IMSLP Forums

First of all let me say what a great job you folks at IMSLP are doing, and what a fantastic resource you are for the amateur home musician.

I'm very new to this whole public domain/ copyright business, so my apologies if this is a stupid question.

I've been fossicking through the sheet music I have lying around at home and I have found the following which may be of interest to IMSLP.

MOZART - "The Magic Flute" in Full Score. Dover publication (1985), unabridged re-publication of edition by C.F. Peters, Leipzig, no. 5714 (n.d.)

MOZART - Complete Piano Trios and Quartets and Piano Quintet. Dover publication (1991), unabridged re-publication of Series 17 from W.A. Mozart's Werke Kritisch durchgesehne Gesammtausgabe.

BRAHMS - Complete Shorter Works for Solo Piano. Dover publication (1971), unabridged re-publication of the Vienna Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde edition.

HAYDN - "The Creation" oratorio. Vocal score with piano reduction. Novello edition 8052. I have combed through it from cover to cover and cannot find a date anywhere, or any copyright notice, just a note at the end: "Published and printed in Great Britain by Novello and Company Limited, Borough Green, Sevenoaks, Kent."

The following scores I am not quite sure about copyright status:

SCHUBERT - Quartet for Flute, Guitar, Viola and Cello (D.96). Copyright 1956 by C.F. Peters Corporation, New York (Edition Peters No. 6078)

SCHUBERT - Winterreise (Winter-Journey) for Low Voice, with lyrics in German and English. Schirmer Vol. 347. It says "Copyright 1895 by G. Schirmer, Inc. Copyright renewal assigned, 1923, to G. Schirmer, Inc." but it looks like a newish reprint in good condition.

SCHUBERT - Lieder Vol. VII (Lea Pocket Scores). No copyright note anywhere. It says "Lea Pocket Scores, New York, 1962" but it also says it is based on the Breitkopf & Hartel edition (ed. Brahms & Mandyczewski) and it looks like an unabridged re-publication of the same.

SCHUBERT- Supplement - Vocal Music. Nos. 32-44 (Kalmus Study Score No. 1097). Once again it looks like an unabridged re-publication of the Breitkopf & Hartel edition. I cannot find a copyright note or a date anywhere. It contains the following vocal works in full score: Tantum ergo, Offertorium, Gesang der Geistern uber den Wassern, Fischerlied, Fruhlingslied (versions for solo + piano and male chorus), Terzette fur drei Mannerstimme, and cantata "Der Schlacht".

Carl STAMITZ - Trio in G major for 2 flutes (or flute + violin) and cello. Hortus Musicus edition 106. Copyright 1952 by Barenreiter-Verlag, Kassel (Germany).

I would appreciate any advice on which of these are of interest to IMSLP, and legal to upload (and what template to use).

Then my next step will be to master the art of uploading! (no mean feat for a blonde like me.)

aldona

Hi Aldona! Thank you for the praise

aldona wrote:MOZART - "The Magic Flute" in Full Score. Dover publication (1985), unabridged re-publication of edition by C.F. Peters, Leipzig, no. 5714 (n.d.)

MOZART - Complete Piano Trios and Quartets and Piano Quintet. Dover publication (1991), unabridged re-publication of Series 17 from W.A. Mozart's Werke Kritisch durchgesehne Gesammtausgabe.

BRAHMS - Complete Shorter Works for Solo Piano. Dover publication (1971), unabridged re-publication of the Vienna Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde edition.

So far all of them are in the public domain since they are Dover reprints.

HAYDN - "The Creation" oratorio. Vocal score with piano reduction. Novello edition 8052. I have combed through it from cover to cover and cannot find a date anywhere, or any copyright notice, just a note at the end: "Published and printed in Great Britain by Novello and Company Limited, Borough Green, Sevenoaks, Kent."

This is in the public domain. Both Juilliard and New England Conservatory libraries give dates of publication way earlier than the 1956 cutoff:

http://library.juilliard.edu/search/X?S ... mit=Submit

SCHUBERT - Quartet for Flute, Guitar, Viola and Cello (D.96). Copyright 1956 by C.F. Peters Corporation, New York (Edition Peters No. 6078)

This in the public domain in Canada. Generally dating Peters scores is a headache (they are notorious for having "scarecrow" copyright notices, i.e. copyright notices with dates that are not the date of first publication), but in this case it is public domain in Canada anyway even if it was first published in 1956.

SCHUBERT - Winterreise (Winter-Journey) for Low Voice, with lyrics in German and English. Schirmer Vol. 347. It says "Copyright 1895 by G. Schirmer, Inc. Copyright renewal assigned, 1923, to G. Schirmer, Inc." but it looks like a newish reprint in good condition.

