32 by Max Mustermann, performed by Juan Tal conducting the Middle-Of-Nowhere Philharmonic Orchestra, but how do I, or they, or anyone else for that matter, know it is not in fact performed by Takahichi Kokorichi conducting the Symphonic Orchestra of Kalahari and recorded by Mwahaha Records? And if the latter be the case, why then should I have to pay them for something they cannot sell me because they never recorded it?

Would he be dead wrong or spot on?

Quote from: Florestan on July 01, 2015, 04:11:33 AM
If Tori Amos lived exclusively off selling her music she'd be right. But...

51-year-old Tori Amos has taken the No. 1 spot on People With Money's top 10 highest-paid singers for 2015 with an estimated $96 million in combined earnings.

The American singer-songwriter-pianist has an estimated net worth of $275 million. She owes her fortune to smart stock investments, substantial property holdings, lucrative endorsement deals with CoverGirl cosmetics. She also owns several restaurants (the "Fat Amos Burger" chain) in Washington, a Football Team (the "Newton Angels"), has launched her own brand of Vodka (Pure Wonderamos - US), and is tackling the juniors market with a top-selling perfume (With Love from Tori) and a fashion line called "Tori Amos Seduction". (http://en.mediamass.net/people/tori-amos/highest-paid.html)

Seems to me that she can afford losing some hundred, or even thousand, bucks a year because some people value her music high enough to want to listen to it but not that high as to want to pay a few bucks per individual songs or complete albums.  ;D

EDIT: possessive pronoun corrected

Of course this is the standard comment that minimizes the damage of illegal file sharing: Those millionaire songwriters and artists, who cares if they lose out on a few dollars because some poor guy illegally downloads their music. Blah, blah, blah.

However, the reality is quite far from that description.  For every Tori Amos who has had much success and monetary reward there are literally tens of thousands of songwriters who have made some money from their music but nowhere near enough to make them "well off".  Also many publishers are struggling, as are some smaller independent record labels.  Every cent of revenue they can achieve from sales of their product is necessary to their long term survival.

Also, all the musicians that are used on the recording dates, the secretaries who work at the publishers and record labels, all these people are effected (in a bad way) by every downward tick in the financial health of the music industry.

Quote from: Florestan on July 01, 2015, 04:41:08 AM
Well, let's say John Doe is sued by Abracadabra Records because he downloaded Symphony No. 165.32 by Max Mustermann, performed by Juan Tal conducting the Middle-Of-Nowhere Philharmonic Orchestra from Youtube as mp3 instead of buying the CD they released and ask from him $10, the price of the CD.

In the court, he says:

Your honor, they offer for sale a physical CD, I downloaded an mp3. Now, they don't sell mp3s. Why then should I have to pay them for something they cannot sell me?

Your honor, furthermore, I ask them to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the mp3 I downloaded was ripped from their CD. On Youtube it was labelled Symphony No. 165.32 by Max Mustermann, performed by Juan Tal conducting the Middle-Of-Nowhere Philharmonic Orchestra, but how do I, or they, or anyone else for that matter, know it is not in fact performed by Takahichi Kokorichi conducting the Symphonic Orchestra of Kalahari and recorded by Mwahaha Records? And if the latter be the case, why then should I have to pay them for something they cannot sell me because they never recorded it?

Would he be dead wrong or spot on?

You already know the answer to that.  That is an utterly bullshit argument on both counts. You don't seriously believe that a recording in one format is fundamentally different to a recording in another format do you? It's the same recording.

And you also don't seriously believe that it wouldn't be bloody easy to prove that a recording matched another one.

Quote from: orfeo on July 01, 2015, 04:30:53 AM
Seems to me if you think she was talking specifically about her own music, you've missed the point utterly.

Ah, I see: she was in fact talking about those poor devils who don't own smart stock investments and extensive property holdings and who gain a pittance solely by singing and performing, in which case I agree with her stance.

Quote from: Florestan on July 01, 2015, 04:45:29 AM
Ah, I see: she was in fact talking about those poor devils who don't own smart stock investments and extensive property holdings and who gain a pittance solely by singing and performing, in which case I agree with her stance.

*rolls eyes*

How much do you value this artist is what she said, yes. She didn't say "how much do you value me"?

Your deep need to constantly suggest that someone's wealth is relevant to the ethics of this is pretty pathetic. And how the blazes do you think she got the money to do those things? From her music. When she started she did literally hundreds of concerts, insanely long tours.

MORE IMPORTANTLY, YOUR SOURCE IS A SATIRE SITE!

Oh for fuck's sake. Do you not read?

Quote from: orfeo on July 01, 2015, 04:43:17 AM
You already know the answer to that.  That is an utterly bullshit argument on both counts. You don't seriously believe that a recording in one format is fundamentally different to a recording in another format do you? It's the same recording.

I'm not talking about the recording. If they sell only the CD, and he downloaded the mp3 and they want him to pay them $10 then they want him to pay for something they cannot sell him. 

Quote
And you also don't seriously believe that it wouldn't be bloody easy to prove that a recording matched another one.

Bloody easy? In most cases the total time of the CD doesn't match the total time of the Youtube file, to begin with. Secondly, you will have to bring an expert, or more, to certify that the playing has exactly the same dynamics, pitch, tempi and intonation for each and every second of music on both the CD and the mp3 file. Now, that would be a dream job for not a few GMGers for whom comparing recordings is their second nature.  :D

Quote from: orfeo on July 01, 2015, 04:51:27 AM
MORE IMPORTANTLY, YOUR SOURCE IS A SATIRE SITE!

It took you two posts to realize that.  :D :D :D

Quote from: Florestan on July 01, 2015, 04:53:28 AM
I'm not talking about the recording. If they sell only the CD, and he downloaded the mp3 and they want him to pay them $10 then they want him to pay for something they cannot sell him.

You don't buy a CD because you want a nice shiny silver disc. You buy a CD because of what's recorded on it. You don't download an mp3 file because you like the name of it, but because of what you think it contains.

Why is it that you argue in this fashion? I'm serious. Every time I've seen you get in an argument, with me or with anyone else, you seem to be trying to raise as many disingenuous arguments as possible, as if you're an amateur lawyer in a courtroom and this is a game.

Quote from: orfeo on July 01, 2015, 04:40:12 AM
The situation you're describing with 500 sets is to my mind quite different from everything I've been talking about, because I've been very focused on the situation where buying the music and remunerating the creators of it is possible. You're now describing a situation where buying the music is not possible.

Honestly, I don't know exactly how the law deals with this. I personally think that copyright should have a certain "use it or lose it" element, but I don't think that's actually the legal situation. The tricky thing for the company in a situation like this would be showing any damage from the breach of copyright, because that's a crucial component of suing someone. If no sale was possible, there's a good argument that the loss suffered by the company was zero.

I will admit to having downloaded some music for free because it has been impossible to buy. Not just expensive, but simply not obtainable in a transaction. That is a situation I ethically allow myself, but that is my personal ethics.

