On 23 Oct 2007 at 20:51, Christopher Smith wrote: > On Oct 23, 2007, at 6:25 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: > > > The public domain is shrinking, or more properly, it's stopped > > growing, > > No, you had it right the first time; it's shrinking. > > Because mostly original editions or Urtext are public domain, owners > of those original copies guard them very closely to prevent someone > from using them for free, forcing them to buy or rent their modern > copyrighted edition. If someone prepares a new edition from a > copyrighted source EVEN IF THE ORIGINAL IS PUBLIC DOMAIN, they are > liable for legal action.
Well, publications that were in the public domain in the past do not leave the public domain. A modern edition of a non-copyrighted work certainly should not be pirated and copied and distributed. If that were allowed, there wouldn't be any modern editions of any music that's already out of copyright. I think it's fine for UE to say their editions cannot be digitized and distributed by a third party, even when the music in the edition is public domain. The *edition* is not public domain. But they have no right to claim copyright on editions of works that are out of copyright when the editions themselves are out of copyright (the copyright term in the edition itself is not the same length as that for the work, if I'm not mistaken). But I digress. I don't see how the public domain can shrink, unless non-copyrighted works are somehow re-copyrighted. -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
