Second U-E cease and desist letter (new topic)

[xiaoli75]

Peter raises a most interesting point. Photocopying is a huge problem, which has only been exacerbated by publishers' active practice of copyfraud and barratry. I wonder if IMSLP's real crime in UE's mind had less to do with a few Bartok and Schoenberg scores than it did with exposing the facts of copyright laws to the light of open, publicly available knowledge. UE would very much like to create the impression that Bartok and Schoenberg are protected worldwide - even if it's not the truth. When copyright laws are obscure, semi-secret tomes written in dense legalese whose meaning is understandable only to a select priesthood, a climate of ignorance-based fear and intimidation is more easliy maintained.

Such enforcement schemes ultimately backfire, though. Music students and others, sent the message that all music is copyright (and thus illegal to photocopy), rebelled and photocopied all the more - even to the point where a special tax is now imposed upon the sale and operation of photocopiers in many places around the world. Thus, the type of behavior exhibited by UE actually increases the photocopying of works that are legitimately under copyright. So the vicious cycle continues: UE and its allies demand longer terms, more taxes and mandated fees, etc. - which in turn leads to more rebellion against the very idea of intellectual property.

Excellent point made!

[jhellingman]

Copyrightholders regularly complain about lack of respect for copyright. But this is no wonder, as current copyright laws are highly in excess of what is needed to achieve copyright's purported goals. People feel no moral issues when copying work, because there are none...

The same copyright holders also sometimes plead for widespread and compulsory education about copyright. However, if such copyright education would be in anyway balanced, it would immediately expose the unfairness and unjustified nature of current copyright legislation, and thus raise a generation much more aware of these problems, and maybe willing to tackle them.

[emeraldimp]

Copyrightholders regularly complain about lack of respect for copyright.

While disrespecting it themselves through copyfraud and outright lies about copyright.

The same copyright holders also sometimes plead for widespread and compulsory education about copyright. However, if such copyright education would be in anyway balanced, it would immediately expose the unfairness and unjustified nature of current copyright legislation, and thus raise a generation much more aware of these problems, and maybe willing to tackle them.

It wouldn't be balanced, of course. It might be truthful, but it would be designed to only show the interest of those who got it enacted (those who can get it enacted) - the copyright holders themselves. (Too cynical?)

[Carolus]

When IMSLP returns (note that I said "when", not "if"), a new, improved copyright tagging system will be in place. Not only will a work's status under the three major schemas (50pma, 70pma, and USA) appear, but in many places it will inform users of the actual date a given title enters the public domain. (Bartok's works will enter public domain on 1/1/2016 in most life-plus-70 countries, for example. They're actually already PD in a couple, like Australia and Russia, who only recently extended the term and did not retroactively do so.)

As a USA citizen, a most revealing aspect of implementing the new system to me was the demolition of one of the trumpeted arguments made in favor of the "Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act" - that it would "harmonize" US terms with those of other countries. That claim was a bald-faced lie. It actually made the terms less "harmonious" than before the extension became effective (1998). There are Bartok works that will be protected until 2041 in the USA - a full 25 years after his works are public domain in Hungary - the country of his birth. Under the publication+75 schema in place before 1998, those very late Bartok works would have expired in 2021.

[jhellingman]

It wouldn't be balanced, of course. It might be truthful, but it would be designed to only show the interest of those who got it enacted (those who can get it enacted) - the copyright holders themselves. (Too cynical?)

Here they will have to face people asking questions, and protesting. Many parents certainly don't want politics enter the classroom, remember the Captain Copyright debacle...