I agree it is a different situation, but in Classical, especially after you get past the initial rush of buying every warhorse who trots down the road, it is a situation frequently encountered; as often as 2 or 3 times a month, for me! It is also the only situation which ever made ME download something, although they were legal downloads in most cases, but even so. Like some others have expressed here, I just prefer the physical media and its associated goodies, and will usually exhaust all possibilities before resorting to downloading anything.

I've considered why this may be, and I suppose it is that downloaded media makes me feel like I don't have anything. I put no value on it at all, and this is despite the fact that I immediately rip and then store every CD I buy, so I essentially do all my listening from what is de facto the same source. I guess it is because I'm old and have a different set of values which I will likely never shake off. :-\

8)

Quote from: orfeo on July 01, 2015, 04:58:18 AM
You don't buy a CD because you want a nice shiny silver disc. You buy a CD because of what's recorded on it.

How do you know that? Maybe I buy it for the art cover only. You are a lawyer: is there any way you can prove beyond any reasonable doubt why I bought this or that CD?

Quote from: orfeo on July 01, 2015, 04:58:18 AM
Every time I've seen you get in an argument, with me or with anyone else, you seem to be trying to raise as many disingenuous arguments as possible, as if you're an amateur lawyer in a courtroom and this is a game.

Oh, wait, you mean this is not a game? You mean this is serious? You mean anyone in the world at large cares a fucking shit about what is been argued here? Wow, how cool!

And with that, I am most definitely out of here. Because I'm not here for your amusement, Florestan, I'm here to discuss an issue.

Quote from: Jo498 on July 01, 2015, 04:35:38 AM
I think b) is legal everywhere (undeserved speculative windfall profits are after all what our civilization is based on ;)), c) will probably get the person who uploaded it into legal trouble almost everywhere and the person who downloaded it at least in some jurisdictions, and a) depends but is often legal per "fair use".
For burned copies (similar to case a) in Germany "fair use" included the right to give away a copy to a friend (it's illegal to sell it to him, though, and it would certainly be stretching it to give away 100 copies to your 100 friends). It seems also perfectly legal to rip a disc I bought to my computer and sell the original used. (Something I consider morally rather fishy, at least if done a scale of 100s or 1000s of discs.) There is a legal difference to computer software here where such a procedure is clearly illegal. For music it's only illegal to sell copies.

Very well, but per san Antonio, in the US at least, "the law is very clear: aside from fair use, which generally means quoting small parts of copyrighted material for the purposes of scholarship, critical review, etc. which is allowed, all other consumption of the intellectual property is prohibited unless you pay for it.  It is common for file-sharing advocates to attempt to make a fair use argument.  These specious arguments have been deemed unconvincing by every court that has reviewed these cases. Scenarios trying to make the case for hardship are irrelevant."

And so in the US it would seem that (a) is illegal as is (c). But (b), which strikes me as more heinous than the others, is perfectly legal.

Quote from: orfeo on July 01, 2015, 05:04:19 AM
And with that, I am most definitely out of here. Because I'm not here for your amusement, Florestan, I'm here to discuss an issue.

Am I the one hindering you to do it? You know, there's an ignore button out of there.

Quote from: orfeo on July 01, 2015, 04:40:12 AM
The situation you're describing with 500 sets is to my mind quite different from everything I've been talking about, because I've been very focused on the situation where buying the music and remunerating the creators of it is possible. You're now describing a situation where buying the music is not possible.

Honestly, I don't know exactly how the law deals with this. I personally think that copyright should have a certain "use it or lose it" element, but I don't think that's actually the legal situation. The tricky thing for the company in a situation like this would be showing any damage from the breach of copyright, because that's a crucial component of suing someone. If no sale was possible, there's a good argument that the loss suffered by the company was zero.

I will admit to having downloaded some music for free because it has been impossible to buy. Not just expensive, but simply not obtainable in a transaction. That is a situation I ethically allow myself, but that is my personal ethics.

Please don't go so fast, as this is becoming interesting, and I think situations in which the music is simply not available have to be considered. You say you ethically allow yourself such downloads, but why should that be any more legal simply because it's your personal ethics? I see no difference here between your action and what san antonio is calling a specious fair-use argument.

Consider situations also in which an LP was issued, is obviously out of print, was never issued to CD by the record company, and private individuals have restored the LP to CD format. Legal or not? What if I as a private individual transferred the LP to CD, cleaned up all the pops and clicks, and made my own CD? And then perhaps I decided the LP was taking too much space, so I kept the digital files, scanned the album cover so I have the notes, and donated the LP to my local library (where they in turn sold the LP for $.50 to a vinyl die-hard)? Legal?

Would it make a difference if the LP was issued by a going concern like Sony, EMI, Decca, etc., or by a company no longer in business?

And let's go further. Would it make a difference if the restorer gave copies away of this CD or sold them (perhaps if only a nominal charge to cover the discs, envelopes, and postage - or perhaps a higher amount to make a profit)?

For example, is this guy legal?
http://www.78s2cd.com/

Quote from: orfeo on July 01, 2015, 04:40:12 AM
The situation you're describing with 500 sets is to my mind quite different from everything I've been talking about, because I've been very focused on the situation where buying the music and remunerating the creators of it is possible. You're now describing a situation where buying the music is not possible.

Honestly, I don't know exactly how the law deals with this. I personally think that copyright should have a certain "use it or lose it" element, but I don't think that's actually the legal situation. The tricky thing for the company in a situation like this would be showing any damage from the breach of copyright, because that's a crucial component of suing someone. If no sale was possible, there's a good argument that the loss suffered by the company was zero.

I will admit to having downloaded some music for free because it has been impossible to buy. Not just expensive, but simply not obtainable in a transaction. That is a situation I ethically allow myself, but that is my personal ethics.

"Not available legally / conveniently" does not, as we agree, equate "OK to take otherwise". We may make such decisions, as you point out, ourselves on a case-by-case basis... but we shouldn't forget that we're walking a thin line there and that, technically, what we do is still wrong and wouldn't pass either legal or Kantian muster. (And I'm certainly not guilt-less, vis-a-vis some producers of famous US and British TV series whose ware was not available in my location at my time of choosing.)

Meanwhile, there IS an "use it or lose it" element in the European legislation on copyright at least... although it's very liberally treated: As long as it's available SOMEWHERE in the EU, for example, and in SOME form, it's 'used'. (So, pack it in Cyrillic and stash it away on some Romanian website for extra confusion, and you've got your "use" it aspect covered... while sitting on it to do... well, whatever pleases you. Maybe wait for interest/demand to accrue. Or just be a jackass about it... whichever better suits the company's strategy.

Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on July 01, 2015, 05:21:37 AM

For example, is this guy legal?
http://www.78s2cd.com/

Since copyright expires (despite all the Mickey-Mouse and Beatles-inspired legal attempts to avoid that from happening)... so with 78s you're safe. LPs... it depends on the age, obviously. There's a copyright on liner notes, theoretically, at least... ditto the cover-art... but if the music's has expired, so will (most likely, but I'm not an expert on the arcane of copyright law) the surrounding stuff's. Finally: A remastering itself has legal protection... so when Membran (or Dante or Iron Needle etc.) just takes another company's cleaned up material, even if that material is long out of copyright protection, it's still not legal. (Just too damn expensive to take them to court over it, given the small amounts of $ involved in this business.)

