Richard L Walker writes:
| The irony (unless it involves money changing hands) is that people would
| have a problem with a book, yet, you can take those same tunes, available
| online in mid or abc format, and produce the same sheet music with several
| programs.
This is in part because the copyright laws are based on a concept
that doesn't map well to what we're doing. The "copyright" deals with
the right to copy a particular publication. When you convert ABC to a
printed form, this is not in any meaningful sense a "copy" of any
other printed material. It's not "the same sheet music", as can be
seen by putting your laser printer page next to the page in the book
and comparing them. All the details are different, so it's obviously
not a "copy".
One thing that needs to be explained repeatedly is that there are two
very different copyrights involved here. You can see the difference
if you look at printed copies of traditional tunes, and look at the
copyright notices. How can someone copyright a tune that's centuries
old? The answer is that they can't. However, they can claim copyright
on a particular printed version of the tune. The notes aren't covered
by the copyright; only the printed version is covered. You can play
and record the tune without permission. You can write up and publish
your own version of the tune. You just can't copy that publisher's
printed version.
For new tunes, the notes themselves are covered by copyright. For a
new tune, you can't make a recording without permission. That's a
"copy", because it's the tune itself that's under copyright, and the
recording is a "copy" of the tune. In this case, translating the tune
to any other form, including ABC, is considered "copying", and you
need permission.
There's a similar situation with text. You can publish your own
version of Shakespeare's works without permission from anyone. His
words can't be copyrighted. You just can't make a copy of someone
else's publication and sell it.
Once a tune is public domain, it can't be copyrighted, but a
particular version (recording, printed arrangement, etc.) can be.
This sort of copyright is much weaker; it only covers that one
specific version of the tune. An ABC version isn't a "copy", and a
MIDI or PDF file derived from the ABC isn't a "copy". In fact, you
could claim your own copyright on the ABC and later versions if you
liked (though you might have trouble enforcing a copyright on a
200-byte text file).
Actually, none of this has been tested in the courts, and we don't
have any idea what they'll say in the long term. The Napster
decisions aren't encouraging, as they imply that even a library's
card catalog is a copyright violation. This probably won't stand in
the long run, since most libraries now have their catalogs online,
and library catalogs are not going to be outlawed. But it's probably
going to take several more decades for the legal system to understand
the Internet and decide that catalogs are legal. And there are likely
to be some changes to the definition of "copy".
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