On 11-Sep-99 Michael Nyvang wrote:
> I will very strongly advice that you get all the people here
> to team up, and get gnu.org to help with legal advice. Get a prof.
> lawyer to set up the necessary documents.
>
> The reason I say this, is that the copyright
> organizations currently are running multiple lawsuits against
> people who have put music on the web. And they are doing this
> very aggressively (and I mean *VERY* aggressively) in Europe.
>
> In fact it looks like they are preparing a major legal offensive
> regarding these issues.
>
> An example you all may know about, is the music archive OLGA
> with sheet music for guitar etc.. AFAIK it has been shut down in 98,
> and several 1000 songs put up on the web as a voluntary effort
> has been removed from the web.
>
> SO for Mutopia, whatever you do: GET A BULLETPROOF LEGAL ADVICE.
Perhaps I wasn't being clear in my previous message. Mutopia will
initially only contain music which is entirely out of copyright, ie.
the Composer, Lyricist/Poet (If appropriate), Editor (If appropriate)
and Arranger (If appropriate) have all been dead for more than seventy
years.
The lawsuits against people who have put music on the web are generally
running against people who have put very much in-copyright music up,
ie. MP3s (as Christian has pointed out), or in the case of OLGA most of
the composers of guitar music are still alive or died less than seventy
years ago.
In my message I was asking if anyone was objecting to this entirely
out-of-copyright music that is submitted to Mutopia being placed in the
public domain. I can't see how we could possibly get away with
copylefting or copyrighting it anyway as it has been typeset in
Lilypond, which is placed under the GPL.
In our previous discussions we have been discussing the possibility of
putting up some music which is not entirely out-of-copyright, eg.
modern editions, modern arrangements or even modern compositions. This
would have to have been submitted by the owner of the copyright, eg.
the composer, and would have to be placed under some sort of copyleft
license, the details of which have not yet been worked out. This is all
in the future, however, and I would just like to get Mutopia up and
running in the present with music that is completely out-of-copyright.
I hope this clears things up slightly,
Chris
--
Chris Sawer - Sussex, England - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
