IMSLP Forums

An issue has arisen recently where contributors are wanting to add new compositions, arrangements and editions, but wish to do so anonymously for reasons of privacy. So, I thought we should open this discussion to ideas and suggestions from our users and contributors. One idea would be to simply use the already extant "Anonymous" category, another would be to create a new IMSLP=specific pseudonym which could be used for all those who wished to add such things privately. The only (slight) argument I can see against using Anonymous is that it mixes in new people (whose work cannot be public domain under the moral-rights provisions of numerous copyright laws) with those long-dead composers whose work is free. The "attribution" requirement of the Creative Commons licenses comes into play here as well, as it seems that "Anonymous" might fail to meet the requirement while a pseudonym could possibly stand as a collective attribution for contributors who wish their identities to remain private. The attribution could automatically change to anonymous once the work has been in existence for 75 years (the expiration of term for anonymous works in Canada). There is a considerable history of multiple composers using a single pseudonym - "G.W. Marks" being a famous example.

Are you thinking of this as something that one would not need an account to perform? If people use their individual accounts to upload their own works under a collective pseudonym, then they might as well each create their own composer categories, since their usernames are effectively distinct pseudonyms.

I'm thinking of using a composer-category pseudonym along with the collective user-name we already employ (Ottaviano). To a certain degree, this would have to be done by admins in order to render the history of pages invisible. Any other ideas and methods are of course welcome!