Quote from: sanantonio on July 01, 2015, 04:21:44 AM
In the US the law is very clear: aside from fair use, which generally means quoting small parts of copyrighted material for the purposes of scholarship, critical review, etc. which is allowed, all other consumption of the intellectual property is prohibited unless you pay for it.  It is common for file-sharing advocates to attempt to make a fair use argument.  These specious arguments have been deemed unconvincing by every court that has reviewed these cases.

Scenarios trying to make the case for hardship are irrelevant.

Do you happen to know if there are any available data about how many people have been sued in US for uploading to, downloading from, Youtube or other sites, and how many of them were eventually fined, and the average amount they had to pay?

Quote from: Florestan on July 01, 2015, 05:57:24 AM
Do you happen to know if there are any available data about how many people have been sued in US for uploading to, downloading from, Youtube or other sites, and how many of them were eventually fined, and the average amount they had to pay?

Google it up and let us know. We're curious...

8)

Quote from: Gurn Blanston on July 01, 2015, 06:03:24 AM
Google it up and let us know. We're curious...

8)

I did. I found only what can happen to someone in this or that country, but nothing about what did actually happen to a flesh-and-blood person.

Quote from: jlaurson on July 01, 2015, 05:50:29 AM
Since copyright expires (despite all the Mickey-Mouse and Beatles-inspired legal attempts to avoid that from happening)... so with 78s you're safe. LPs... it depends on the age, obviously. There's a copyright on liner notes, theoretically, at least... ditto the cover-art... but if the music's has expired, so will (most likely, but I'm not an expert on the arcane of copyright law) the surrounding stuff's. Finally: A remastering itself has legal protection... so when Membran (or Dante or Iron Needle etc.) just takes another company's cleaned up material, even if that material is long out of copyright protection, it's still not legal. (Just too damn expensive to take them to court over it, given the small amounts of $ involved in this business.)

Thank you. That doesn't answer all my questions, but it's a start so I'll ask a couple more. (And in these next cases it's a subject of real interest to me.)

One of my concerns has always been the use of recorded music in plays. For example, I saw a production of Noel Coward's Hay Fever recently where the director played several Coward songs as mood-setting music before and after each act. Absent permission from the record company (and which would probably require payment of a royalty), I wonder whether this falls under fair use. It is clearly not fair use in the usual sense of quoting for a review or that sort of thing; on the other hand each excerpt was only a few minutes. But it's rare to attend a play where some kind of recorded background music isn't used.

The published script for Michael Hollinger's play Opus, which is about a string quartet performing the op. 131, requires in addition to the normal royalties a CD costing $35 that is to be used during each performance of the play.

I myself was writing a play in which I wanted to use the entire Cosi fan Tutte overture. Obviously the Mozart in itself is in public domain, but no recording is, and besides I wanted to repeat the entire sonata-allegro section following the introduction until the coda. So I finally decided to input the entire overture into Finale and create a WAV file from that. Clearly this is perfectly legitimate.

But how about this: in another part of the play I would love to use about 15 seconds from Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, where the score is still under copyright. If I create a Finale file of this excerpt and make a WAV from it, am I within the fair use laws?

Quote from: Florestan on July 01, 2015, 06:07:27 AM
I did. I found only what can happen to someone in this or that country, but nothing about what did actually happen to a flesh-and-blood person.

I know there have been prosecutions, I used to read about them from time to time. Mainly of the type where some kid came to visit grandma and downloaded 2 gigabytes before going home, and now granny is losing the house to RIAS... ::)

8)

Quote from: Florestan on July 01, 2015, 06:07:27 AM
I did. I found only what can happen to someone in this or that country, but nothing about what did actually happen to a flesh-and-blood person.

YouTube often will delete uploads it considers violation of copyright, but I don't know how much further action it will take other than deleting the item or the user's account. But so many things get uploaded every minute that I wonder if YouTube can keep up. I've seen lots of things that are definitely under copyright out there and easily downloadable with a free utility like Free YouTube Downloader. Some of these items have been up there literally for years.

Quote from: sanantonio on June 30, 2015, 06:12:39 PM
I can tell you that no creator of intellectual property, like music content, will agree with you.  When a recording is offered for sale, either as a physical item or a digital artifact, the creators, publishers and distributors only accrue royalties when it is bought (or sold in some fashion, used as ringtone, or streaming services, pay royalties, etc.).  Illegal downloads take money out of the pockets of all the creators involved in the project. 

You might dance around this simple logic all you want, but the bottomline (pun intended) is that creators of content are hurt by illegal downloads.  Also, even if the music is in the public domain, like much of classical music, the recording itself is copyrighted by the record label and the performer shares in this income.

Addressing your last point, digital technology has changed nothing about copyright protections.  It is the same term for composers and songwriters no matter how the music is presented to the market.  The clock on copyright starts ticking the minute it is registered (which usually is just before a recording is released) - and if it is a digital track or a CD it does not change the length of the time the content is protected or falls into public domain.

It's curious: I tried to offer some (objective) description about differences between objects protected by the traditional concept of property and the object of copyrights. But you took it as a plain defense of illegal downloads.

Property, as we know it, is a notion developed from the Roman Law onwards, and referred to material things. On the contrary, copyright protection is a very recent notion, with no more than two hundred years of changing regulations and now faced with the problems of digital technologies.

Problems related to copyright are never simple. For example, do you agree with the existence of public libraries? Public libraries purchase one or more copies of a certain book, but it can potentially be read by thousands of people, so it could be argued that there is a theft of the intellectual activity of the author. Then if a student can read a book in the public library, but he can also download it illegally to do a homework (and then destroy it), the differences begin to be difficult to establish.

Personally, I am the owner of several thousands of books, disks and movies, and I have paid several thousands of dollars to purchase them. Currently, I have, in addition, three subscriptions to streaming services of music (ClassicsOnLine HD, Spotify and, since yesterday, Apple Music), so I'm not a guy personally interested in illegal downloads; but I'm sure that new technologies claim for a rebuilding of the architecture of the current notion of copyright, even if "the industry" is against it. To deny it is to want to hide the sun with a finger.

Formulations as "copyleft", "free software" and "creative common licenses" are a proof that this is a real problem and an invitation to think these issues without dogmatic lenses.

i would warmly recommend to those interested, the books by the American lawyer Lawrence Lessig, many of them available under creative common licenses; for instance this one: http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/   

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b2/Free_culture_cover.png)

I would also recommend his TED Talk titled "Laws that choke creativity":

http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity#t-945141

:)

Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on July 01, 2015, 06:15:17 AM
Thank you. That doesn't answer all my questions, but it's a start so I'll ask a couple more. (And in these next cases it's a subject of real interest to me.)