Reprints do not have a claim to copyright themselves, and therefore this is in the public domain also. Just note that the cover and perhaps title page may not be in the public domain if they were newly added; usually it is a good idea to just leave them out in a scan of a reprint.

SCHUBERT - Lieder Vol. VII (Lea Pocket Scores). No copyright note anywhere. It says "Lea Pocket Scores, New York, 1962" but it also says it is based on the Breitkopf & Hartel edition (ed. Brahms & Mandyczewski) and it looks like an unabridged re-publication of the same.

Same as above, in the public domain

SCHUBERT- Supplement - Vocal Music. Nos. 32-44 (Kalmus Study Score No. 1097). Once again it looks like an unabridged re-publication of the Breitkopf & Hartel edition. I cannot find a copyright note or a date anywhere. It contains the following vocal works in full score: Tantum ergo, Offertorium, Gesang der Geistern uber den Wassern, Fischerlied, Fruhlingslied (versions for solo + piano and male chorus), Terzette fur drei Mannerstimme, and cantata "Der Schlacht".

Same as above (in the public domain), Kalmus is known to be a reprint firm.

Carl STAMITZ - Trio in G major for 2 flutes (or flute + violin) and cello. Hortus Musicus edition 106. Copyright 1952 by Barenreiter-Verlag, Kassel (Germany).

This is public domain in both Canada and the US because it is a scientific edition, and thus protected in Germany for only 25 years after publication. This makes it also pd in Canada (Berne Rule of the Shorter Term), and US (ineligible for copyright restoration via GATT/TRIPPS due to public domain status in native country).

I would appreciate any advice on which of these are of interest to IMSLP, and legal to upload (and what template to use).

The only piece that actually needs to be tagged is the Schubert Quartet (to be on the safe side); you can use the {{FileNonPD-USandEU}} tag in the "Misc. Notes" section of the file submission form... otherwise everything else can be submitted without any tagging. All of them are public domain in Canada, which is nice

Then my next step will be to master the art of uploading! (no mean feat for a blonde like me.)

Hehe... go for it, and if you mess up I'll cover for you

Thanks for your interest in contributing to IMSLP.... I'm looking forward to your submissions

Aldona, the only score in your entire list that has any chance of being protected in the USA at all is the Schubert D. 96. It could still be protected in the USA if Peters renewed the copyright in 1984. The notice on the Peters score may very well be a scarecrow (a phony copyright notice printed on something that is public domain), since the New York branch office typically only published contemporary American works with its own copyright. Peters is quite notorious for this practice - they're the absolute worst of all. It's technically illegal under US copyright law to publish something with a fraudulent notice, BTW.

The 1952 Hortus Musicus was not renewed and has been reprinted by Masters. Inasmuch as the most recent publications in your list are all over 50 years old and thus free in Germany (their country of origin), I expect everything is clear as far as the Canadian law is concerned also.

Thanks for confirming Carolus Seems like my hit-rate has gone up

And, aldona, I forgot to mention that all of the scores you listed would be great additions to IMSLP! Though, it may be a good idea to scan Mozart last, because the entire NMA (New Mozart Complete Edition) is already online.

The edition you have (from the AMA, or old Mozart Complete Edition) has been asked for by many people, but still, there is already another edition of it online, so it may be a good idea to scan the other pieces first

Also, it may be a good idea to check the Brahms category before scanning the piano pieces, just to make sure that someone hasn't already scanned that edition of that piece already.

Otherwise, all the other pieces you listed either do not exist online, or only via horrible and nearly unreadable quality (like Winterrise), and I'd love to see them on IMSLP

Thank you all for your encouragement!

I'll try to get started as soon as I can. I'm also trying to work full-time and do a thousand other things, so it won't be done immediately.

I'll probably start with the Schubert Quartet as it's a shorter piece and has fewer pages to scan. (and it's a delightful piece of music, which took me a long time to track down).

aldona

aldona wrote:I'll try to get started as soon as I can. I'm also trying to work full-time and do a thousand other things, so it won't be done immediately.

Hehe... there's no fire, so take your time

I'll probably start with the Schubert Quartet as it's a shorter piece and has fewer pages to scan. (and it's a delightful piece of music, which took me a long time to track down).

Nice! I'll be looking forward to it

Thank you all for your kind words and help!

I have now acquired a pdf-merge-and-split program and figured out how to use it.
Then I scanned the whole score of the Schubert D.96 quartet, and combined all the pages into one .pdf file, and it's time to upload...

...so I click on the "upload file" button, and the task bar moves across the bottom of the page, and then it stops and nothing happens...

It can't be something wrong with the filename, as I have just clicked on the file I want under "Browse", and let the upload page fill in the destination filename by itself.

Now it's 12.35 am and I think I'll go to bed and sleep on it. Tomorrow is Sunday and I'll give it my full attention.

