one man band

zogger

Sat Oct 20 10:41:55 -0700 2007

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Seems like he could have kept the site up if he had given site maintenance privileges to a few other trusted people, to help in removing still under copyright material, if it was too much work for just one person.

IMSLP shutdown

atm

Sat Oct 20 11:36:24 -0700 2007

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This is terrible news. The website was a great resource - why couldn't you just remove the materials in question? And why not put the blame on the submitter?

IMSLP shutdown

Uncle Entity

Sat Oct 20 15:11:07 -0700 2007

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The easiest solution would be to incorporate all the current music scores into the Internet Archive since that's what they do is archive out of copyright stuff. That would get rid of all the one person admin issues and they also have a copyright check before something gets posted.

IMSLP shutdown

Scott D. Strader

Sat Oct 20 20:21:17 -0700 2007

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"Apparently, some contributors had uploaded copyrighted materials and Universal Edition sent a Cease and Desist letter to the project maintainer, threatening him personally." More accurately: the moderators made sure that every upload was legal in the country where the server existed (Canada). The legal threat was an attempt (successful) to muscle them into filtering non-Canadian IPs. IMSLP did it by the book and sadly still go burned.

IMSLP shutdown

Stéphane Magnenat

Sun Oct 21 00:42:00 -0700 2007

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Thanks for the precision. I should have been more careful, but I had limited time and I thought the issue was important, specially because no one were talking about it on the net. Now that it has gone through technocrat.net, it's a bit everywhere, including slashdot.

IMSLP shutdown

Scott D. Strader

Sun Oct 21 07:53:53 -0700 2007

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I understand completely. Don’t blame on malice what can be blamed on haste! I too have been trying to quickly comment where I could. My Digg was, sadly, only the 3rd, and I had to add the story on Reddit. I've also been trying to notify the music bloggers that I read regularly. It's certainly not having the internet-wide notice that I think it should. I hadn't seen it on slashdot. Thanks!

IMSLP shutdown

Paul Jackson

Sun Oct 21 16:57:33 -0700 2007

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The real problem is tha the copyrights expire at different time in different places, 50 years after the author's death in Canada and 70 years after in the EU, the UE, Universal Edition is an European publisher and was threatening to bring suit in Europe where it's 70 years on the content that was in the 50-70 year grey zone. The Canadian Lawyers who sent the C&:D letter on behalf of UE stated that under Canadian law, any European judgements would be enforced by the Canadian Governament, and demanded that IMSLP not only block the musical scores in the grey zone from IP addresses that were European, but remove any scores that were uplaoded from Europe that were in the grey zone

It's curiuos that as I understand it because of a copy tax on recordable media in Canada it legal to copy the actual audio rendition of a musical scor, but can't publish the score itself, of couse I'm not Canadian, or a lawyer so YMMV.

IMSLP shutdown

Jonathan Irons

Tue Oct 23 06:59:42 -0700 2007

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UE deeply regrets that by deliberate misinformation the impression has been given that it forced the shutdown of the IMSLP site. This is not the case.

Please read our statement here:
http://imslpforums.org/viewtopic.php?t=675

IMSLP shutdown

James Henderson

Tue Oct 23 22:02:19 -0700 2007

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Everyone should appreciate UE's contact with the public after the closure of IMSLP. However, the above statement, by deliberate repression of information, gives the impression that IMSLP administrators and site leaders are to blame for this misinformation.  This seems to me a little malicious; on the open letter at imslp.org and in the IMSLP forums, it is obvious that these people do not support this view; it is clear that it comes only from second-hand rumors.  Both Cease and Desist letters in their entirety are available for the public to view, and no attempt has been made (if it had, it would have been ludicrous) by IMSLP leaders to argue that their explicit aim was to close the IMSLP site. While it is likely their purpose was to make the hinder and encumber the further operation of IMSLP, that may only be speculated.  Implying that the leaders of IMSLP "deliberately misinformed" the public to inflame resentment for UE, though, is false and reprehensible.  It is quite clear that two of the major objectives of the statement above are to assure the public sees UE in a positive light (the surface intent) and to drive a wedge between the "management" of UE and its other users and contributors, decreasing solidarity amongst those who could potentially pose a threat to UE interests.  Observing UE posts on the IMSLP forums yields similar results: UE appears concerned that it could be seen as so insensitive and harsh as to propose the shutdown of IMSLP, and informs the public that the leaders of IMSLP are wholly responsible for spreading this lie.  While appearing shocked that IMSLP operation does not continue as normal (though with the removal of works in question), this seems only like a way to aggravate many people's disappointment that IMSLP closed entirely, and deflect this anger away from themselves toward head members of IMSLP.  It neglects to express the timeliness or practicality of instituting the methods it requires (i.e. IP blocking), and with a false tone of astonishment goes as far as suggesting that if the "management" of IMSLP is incapable of complying with its demands, it is not worthy of serving the IMSLP community.  While UE's public contact may be admirable, its motives for this type of interaction are surely not in support of the public.

Warmest regards to both UE for its communication,

and to the entire IMSLP community for enduring its recent loss.