One of my concerns has always been the use of recorded music in plays. For example, I saw a production of Noel Coward's Hay Fever recently where the director played several Coward songs as mood-setting music before and after each act. Absent permission from the record company (and which would probably require payment of a royalty), I wonder whether this falls under fair use. It is clearly not fair use in the usual sense of quoting for a review or that sort of thing; on the other hand each excerpt was only a few minutes. But it's rare to attend a play where some kind of recorded background music isn't used.

The published script for Michael Hollinger's play Opus, which is about a string quartet performing the op. 131, requires in addition to the normal royalties a CD costing $35 that is to be used during each performance of the play.

I myself was writing a play in which I wanted to use the entire Cosi fan Tutte overture. Obviously the Mozart in itself is in public domain, but no recording is, and besides I wanted to repeat the entire sonata-allegro section following the introduction until the coda. So I finally decided to input the entire overture into Finale and create a WAV file from that. Clearly this is perfectly legitimate.

But how about this: in another part of the play I would love to use about 15 seconds from Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, where the score is still under copyright. If I create a Finale file of this excerpt and make a WAV from it, am I within the fair use laws?

You will want to get expert advise, before venturing into this, but as a guideline to inform yourself: A recording older than X years (this changes every time Mickey Mouse is about to drop out of copy right protection, cynics might note) can be used any way you like it.
30 Seconds (or 10% of a "track" [whatever that is], whichever is less) of any recordings can be used under the fair use claim...
Things like Stravinsky can be tricky; he re-composed a few items to get them a new round of copyright... but the truly old stuff, if you have a rights-free interpretation, can be used. More anon.

Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on July 01, 2015, 06:20:20 AM
YouTube often will delete uploads it considers violation of copyright, but I don't know how much further action it will take other than deleting the item or the user's account. But so many things get uploaded every minute that I wonder if YouTube can keep up. I've seen lots of things that are definitely under copyright out there and easily downloadable with a free utility like Free YouTube Downloader. Some of these items have been up there literally for years.

Precisely.

Quote from: jlaurson on July 01, 2015, 08:52:52 AM
Things like Stravinsky can be tricky; he re-composed a few items to get them a new round of copyright...

Or, to establish any copyright, as the copyright of any of his work published with Editions Russes de Musique was not honored in the West, IIRC.

Quote from: karlhenning on July 01, 2015, 09:09:28 AM
Or, to establish any copyright, as the copyright of any of his work published with Editions Russes de Musique was not honored in the West, IIRC.

Yes, much of his greatest music had no copyright protection in the West.

Quote from: sanantonio on July 01, 2015, 09:17:33 AM
Yes, much of his greatest music had no copyright protection in the West.

Or should we say, much of his earlier music. As has been said, he revised a number of his early works to establish Western copyright. Probably one incentive was Disney's use of Le Sacre in Fantasia (1940), which appalled poor Igor as the score had been cut and re-arranged considerably, and he considered Stokowski's performance "execrable." (I do not know what he thought of Stokowski's Beethoven Pastorale or Bach Toccata, which seem to me even more execrable.) Plainly Stravinsky was not won over by Mickey Mouse or by Disney's stunning use of animation, the likes of which stirred Sergei Eisenstein (of Battle Potemkin and Alexander Nevsky fame) to consider Snow White the greatest film ever made.

Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on July 01, 2015, 09:26:17 AM
Or should we say, much of his earlier music. As has been said, he revised a number of his early works to establish Western copyright. Probably one incentive was Disney's use of Le Sacre in Fantasia (1940), which appalled poor Igor as the score had been cut and re-arranged considerably, and he considered Stokowski's performance "execrable." (I do not know what he thought of Stokowski's Beethoven Pastorale or Bach Toccata, which seem to me even more execrable.) Plainly Stravinsky was not won over by Mickey Mouse or by Disney's stunning use of animation, the likes of which stirred Sergei Eisenstein (of Battle Potemkin and Alexander Nevsky fame) to consider Snow White the greatest film ever made.

Right; I meant "most well known", e.g Le Sacre. 

Quote from: jlaurson on July 01, 2015, 08:52:52 AM
You will want to get expert advise, before venturing into this, but as a guideline to inform yourself: A recording older than X years (this changes every time Mickey Mouse is about to drop out of copy right protection, cynics might note) can be used any way you like it.
30 Seconds (or 10% of a "track" [whatever that is], whichever is less) of any recordings can be used under the fair use claim...
Things like Stravinsky can be tricky; he re-composed a few items to get them a new round of copyright... but the truly old stuff, if you have a rights-free interpretation, can be used. More anon.

Understood. The problem here, though, is that I'm not considering use of a recording in any case, only an electronically entered passage from a score that is most likely still under copyright. (My rule of thumb with Stravinsky is to see if a Dover edition has been printed for the work. Unlike the early Russian works, so far it has not.) I have to find out if 2-6 measures lasting perhaps 20 seconds when played will constitute fair use or violation, as paying a royalty to B+H is bound to cost a small fortune regardless. Of course until the play has achieved sufficient form for me to submit to a theatre, the whole thing is perhaps moot, but I don't want it to be rejected because I haven't considered these issues.

Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on July 01, 2015, 05:05:05 AM
And so in the US it would seem that (a) is illegal as is (c). But (b), which strikes me as more heinous than the others, is perfectly legal.

I do not know about the US and I not a lawyer (God forbid!). In Germany there is to my knowledge a clear difference between (anonymous) filesharing, that is providing the file to a large and indefinite number of potential users and giving "a few" (up to 5 or so) copies to personal friends, free of charge.

The problem is actually not new in the digital era. Similar slogans as "copy kills music" were already en vogue in the 1970s and early 80s when copying LPs on compact cassette tapes was apparently an issue. Despite the official solution, namely a fee on empty media and cassette players, the music industry kept wailing that schoolyard sharing or mix tapes were killing their profits.

How could b) ever be a legal problem? Nobody is forced to pay the outrageous price, the disc in question is not a good or commodity one needs to survive etc., so it is simply supply vs. demand.

Legally, it seems that it is completely irrelevant if there was only a small batch of recordings issued, if the recording is oop or not etc. For my personal moral evaluation this is relevant, however.

As for your questions with regard to the use of Mozart's or Stravinsky's music in theatre perfomances, in Germany there would usually be a fee to the GEMA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEMA_%28German_organization%29
involved. I have no idea if there is a corresponding institution in the US.

Quote from: orfeo on July 01, 2015, 02:11:34 AM

But fundamentally, the world does not owe you the music collection of your dreams. Any more than it owes you the house of your dreams, the car of your dreams, the spouse of your dreams. It certainly doesn't owe you one particular recording of Beethoven's piano sonatas out of the myriads available.

WTF????  Fascinating how you draw up a blueprint about me based upon sharing my experiences in terms of seeking availability of particular recording tracks.  Total projection, and patronizing as well!

Just who in blazes do you think you are?  And the same goes for your yeah-yeah running dogs!!!

:P ::)

I just read that as a general observation.  (I.e., the world does not owe me the music collection of my dreams, either.)

