Simon Albrecht <simon.albre...@mail.de> writes: > Hi Daniel, > > On 22.03.2016 01:46, Redwood (Daniel) wrote: >> But I wonder: why aren’t more lilypond authors posting more of their >> sources to IMSLP? > > personally, I’m often reluctant to do so, because I might want to > distribute my typesets commercially. In my opinion, _good_ music > typography is an art and science and worth paying for;
Except that nobody even gets a chance to pay for it because you merely "might want to distribute your typesets commercially". Have you considered uploading them with a payment suggestion and mechanism? They won't magically market themselves, and the default workings of the world and your own inertia make it more rather than less likely that you'll ever get to marketing them, and even then the question is what you'll be making from it. Take a look at <URL:http://www.thoeni-edition.ch/index.html>. The Edition Thoeni was founded by Maurice Thöni in 1944 and kept alive until 1980. Thöni was quite prolific and wrote a lot of original pieces and arrangements many of the scores in the edition himself. However, the current state of the edition is such that his daughter passes most of the proceeds from the _performances_ into upkeep of the edition (I've met her and Aegler in Zürich because my main accordion was obviously built for Maurice Thöni and I was looking for evidence that he actually played it at some point of time). Making money from scores is really rather tricky ultimately and the big editions keep themselves alive by having very streamlined processes and pretty invasive agreements that tend to last longer than a composer's life. But still the prospect of "I might market this at some time for great returns" keeps back music as well as software: how much "shareware" has ever turned a profit commensurate of the effort to devise payment schemes and restrictions? So I really suggest that you take stock about what you _realistically_ will actually be marketing yourself, and how much you expect to gain from it, versus how much it is worth to you that the arrangements/scores actually get played. I'd add payment suggestions (make it as easy as possible, Paypal and a suggested sum) to the score. Don't expect a windfall. Probably "enquire when custom arrangements are needed" is likely to provide the most payback even when the source is readily available: again, you as the author are probably most likely to turn money into adapted scores. Particularly when you arrange your scores in a manner where creating arrangements is mostly trivial. > also I create an own visual style with my typesets that I don’t want > others to easily discard. It’s a generous thing to typeset music and > publish the source, but it’s perfectly valid to not do so and keep it > private. Sure. > There’s also a technical side to it: (nearly) all of the scores I > typeset rely on my personal stylesheets library, which I also feel > somewhat protective about, and it’s impractical to include all of it > in such an upload, or make a specific version containing only that > which is really needed… Well, LilyPond needs better schemes to organize personal stylesheets, just like LaTeX has ways to organize document classes and styles. But again the main question is what you are trying to protect your stylesheets from. Other people working with them? If there is actual money in that, who would people first contact when needing custom work to be done? Yes, most of the work done using your scores and library is going to bypass you. However, you don't make money from work that is not done at all either. Many private people are hogging their "Intellectual Property" since they see the valuations popular artists get for it. But you won't get anything from keeping it unpublished indefinitely. > And lastly: even if I can obtain a ly source file from somewhere on > the web, I sometimes have to rework the entire code, before making any > use of it (and then I wonder if I’d been better off to just input it > myself). Sometimes the coding is objectively sloppy, convoluted, or > difficult to read; sometimes it’s just because of different coding > styles, or approaches to representing the music[1], which can pose > extremely annoying obstacles in sharing code. And the python-ly > (Frescobaldi) formatting tools only get you so far (great though for > doubling durations, or absolute->relative, or the like). Which is why > I very much think we need higher standards in that area… Where will the high standards come from if people are protective about the good stuff in their personal scores and stylesheets? It's pretty hard to change your bank accounts with typesetting. Just try it seriously for a few years instead of going "I might want to do it at some point in life" indefinitely. It's easier to change the world. All the best, -- David Kastrup _______________________________________________ lilypond-user mailing list lilypond-user@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user