Upcoming changes

[azumbrunn]

This is all true as far as it goes. But I do think--as I wrote earlier in this debate--that the uproar is not really because of the specific measure taken. It is after all truly minor in its effects on users. I am convinced that this "pay or wait 15 seconds" approach to fund raising has triggered the controversy rather than caused it. I have to say further that a lot of complaints came not so much from users but from contributors--and for them IMSLP represents indeed a "community", so I don't like the dismissive tone of the last post in this regard.

The real malaise has to do with transparency or rather the lack of it. We have had the membership fee for a while now but does anybody other than two of three "top people" know how successful the approach was? Nobody knows how much the various costs are that are listed. If you ask people to pay you owe them accountability as to how the money is used. Every non profit knows this and IMSLP is in fact if not in law a non profit. In this case it was supposed to pay a staff member for the first time in the site's existence. Has anybody been hired? Has the revenue big enough for it? Moving on: There has to be a budget. It is as secret as the identity of CIA sources. The names of the members of the board are also not posted anywhere findable. Nobody tells anybody anything.

Just now I found something I haven't seen yet. I tried to open a newly posted score and got the message: This is a new score, available only to members. Again, I have no problem with some preferential treatment of members. But I do resent stumbling over this in this fashion. I never saw an announcement for this (there isn't one on this forum, where it ought to be; it also ought to be easily accessible from the IMSLP.org site itself). Which scores are privileged in this way? All new scores? If so for how long? Or is there some other criteria?

Somebody in the know please enlighten us!

[alexalovescatss]

I am more than happy to wait for a few seconds in order to access a score if it's free. My time is valuable, but so is music, and I'm willing to make a tiny sacrifice on my part to have access to quality scores. Especially if I'm not actually having to pay anything. This change makes absolute sense to me if you're struggling financially as a non-profit. The typical non-profit model relies too much on the generosity of others and makes it hard to control inflow, a subscription service works to help manage that. Things are still free for everyone. People have to wait and consider a donation, pay the fee, or they have to take a hike to their nearest music library that they may or may not have access to. A 15 second wait is miniscule comparatively.

I don't think that IMSLP's reputation is harmed by this, honestly. People will get used to either waiting a little or giving a little. We're all musicians, we should be supporting this vast library that makes it so many of us can save money in careers that are very expensive to maintain. Music should be free for everyone, but it should be because we are all working to perpetuate that value collectively.

[musicalnotes2010]

I do realise that at a time like Covid, everyone seems to need more money. Which brings me to the topic of people who have none. How are you supposed to pay for IMSLP if you have no home? What if you are a homeless person who wants to download music from the local public library on an account that as far as I know in some libraries you can get for free and print a sheet for about 5 cents?

Is there some way for people with limited income to get around this fee? Perhaps The government in the country in which IMSLP exists and the governments which fund libraries can fund IMSLP? After all it is an educational service.

Many musicians are underpaid and $2.99 for me often means more stress. I agree with funding IMSLP but I believe asking educators with grants for money for this would be the correct way to do. If the owner is keeping archives of all these files, then of course he/she/them/etc deserve to be paid. So go for it, look up that government grant and apply!

Musicalnotes

[bauerbach@gmail.com]

A bit late to the party, but I like to find public domain sheet music for classic songs and create various arrangements for different purposes.

[KGill]

I do realise that at a time like Covid, everyone seems to need more money. Which brings me to the topic of people who have none. How are you supposed to pay for IMSLP if you have no home? What if you are a homeless person who wants to download music from the local public library on an account that as far as I know in some libraries you can get for free and print a sheet for about 5 cents?

I realize this post is almost 2 years old, but I want to belatedly correct the misconception therein. You do not have to pay the subscription fee to download anything from IMSLP. You only have to pay it if (1) you want to skip the 15-second wait times for public domain scores, and (2) you don't have a contributor membership. The site is still free to use.

(This misconception is all too easy to make, given how things are presented, and---for the benefit of future lurkers or commenters trying to get a sense of what all the fuss was about 8 years ago---that was one of the major objections raised to the rollout of the membership model.)

[Selford]

The truth is that it seems absurd to me to complain about a 15-second wait for music that otherwise would have to be paid for. Whoever doesn't want to wait 15 seconds should pay, rather they should put ads so that in this way they help maintain the servers and the who work on the site that we access for free, so that we all continue to benefit from this wonderful site that shares music, even forgotten, that way we could contribute better and have ISLP for many more years and future generations benefit