Quote from: karlhenning on July 01, 2015, 03:11:52 PM
I just read that as a general observation.  (I.e., the world does not owe me the music collection of my dreams, either.)

Duly noted, Karl.  Thanks!  But it specifically cites my pursuit of a particular recording of a movement of op. 106.  That is VERY particular, in my book!

BTW, Lucchesini's interpretation of the Adagio sostenuto is quite wonderful, perhaps the best I have heard.  And since I play that particular piece, it was inspiring as well.

Quote from: karlhenning on July 01, 2015, 03:11:52 PM
I just read that as a general observation.  (I.e., the world does not owe me the music collection of my dreams, either.)

Does it owe me the collection of your dreams?

I just hope it doesn't owe me the the collection of James's dreams.

Quote from: karlhenning on July 01, 2015, 03:11:52 PM
I just read that as a general observation.  (I.e., the world does not owe me the music collection of my dreams, either.)

Yes!  Tone and intention are very difficult at times to glean on the Internet: this is why so many misunderstandings arise here and everywhere.

I also did not interpret Orfeo's remark as an attack on anyone specific, and the specific example was most probably used because it was floating closest due to the earlier discussion.

Quote from: Ken B on July 01, 2015, 03:21:10 PM
Does it owe me the collection of your dreams?

I just hope it doesn't owe me the the collection of James's dreams.

0:)   There are worse collections, like those of my students!  $:)

Interestingly, the BBC often issues appeals for old personal recordings of classic old shows (radio or TV), or occasions of historical significance, which the BBC have themselves failed to archive.  Even though these recordings were certainly illegal at the time and in breach of copyright - the BBC now seems to be very grateful for that clandestine activity.

Quote from: aukhawk on July 02, 2015, 04:21:25 AM
Interestingly, the BBC often issues appeals for old personal recordings of classic old shows (radio or TV), or occasions of historical significance, which the BBC have themselves failed to archive.  Even though these recordings were certainly illegal at the time and in breach of copyright - the BBC now seems to be very grateful for that clandestine activity.

Similarly, in a box set of Bernstein recordings issued by the NY Philharmonic, one Wagner disc resulted from an illegal recording by a member of the audience.

Peter Gutmann's review: "Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this disc is its source. Although boasting the best sound and stereo spread of the entire set (and the quietest audience), it was recorded covertly (and illegally) in the midst of the concert hall by an ardent fan. Of course, these were the days before pocket-sized digital recorders, reliable wireless microphones, or even decent-sounding cassette decks, and one can only imagine how he managed with the bulky reel-to-reel equipment of the time. What's more, he attended and taped three of the four repetitions of this concert and gave the current producers the luxury of a choice among them (this disc is a composite of two). The Philharmonic did not broadcast its concerts during this era, and so were it not for such brazen defiance of the law this incredible concert would have never resurfaced. The multiple ironies of this entire situation are truly astounding!"

Quote from: aukhawk on July 02, 2015, 04:21:25 AM
Interestingly, the BBC often issues appeals for old personal recordings of classic old shows (radio or TV), or occasions of historical significance, which the BBC have themselves failed to archive.  Even though these recordings were certainly illegal at the time and in breach of copyright - the BBC now seems to be very grateful for that clandestine activity.

An interesting aside, if nothing else.

Or maybe... yes, maybe I'll just illegally copy and tape every TV show and concert I go to, and in case of "oops" I'll just cite the trusty old: "JUST IN CASE!" defense, replete with shoulder-shrug and freeze-frame faux-guilty look.  ;)

Quote from: jlaurson on July 02, 2015, 05:34:53 AM
An interesting aside, if nothing else.

Or maybe... yes, maybe I'll just illegally copy and tape every TV show and concert I go to, and in case of "oops" I'll just cite the trusty old: "JUST IN CASE!" defense, replete with shoulder-shrug and freeze-frame faux-guilty look.  ;)

Which doesn't address my point about the Bernstein Wagner.

But pause a moment on TV shows. What constitutes "illegal copying"? If I had (in the older days) a VCR or today a DVR (which is supplied by the cable company) or an interface like HomeRun, I could and can record any TV show for which I have paid my cable subscription. And I have done this numerous times. Say for instance that PBS broadcasts a Live from the Met opera or Turner Classics plays a movie by Bergman or Fellini I'd like to have. Now of course I could buy the DVDs of the Met opera or the classic film, but I have the means to record the show and either keep the output file on my computer and/or burn my own DVD. I am not selling or giving away the material to anyone else, and it is purely for private use. I have paid the cable company their fee, a portion of which no doubt is paid to the stations I am viewing. Explain to me the "illegality" in such cases.

In fact, in 1984 the Supreme Court decided 5-4 in Universal Studios vs. Sony Corporation of America to allow home recording.

I would really be astonished if such private use was illegal (and I am pretty sure it is legal in most of Europe, not sure about the US where one can sue everybody about everything). To be able to do something like this was the main point of a VCR.

Quote from: Jo498 on July 02, 2015, 06:07:06 AM
(and I am pretty sure it is legal in most of Europe, not sure about the US where one can sue everybody about everything)

I'll sue you for that!  (j/k)

Quote from: Jo498 on July 02, 2015, 06:07:06 AM
I would really be astonished if such private use was illegal (and I am pretty sure it is legal in most of Europe, not sure about the US where one can sue everybody about everything). To be able to do something like this was the main point of a VCR.

Of course. And if such private use were declared illegal, the technologies would have to be modified in such a way as to prevent copying. Which they were not.

Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on July 02, 2015, 06:01:45 AM

In fact, in 1984 the Supreme Court decided 5-4 in Universal Studios vs. Sony Corporation of America to allow home recording.

I remember this. Was it not part of the settlement concerning charging a fee for blank media in order to compensate the providers? There was an uproar at the time, since the fee would be applied equally to someone making home movies of their child growing up, for example.

At a point in history, the momentum switched from no regulation, which hurt the creators and the middlemen, to so much regulation that now the public are the ones being hurt. The creators themselves are not that much better off, it is, as always, the middlemen, who neither create nor consume, who get the lion's share. The situation is universal, ask any farmer!  :-\

8)

Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on July 02, 2015, 06:12:49 AMOf course. And if such private use were declared illegal, the technologies would have to be modified in such a way as to prevent copying. Which they were not.

OTA broadcasts can't be copy protected to my knowledge, but other forms of content delivery can.  Copy protected CDs and DVDs and BDs are out there, though they can be worked around.  (Copy protected CDs can still be recorded from the analog outs, no muss, no fuss.)  I believe some content that can be saved to DVR cannot be transferred to other media due to DRM restrictions.  (I don't use a DVR, so I don't have this issue.)

Radio and television performances, even live performances in concerts or smaller venues (clubs, e.g.) are licensing by Ascap, BMI or SESAC.  These venues pay the performance rights organizations an annual fee which is prorated to their members who have had some activity on their copyrights.   Taping a live concert is technically illegal and some artists were vigilant at policing their events, that is, before the smart phone era.  Nowadays anyone can easily and surreptitiously record a concert, which is why you can watch complete operas on YouTube.  Granted, lousy quality, but its done.

