I rejoiced when the USA copyright laws were made to conform to the Berne
convention in 1981. I did not know that there had been a formal signing
in 1988. There was always protection for unpublished works *in theory*
but how can you enforce a copyright if you cause publication of your own
stuff without a copyright notice? How is anyone seeing it to know that
it is copyrighted? How is he to know where it came from or whether it is
by JSB or Mr Anon? By definition, you can't put all of this on page one
of an urtext, and therefore a title page is necessary.
I totally agree that the copyright is for the music, and not the
underlying code. I would agree that, according to the same argument, BG
is sitting on what is thought to be billions of dollars worth of
software to which he has no enforceable legal rights, and I would agree
that all software licenses are invalid, free and otherwise. One should
be able to copyright a game, but not a spreadsheet or operating system,
just as one can copyright a novel, but not demand a royalty from
everyone who binds a book in the same way. Unfortunately, the judges do
not agree, and their opinions are the only ones that matter.
I hope this will make a bit clearer that music is not software, and that
something modeled on a software license would be very unsatisfactory,
regardless of its intention.
The very existence of printed music implies that it can be shared with
friends and played for an audience if no admission is charged. No one
has ever had any interest in restricting that sort of performance right.
--
Peace, understanding, health and happiness to all beings!
((((((( g__n__u f_o_r_c_e )))))))
lily_lily__lily MN[-------------------->mm@ _lilypond__
dave No Va USA David Raleigh Arnold [EMAIL PROTECTED]
