Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2015 June 14

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June 14

Copyright?

After practising some piano tunes, I noticed in the music book I was using, it said that making a photocopy of the music was not permitted due to copyright. All sounds good and well, but I then realised that I was playing classical music from the 18th century. How, in any jurisdiction, is copying this music illegal? Isn't 250 year old music public domain by definition? What is going on with my sheet music? Should I sue the publisher for incorrectly claiming copyright? Pablothepenguin (talk) 14:59, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

I think you'd have no standing, unless they sued you for copyright violation. The notice does you no harm. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 15:45, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

The copyright is not on the music, but rests on the actual printed book itself, which is why photocopying is not permitted as you are infringing the copyright of the publisher of that book. --TammyMoet (talk) 18:19, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

But surely if it is public domain music, I should be able to copy it if I damn well please? Pablothepenguin (talk) 19:22, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Concerning US copyright, Q: Can a work that includes works in the public domain be copyrighted? A: Yes. However, the copyright protects only the original contributions added by the author. In your case, perhaps the current publisher reset the score, and their copyright claim is on the layout of the sheet music, not on the tune. -- ToE 19:42, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

(EC) The music may well be public domain, but all means is that a certain array of notes can be played in a certain order by anyone. It doesn't mean that any future publication that someone has spent time and effort designing, laying out etc is also public domain. It is the same concept as books of Charles Dicken's works; the original stories are all copyright expired but a publisher who compiles them, typesets them, designs a book layout, commissions cover art, pays for distribution etc should still be able to protect their work. Nanonic (talk) 19:47, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

We cannot give legal advice here on the reference desks, so we can't answer your last question -- that is, we can't suggest what you should do -- but we can give references to related situations. You may wish to read our Happy Birthday to You#Copyright status, particularly the subsection Happy Birthday to You#2013 lawsuit. In that case, which is still ongoing, standing was established via the plaintiff's payment of $1,500 (USD) to secure rights for use of the song in a documentary. -- ToE 19:23, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Pablo, did the notice simply prohibit copying outright, no ifs or buts, no qualifications? Or was there something there about "fair use" or similar provisions? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:31, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

No, fair use is not mentioned in the music book. Pablothepenguin (talk) 20:02, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Also, the book contains the Abrsm's 2015-2016 Grade 1 exam pieces, and is an official publication of the aforementioned organisation. Pablothepenguin (talk) 20:08, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

The reason I asked that is because I'm involved in performing pieces at eisteddfodau in Australia, where the usual requirement is that the entrant play from the original music and provide a photocopy to the adjudicator(s). Apart from enabling the judges to gauge the accuracy of the playing as printed on the page (because different editions of the same work can have different editorial additions), it's also to ensure that the music is from a commercial publication and not downloaded free from the internet or obtained from some other free source. If the latter were the case, it would involve the eistoddfod organisers being complicit in potential copyright infringement. But since the photocopying is an official requirement designed to avoid such issues, the mere act of photocopying the music in that circumstance can hardly be an issue in itself. This is no doubt covered by the "fair use" provisions of Australian copyright law. However, I stress that this applies in that very specific context, and I would not wish to advise you about photocopying music generally. The copyright laws in whatever jurisdiction applies to you will no doubt have some bearing on all this. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:47, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

• The phrase that has not been mentioned yet is typographical copyright which can forbid photocopying . So, it depends on where you live. One can down load free PDFs of blank staff paper (say here: [1]), on which to transcribe the music or go to a local archive and photocopy an old score which is out of typographical copyright.--Aspro (talk) 14:04, 15 June 2015 (UTC)