On Sun, Oct 10, 2010 at 10:53 PM, Jonathan Wilkes <[email protected]> wrote: > That's an interesting article.
Thanks. Please do note that IANAL, obviously. > Here's a question: if I made my own critical edition of > "Rite of Spring" in Lilypond using various scores as source > material, can I release that edition under a free license? Or > does that depend on how each individual source score I used to > make it is licensed? Well, for starters if you make any edition of "Rite of Spring", you're likely to be prosecuted for counterfeiting (Universal Editions tend to take this kind of things seriously, or so I was told). Secondly, any edition you will use (even for a very short part, even if you're just "remotely inspired by") is regarded as primary material and for *each and every one* of these sources you'll have to (either): a - request and pay for an authorization (which will, anyway, be limited: for instance you may have permission to make a given number of exact copies, but no derived work, and the copies you'll make won't be redistributable) b - make sure it's in the public domain (that means that the composer, the publisher, the editor, his assistant, everyone and his cousin have all been dead and buried for decades -- BUT also watch out for copyright extensions that could have be bought since then by their relatives, grandchilds etc.) c - OR, if you happen to stumble upon a Creative-Commons-licensed score that Stravinsky had himself typeset using GNU LilyPond version -0.0.0.1-pre-pre-pre-alpha... then you may use it like a breeze, and Bob's your uncle. (careful *which* CC license he chose, though). Oh, and by the way, even if you *think* your all set, it may be legal in your country but as soon as you'll post it online there's a good chance it will be accessible from a country where it is not (I'm told there's a little country called Sarkozistan that has very strange laws in this regard). Actually, I don't care that much for Stravinsky (after all, he could have been your grandgrandfather). But when posthumous, recently-discovered Chopin manuscripts are effectively proprietarized by greedy publishers, now *that* just pisses me off. Valentin PS (Just for the gist of it: this article I wrote nearly got me sued by the French music publishers' guild. IANAL, but somehing tells me I better get studying law :-) _______________________________________________ lilypond-devel mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-devel