I recently read an article about how all this is impacting on bands.  Tours are now where they make most of their money since album sales have plummeted and downloads have not replaced the income revenue.  Streaming services so far have gotten away with paying minimal royalties.  That may change due to the efforts of some large acts like Taylor Swift, but as it stands now, the days of living off royalties may be over.

Composers are finding other ways of making money from their  music - video games is a big arena, placement in movies, television, and because of binge watching on with Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu and other Internet video services, content demand is on the rise big time.  So getting music into video productions may be where musicians, especially composers and songwriters see where money can be made in the future.

'Blurred Lines' Infringed on Marvin Gaye Copyright, Jury Rules (March 10, 2015):

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/11/business/media/blurred-lines-infringed-on-marvin-gaye-copyright-jury-rules.html

Quote from: Gordo on July 04, 2015, 09:57:26 PM
'Blurred Lines' Infringed on Marvin Gaye Copyright, Jury Rules (March 10, 2015):

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/11/business/media/blurred-lines-infringed-on-marvin-gaye-copyright-jury-rules.html

A ridiculous decision to anyone who understands music. I've seen a couple of blogs demonstrating just how ridiculous.

Quote from: orfeo on July 07, 2015, 06:06:30 AM
A ridiculous decision to anyone who understands music. I've seen a couple of blogs demonstrating just how ridiculous.

I don't know. I never heard either song (maybe the Gaye - not sure), but back to back they sure sound alike.

Quote from: mc ukrneal on July 07, 2015, 06:13:00 AM
I don't know. I never heard either song (maybe the Gaye - not sure), but back to back they sure sound alike.

Variations on a Theme of Marvin Gaye.... ::)

8)

Quote from: mc ukrneal on July 07, 2015, 06:13:00 AM
I don't know. I never heard either song (maybe the Gaye - not sure), but back to back they sure sound alike.

Stylistically a heck of a lot of songs sound similar - it's a bit like saying all disco songs sound alike because they use a disco beat.

The case hinged on sequences of notes. The problem is, the size of the sequences was far too small, and plenty of other songs can be found to have the same matching sequences. Including ones that predate the Marvin Gaye song.

Quote from: Gurn Blanston on July 07, 2015, 06:29:21 AM
Variations on a Theme of Marvin Gaye.... ::)

8)

The Gaye Variations . . . .

Quote from: orfeo on July 07, 2015, 06:33:03 AM
Stylistically a heck of a lot of songs sound similar - it's a bit like saying all disco songs sound alike because they use a disco beat.

The case hinged on sequences of notes. The problem is, the size of the sequences was far too small, and plenty of other songs can be found to have the same matching sequences. Including ones that predate the Marvin Gaye song.

The only noteworthy thing about this case, IMO, is the fact that not only did the defendants not attempt to settle the case, but went out of their way to invite the lawsuit: "In one of the twists of the often complicated case, Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams sued first, seeking a declaration from a judge to protect them against infringement claims that they said had been made privately by the Gaye family. Nona and Frankie Gaye quickly countersued."

I have no problem with the verdict.  If the jury found for the Gaye family, they based their verdict on the evidence by expert witness testimony and the judge's instructions regarding the specific legal threshold.

Quote from: sanantonio on July 07, 2015, 06:50:38 AM
I have no problem with the verdict.  If the jury found for the Gaye family, they based their verdict on the evidence by expert witness testimony and the judge's instructions regarding the specific legal threshold.

One could use this rationale to justify any result.

Quote from: sanantonio on July 07, 2015, 06:50:38 AM
I have no problem with the verdict.  If the jury found for the Gaye family, they based their verdict on the evidence by expert witness testimony and the judge's instructions regarding the specific legal threshold.

Ha. You say that as if expert witnesses can't be grossly misleading. Not least because it depends on what questions they're asked.

These articles are both pertinent.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2015/03/_blurred_lines_verdict_is_wrong_williams_and_thicke_did_not_infringe_on.html

http://flavorwire.com/508795/heres-why-the-blurred-lines-copyright-decision-is-wrong

But my personal favourite is this one, which points out that the alleged similar melodic sequence also occurs in, amongst other places, The Waldstein Sonata!

http://danreitz.com/blog/2015/analyzing-case-against-blurred-lines/

Quote from: Pat B on July 07, 2015, 07:00:32 AM
One could use this rationale to justify any result.

I have no desire to rationalize any jury verdict; the verdict is simply a fact.  I doubt they had some vendetta against the songwriters.  Of course some verdicts are overturned or the damages lowered on appeal.  But it is a waste of time to second guess a jury verdict.

All the outraged media reportage is irrelevant, IMO.

Quote from: Pat B on July 07, 2015, 07:00:32 AM
One could use this rationale to justify any result.

Well hell, Pat, it isn't like you or me offering our opinions (suitable for a forum). There actually are people out there who are trained experts. I know, hard to believe...

8)

Quote from: Gurn Blanston on July 07, 2015, 06:29:21 AM
Variations on a Theme of Marvin Gaye.... ::)

8)

There is a controversy about a new country song called Girl Crush and its similarities to Bonnie Tyler's Heartache: other hear certain other famous songs.

Plagiarism or coincidence?

https://www.youtube.com/v/l0TxUL_5Gl0

https://www.youtube.com/v/nPOy7TPjfkE

https://www.youtube.com/v/zMMJFjgirLM

Just thought this was an interesting case and perhaps related to some of what was discussed in this thread:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/07/filmmakers-fighting-happy-birthday-copyright-find-their-smoking-gun/ (http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/07/filmmakers-fighting-happy-birthday-copyright-find-their-smoking-gun/)

Quote from: mc ukrneal on July 27, 2015, 09:42:30 PM
Just thought this was an interesting case and perhaps related to some of what was discussed in this thread:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/07/filmmakers-fighting-happy-birthday-copyright-find-their-smoking-gun/ (http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/07/filmmakers-fighting-happy-birthday-copyright-find-their-smoking-gun/)

That is wonderful.

Quote from: Gordo on July 01, 2015, 07:31:37 AMFor example, do you agree with the existence of public libraries? Public libraries purchase one or more copies of a certain book, but it can potentially be read by thousands of people, so it could be argued that there is a theft of the intellectual activity of the author.

My sister is paid a small fee everytime someone borrows her books from a library in Finland. Not much, but something anyway. 

Quote from: Gordo on July 01, 2015, 07:31:37 AM
It's curious: I tried to offer some (objective) description about differences between objects protected by the traditional concept of property and the object of copyrights. But you took it as a plain defense of illegal downloads.

Any rationalization of illegal downloading is a kind of defense of the practice.

QuoteProperty, as we know it, is a notion developed from the Roman Law onwards, and referred to material things. On the contrary, copyright protection is a very recent notion, with no more than two hundred years of changing regulations and now faced with the problems of digital technologies.

Irrelevant.

