A case where copyright hurt artistic productivity
Thomas Bushnell, BSG
The other day I wanted a copy of a piano reduction of Appalachian
Spring by Aaron Copland; I had occasion to play the piano for an
occasion where the variations on Simple Gifts would be most
appropriate.
I hopped in my car and drove down to my local music store, and began
looking through the Copland. No piano score of Appalachian Spring.
Which is odd--the music is a ballet, and ballet is frequently
rehearsed to piano alone. I was totally confounded, but the helpful
clerk offered to look it up.
Copland's music is published solely be Boosey & Hawkes, and they judge
that it is either not worth their while or contrary to the interests
of their product line to permit a piano score for a great deal of
music; this is apparently a frequent problem. But sometimes they do
have a piano reduction: Copland did, for example, write a piano
reduction of Rodeo himself, which Boosey & Hawkes does publish (and
which is great fun to play).
For a famous piece of the orchestral repetoire to have no piano
reduction available is a travesty...and it is due, simply, to the fact
that Boosey & Hawkes has a lock-solid monopoly on the matter. The
artist is deceased, and the world is denied some of the benefits of
his work only because of the intransigence of the publisher.
Thomas
Michael Nyvang
[snip]
> For a famous piece of the orchestral repetoire to have no piano
> reduction available is a travesty...and it is due, simply, to the fact
> that Boosey & Hawkes has a lock-solid monopoly on the matter. The
> artist is deceased, and the world is denied some of the benefits of
> his work only because of the intransigence of the publisher.
>
Hi,
I am a composer, and know a litlle bit about copyrigth and
and the so called "droit morale" things within music.
I am however a bit rusty on this, so I may be wrong
(do correct me as needed :-).
There should not be anything hindering someone to
actually make a pianoreduction of a score, unless
the composer in question has a contract with the Edition
that allows the Edition to forbid it. Think of Luciano Berio
(an italian contemporary composer) and his work "Sinfonia",
here he copies large sections of Mahler, and use this
in his composition as quotations, this is not illegal, if
it do not ridicule the original work of art, in which case
anyone can use the "droit morale" as basis of a lawsuit.
So I can not see how an Edition can prevent anyone from
making an "interpretation" of a protected work, and
publish it as such, as long it do not "destroy" the
integreti of the original work of art.
Another thing to think about is that much music is very
protected when it comes to *performing* it, in which case
the producer of the concert will have to pay the owner
of the copyrigth, *but* this do not mean you cant play
it at home, or publish a pianoreduction, or a book with
qoutations of it - unless some edition has caugth a naive
composer and tied him/her up in chains in their basement.
Now that may be the case with some, but not all.
Best wishes,
Michael Nyvang.
Barry Margolin
have been a more appropriate newsgroup?
In article <3790B443...@daimi.au.dk>,
Michael Nyvang <mny...@daimi.au.dk> wrote:
>"Thomas Bushnell, BSG" wrote:
>
>[snip]
>
>> For a famous piece of the orchestral repetoire to have no piano
>> reduction available is a travesty...and it is due, simply, to the fact
>> that Boosey & Hawkes has a lock-solid monopoly on the matter. The
>> artist is deceased, and the world is denied some of the benefits of
>> his work only because of the intransigence of the publisher.
If Copland wanted his artistic wishes to be applied to his music, he
shouldn't have simply transferred copyright to the publisher. He should
have kept the copyright himself, and it would have been inherited by his
heirs. IANAL, but I expect he could have included specifications about how
they should treat his work in his will.
>So I can not see how an Edition can prevent anyone from
>making an "interpretation" of a protected work, and
>publish it as such, as long it do not "destroy" the
>integreti of the original work of art.
The copyright owner has the right to control publication or performance of
derived works. Don't you agree that an interpretation or piano reduction
is a derived work?
--
Barry Margolin, bar...@bbnplanet.com
GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Burlington, MA
*** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups.
Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group.
Jeffrey B. Siegal
want a piano recording to be available, make one, pay the compulsory
license fee, and sell it.
Michael Nyvang
>
> What does this discussion have to do with GNU? Wouldn't misc.int-property
> have been a more appropriate newsgroup?
>
Yes, however there is a GNU project in association with the lilypond
musictypesetter, which aims at putting "free" musicscores on the web,
so the question do have some relation to GNU.
>
> The copyright owner has the right to control publication or performance of
> derived works. Don't you agree that an interpretation or piano reduction
> is a derived work?
>
AFAIK the rigidity of the copyright differs from author to author, for
some works it may be completely okay to publish a piano reduction,
while it for others is not.
As an example I can tell a little anecdote form the Danish musiclife:
There was once a young composer who was very inspired by the
writings of Beckett, so he decided he would write an Opera
based on a selection of Beckett texts. He even got so lucky
that the Danish Radio&Television (DR), would make a TV production of it.
So he went home and wrote his Opera,and send the score to the
DR, later the a few days before the premiere the producer routinely
called the composer, asking him to send the copyright clearings
to DR, copyright ?? asked the composer and the producer got all
hot and cold in the telephone. So well the Opera still hasn't been
performed and will not be until 2015 or something like that.
The reason was that Beckett has a very strict copyright which
in essence prohibits everyone except his own brother to
write music to his texts.
On the other hand I have never heard anyone question
the many postmodern works which includes numerous
quotations. So one may ask if this is okay, then
how do a pianoreduction differ from this practice.
Anyway I think you're right, but in relation to GNU it
is a big question whether the copyright in literature, music
and the other arts is more harmful to the community than
helpful for the artists. A construction which would
help artists publish works under a much more open
license would be interesting, however the are
a number of difficulties related to this, such
as the "integrity of the content", and whereas
programmers generally can find whelped jobs
in case they need it, this is not to the same
degree the case for composers or writers.
I do however think it would be very valuable
to consider FSF concepts within the arts.
bw,
Michael Nyvang.
Christopher Browne
This represents Yet Another scenario that is not the same as the
original situation.
The original situation was that a piece of *written* music was created
in multiple forms, and the publisher will only release it in one of
those forms, thereby denying the world access to it in those other
forms.
What you suggest cannot be done because the written music is not
available.
--
How do I type "for i in *.dvi do xdvi $i done" in a GUI?
(Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of interfaces.)
cbbr...@hex.net- <http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>