QuoteProblems related to copyright are never simple. For example, do you agree with the existence of public libraries? Public libraries purchase one or more copies of a certain book, but it can potentially be read by thousands of people, so it could be argued that there is a theft of the intellectual activity of the author. Then if a student can read a book in the public library, but he can also download it illegally to do a homework (and then destroy it), the differences begin to be difficult to establish.

Libraries are covered in the copyright laws as a legal use.

QuotePersonally, I am the owner of several thousands of books, disks and movies, and I have paid several thousands of dollars to purchase them. Currently, I have, in addition, three subscriptions to streaming services of music (ClassicsOnLine HD, Spotify and, since yesterday, Apple Music), so I'm not a guy personally interested in illegal downloads; but I'm sure that new technologies claim for a rebuilding of the architecture of the current notion of copyright, even if "the industry" is against it. To deny it is to want to hide the sun with a finger.

Obviously, consumers view the issue differently than do creators.  And Creative Commons serves a useful purpose, but in those cases, the copyright owners agree to license their work for free.  This is their decision; not so with illegal file sharing where the decision to steal the music was made against the wishes of the creators. 

Quote from: sanantonio on July 28, 2015, 05:02:29 AM
Libraries are covered in the copyright laws as a legal use.

And what if I take a book or magazine to the Xerox machine provided by the library and photocopy a few pages? Legal or not? Everybody does it, and no library I know calls attention to the practice as a possibly copyright infringement.

What if I'm thumbing through cookbooks at my Barnes and Noble and find exactly one recipe of interest in a book costing $37.95. I snap a picture of the page on my cell phone. Should I be turned in for a copyright violation?

Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on July 28, 2015, 05:44:00 AM
And what if I take a book or magazine to the Xerox machine provided by the library and photocopy a few pages? Legal or not? Everybody does it, and no library I know calls attention to the practice as a possibly copyright infringement.

There's a (clear) sign above the photocopier in the Spaulding Library of NEC that says Copying Printed Music Is Illegal;  Buy Your Own Copy.

Quote from: karlhenning on July 28, 2015, 05:45:56 AM
There's a (clear) sign above the photocopier in the Spaulding Library of NEC that says Copying Printed Music Is Illegal;  Buy Your Own Copy.

Even if it's music by Gesualdo or Palestrina?

Well, I may misremember the phrasing of the sign, which may possibly allow for such an instance.

There is the chance that a given edition of Gesualdo or Palestrina is under copyright;  the composers themselves were apt to produce part-books, and not necessarily scores as we understand them.  (Yes, that is part of the marvel of their talent/technique.)

Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on July 28, 2015, 05:44:00 AM
And what if I take a book or magazine to the Xerox machine provided by the library and photocopy a few pages? Legal or not? Everybody does it, and no library I know calls attention to the practice as a possibly copyright infringement.

What if I'm thumbing through cookbooks at my Barnes and Noble and find exactly one recipe of interest in a book costing $37.95. I snap a picture of the page on my cell phone. Should I be turned in for a copyright violation?

Copyright laws were never designed to be a blanket prohibition of access to protected work - intellectual property rights protection through copyright is meant to balance the rights of the creators against the need for access.  Innovation is promoted through rational and well-enforced copyright laws, not by overly restricted or too little protection.

Quote from: karlhenning on July 28, 2015, 05:55:57 AM
Well, I may misremember the phrasing of the sign, which may possibly allow for such an instance.

There is the chance that a given edition of Gesualdo or Palestrina is under copyright;  the composers themselves were apt to produce part-books, and not necessarily scores as we understand them.  (Yes, that is part of the marvel of their talent/technique.)

Is this site legal?

http://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page (http://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page)

Their Gesualdo page features 34 compositions. http://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Gesualdo,_Carlo (http://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Gesualdo,_Carlo)

I'll let a librarian answer  :)

Quote from: karlhenning on July 28, 2015, 05:55:57 AM
Well, I may misremember the phrasing of the sign, which may possibly allow for such an instance.

There is the chance that a given edition of Gesualdo or Palestrina is under copyright;  the composers themselves were apt to produce part-books, and not necessarily scores as we understand them.  (Yes, that is part of the marvel of their talent/technique.)

Right. And what if I pull a volume of the old Bach-Gesellschaft from the library shelves and copy a Brandenburg Concerto?

Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on July 28, 2015, 06:07:28 AM
Right. And what if I pull a volume of the old Bach-Gesellschaft from the library shelves and copy a Brandenburg Concerto?

Frankly, I don't understand what's the difference between music and literature in this respect. Copying Hamlet is ok, but copying Dowland's pavanes is (possibly) not. Why?

Quote from: Florestan on July 28, 2015, 06:10:15 AM
Frankly, I don't understand what's the difference between music and literature in this respect. Copying Hamlet is ok, but copying Dowland's pavanes is (possibly) not. Why?

I assume it would only be the case with an edition of the music that is edited by contemporary musicologists. I doubt that copying a new annotated Hamlet is OK, either.

Quote from: North Star on July 28, 2015, 06:20:04 AM
I assume it would only be the case with an edition of the music that is edited by contemporary musicologists. I doubt that copying a new annotated Hamlet is OK, either.

When I was in Grenoble, France, I copied at the photocopier of the Polytechnic Institute's public library whole chapters of scientific and engineering books published only several years earlier  --- and so did scores of other people, without a single look of disapproval, let alone an admonition, from the librarians.  :D

Is science and engineering less protected, I wonder.

Quote from: Florestan on July 28, 2015, 06:00:55 AM
Is this site legal?

http://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page (http://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page)

Their Gesualdo page features 34 compositions. http://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Gesualdo,_Carlo (http://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Gesualdo,_Carlo)

It depends.  If you click through to download a score the first screen you see is a disclaimer about the legality of downloading a score.  As the end user you are assuming all liability.  If a score is currently under copyright then it would be a violation, if not, then it is in the public domain.  You would need to research the status of each work before legally downloading the scores.

Quote from: Florestan on July 28, 2015, 06:26:36 AM
When I was in Grenoble, France, I copied at the photocopier of the Polytechnic Institute's public library whole chapters of scientific and engineering books published only several years earlier  --- and so did scores of other people, without a single look of disapproval, let alone an admonition, from the librarians.  :D

Is science and engineering less protected, I wonder.

Well, legislation and law enforcements are two very different things.

Quote from: North Star on July 28, 2015, 06:20:04 AM
I assume it would only be the case with an edition of the music that is edited by contemporary musicologists. I doubt that copying a new annotated Hamlet is OK, either.

And what about performing Hamlet? Do I have to pay a royalty to the publisher of the edition I'm using? Am I allowed to make my own cuts? If putting on a Shakespearean play violates copyright, then probably every theater in the country is guilty.

Quote from: Florestan on July 28, 2015, 06:00:55 AM
Is this site legal?

http://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page (http://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page)

That's a very big question.  The people that run imslp do their best to keep it "legal", but of course "legal" means different things in different jurisdictions.  Imslp is hosted in Canada, where copyright is life+50 - i.e. a work enters the public domain 50 years after the death of its creator (strictly speaking, at the start of the 51st year thereafter, so Sibelius became public-domain in Canada at the start of 2008).  In the EU it works much the same, except that it's life+70, so Sibelius won't be out of copyright here until 1st Jan 2028.

In the US however,  ::), it's completely different - as I understand it, any work published before 1923 is in the public domain, but it's also possible to renew any about-to-expire copyright, more or less (as I understand it) by simply filling in a form and paying a fee.  These renewal lists are published annually, and the folks at imslp spend a lot of their time checking these lists to see whether renewals have been granted for submitted works - not that US law directly affects them, but because they always try to make a note of different copyright regulations that may apply to any particular work.

All of this explains (I hope) why it's possible to find on imslp the works of Sibelius and Vaughan Williams (which are in the public domain in Canada), as well as early Stravinsky (public domain in the US).  The site will always give you plentiful warnings if you are about to download something that isn't legal for you - or so I'm told.

Then there's the question of editions.  It's legal to copy any amount of the old Bach-Gesellschaft edition because all the editors died over 70 years ago (EU) or because it was published before 1923 (US).  Copyright of modern editions is more problematic.  It has been argued that the mere transcription of old MSS or printed partbooks to produce a modern score does not give any copyright to the transcriber/editor; however, in the UK, publishers also claim something called "presentational copyright" which lasts for 25 years from the publication of the edition, and applies purely to the photocopying of that particular edition.

But then, as any editor of early music knows, producing modern editions is almost never as simple as just copying old parts; you're always correcting, interpreting, expanding, emending, combing best readings from different sources, even recomposing lost parts.  I think the legality of copying such an edition would have to be decided on an individual basis - certainly, I would say, an edition in which a lost part has been recomposed should be considered the work of its editor for life+70.  Hamlet is a good example here: there are of course 3 primary sources (1st "bad" Quarto, 2nd Quarto, 1st Folio), and every editor's opinions are different, so any edition by an editor who has been dead for less than 70 years, or any new edition published in the US after 1923, cannot be legally copied.

Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on July 28, 2015, 06:45:03 AM
And what about performing Hamlet? Do I have to pay a royalty to the publisher of the edition I'm using? Am I allowed to make my own cuts? If putting on a Shakespearean play violates copyright, then probably every theater in the country is guilty.

There are performing editions of most plays and musicals that are not in the public domain - I doubt you would need to pay anyone anything to do Shakespeare, unless you ripped off a specific production's staging.  But for all current plays and musicals, you need to rent the edition which includes a licensing fee.  I am most familiar with the Music Theater International (http://www.mtishows.com/content.asp?id=3_1_0), which licenses musicals for regional and commercial theater productions.  There are other similar companies for plays.

Quote from: Florestan on July 28, 2015, 06:26:36 AM
When I was in Grenoble, France, I copied at the photocopier of the Polytechnic Institute's public library whole chapters of scientific and engineering books published only several years earlier  --- and so did scores of other people, without a single look of disapproval, let alone an admonition, from the librarians.  :D

Is science and engineering less protected, I wonder.

You can make photocopies of such books for your own use in most countries. You probably cannot make two dozen and sell them to your fellow students.
And I think in Germany musical scores and parts are (or were) protected more strongly than scientific or scholarly books. Don't ask me why. It could be because in former times typesetting scores was particularly demanding and expensive (but so was probably setting lots of formulae and tables). Or because people often/sometimes make money by performing from scores.

Quote from: sanantonio on July 28, 2015, 06:56:24 AM
There are performing editions of most plays and musicals that are not in the public domain - I doubt you would need to pay anyone anything to do Shakespeare, unless you ripped off a specific production's staging.  But for all current plays and musicals, you need to rent the edition which includes a licensing fee.  I am most familiar with the Music Theater International (http://www.mtishows.com/content.asp?id=3_1_0), which licenses musicals for regional and commercial theater productions.  There are other similar companies for plays.

I was not talking about current, copyrighted works, for which a royalty is obviously required. I was asking about performing Shakespeare using a copyrighted text. And to the best of my knowledge there is no copyright attached to a staging of any dramatic work.

Quote from: sanantonio on July 28, 2015, 06:56:24 AM
There are performing editions of most plays and musicals that are not in the public domain - I doubt you would need to pay anyone anything to do Shakespeare, unless you ripped off a specific production's staging.  But for all current plays and musicals, you need to rent the edition which includes a licensing fee.  I am most familiar with the Music Theater International (http://www.mtishows.com/content.asp?id=3_1_0), which licenses musicals for regional and commercial theater productions.  There are other similar companies for plays.

Yes, even little grade-school productions offered to the public for free are supposed to pay that licensing fee: I know my current school pays such a fee for its presentations (e.g. Willy Wonka, Seussical the Musical, etc.)

Quote from: DaveF on July 28, 2015, 06:53:29 AM
Hamlet is a good example here: there are of course 3 primary sources (1st "bad" Quarto, 2nd Quarto, 1st Folio), and every editor's opinions are different, so any edition by an editor who has been dead for less than 70 years, or any new edition published in the US after 1923, cannot be legally copied.

But editorial work on Shakespeare is much more than deciding whether to choose between "this too too solid flesh" or "this too too sullied flesh." It includes annotations, variants, an introduction, etc. Most texts of Hamlet today silently conflate the 2nd Quarto and 1st Folio, though the Arden publishes these separately and the 1st Quarto as well. For performing purposes, however, a director is free to use whichever text he/she wants, and that generally includes making cuts - since it's rare to see the full text performed on stage.

Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on July 28, 2015, 07:13:45 AM
I was not talking about current, copyrighted works, for which a royalty is obviously required. I was asking about performing Shakespeare using a copyrighted text. And to the best of my knowledge there is no copyright attached to a staging of any dramatic work.

I doubt it, or every high school in the US would be a violator - which I doubt is the case.  As far as stagings - it is an interesting question.  Choreography, for example, can be under protection, but I do not know about sets, lighting, and other details of a production. 

Quote from: sanantonio on July 28, 2015, 07:25:27 AM
I doubt it, or every high school in the US would be a violator - which I doubt is the case.  As far as stagings - it is an interesting question.  Choreography, for example, can be under protection, but I do not know about sets, lighting, and other details of a production.

If you subscribe to the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/theater/newsandfeatures/29gree.html?pagewanted=all

And if you don't:
http://www.dramatistsguild.com/media/PDFs/PlaywrightinCourt.pdf

Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on July 28, 2015, 07:37:20 AM
If you subscribe to the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/theater/newsandfeatures/29gree.html?pagewanted=all

And if you don't:
http://www.dramatistsguild.com/media/PDFs/PlaywrightinCourt.pdf

Interesting, and enlightening; thanks for sharing the article. 

Quote from: Florestan on July 28, 2015, 06:00:55 AM
Is this site legal?

http://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page (http://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page)

IMSLP do a very good job of emphasising that they focus on what is legal in Canada and do not make any promises about legality elsewhere. They in fact highlight those cases where something that is out of copyright in Canada might still be in copyright in another country.