Once I "get with the program", I've got lots of music I'd love to share (have acquired some more old scores since I last posted!) I've also got friends and relatives who are musicians and/or music teachers and I could dig through their collections.

aldona

Hmm... how large is the file? It may be that it just takes a while to upload.

If everything fails, maybe you can try Firefox (http://getfirefox.com)? I know Internet Explorer has all kinds of weird quirks. Though it is rather concerning that people would be unable to upload with IE... maybe you can try IE again before using Firefox; just start the upload and leave it there for a few minutes, and see if anything happens.

OK, I figured out what was wrong with the quartet - it was over 100MB, probably because it was scanned in grayscale, so I'll have to go back and scan it again. Damn.

So I tried again with a smaller file (different work, about 39MB, scanned in black & white) and once again no go. I converted it into a .zip file, only lost about 2 MB (36.9MB now), and tried again. Same thing.

According to my housemate, who is studying computer programming, it should have taken <5 minutes to upload. I left it for about 15 min, went and had a cup of coffee, started the washing machine and took the garbage out. Still no progress.

So now I have downloaded Firefox, and tried again. Even more frustrating. All I get is a message at the bottom of the page saying "Sending request to IMSLP.org" and then nothing. Just freezes up.

While I'm trying to work out what to do next, I'll tantalize you with the titles of some scores I've acquired in the past week. (A music shop was having a big clearance sale). Please tell me if any of the following are illegal to submit.

BARSANTI - Concerto Grosso in D major, Op. 3 No. 4. Eulenburg Edition No. 776, Copyright 1953 by Ernst Eulenburg Ltd.

BEETHOVEN - Trio in C major (Op.87) for 2 oboes & cor anglais. Eulenburg Edition No. 104, no date.

BEETHOVEN - Songs, Op. 98 (An die Ferne Geliebte). For high voice. Lyrics in German and English. Schirmer Vol. 616. "Copyright 1902 by G. Schirmer, Inc. Copyright renewal assigned, 1929, to G. Schirmer, Inc."

BRAHMS - Quintet Op. 34 for Piano, 2 Violins, Viola & Cello in F minor. Kalmus miniature score K00800. No date and no copyright notice. In excellent condition but the score looks like a reprint of an old edition.

BRAHMS - Various choral works with piano accompaniment, Op. 52 & 65. (Liebeslieder-Walzer and Neue Liebeslieder.) Kalmus study score No. 1163, no date.

DITTERSDORF - String Quartet No. 1 in D major. Eulenburg Edition No. 106, 1938.

DITTERSDORF - String Quartet No. 2 in B flat major. Eulenburg Edition No. 107, 1937.

HANDEL - Sonatas Nos. 1-3 for Flute & Piano. Edition Peters, No. 2018a. No date or copyright notice to be seen anywhere.

Leonardo LEO (1694 - 1744) - Concerto in D major for violoncello and string orchestra. Eulenburg Edition No. 1218, 1958.

MANFREDINI - Concerto grosso in C major Op. 3 no. 12. Eulenburg Edition No. 375, 1957.

MENDELSSOHN - Quartet No. 3 for Piano, Violin, Viola & Cello, Op. 3. Kalmus Study Score No. 1192, no date and no copyright notice.

REGER - String Trio in A minor, Op. 77b. Eulenburg Edition No. 288. "Copyright 1904 by Lauerbach & Kuhn, assigned to Ed. Bote & G. Bock, assigned to Associated Music Publishers Inc, New Copyright 1932."

Now, if you want to see any of these on the website, I'm going to have to figure out what is going wrong with the uploads...

aldona

aldona wrote:OK, I figured out what was wrong with the quartet - it was over 100MB, probably because it was scanned in grayscale, so I'll have to go back and scan it again. Damn.

That is unfortunate :/ Though it is indeed a good idea to scan it in monochrome, because it should be much smaller.

So I tried again with a smaller file (different work, about 39MB, scanned in black & white) and once again no go. I converted it into a .zip file, only lost about 2 MB (36.9MB now), and tried again. Same thing.

Hmm... another thing is that 39MB is huge for a monochrome file... how many pages does it have? Usually monochrome files average 100-200kb per page, which means you would have more than 200 pages in that scan. If that is the case, it is a very good idea to split it up into sections (maybe by movement?). Generally it is a good idea to have files smaller than 7.5MB, though don't force yourself to split it if there is really no good split point (i.e. if one single movement is larger than 7.5MB it is fine to submit as is). The good thing about multiple smaller files is that it is much easier to upload and also faster to download.

According to my housemate, who is studying computer programming, it should have taken <5 minutes to upload. I left it for about 15 min, went and had a cup of coffee, started the washing machine and took the garbage out. Still no progress.

This can indeed be frustrating. Because I have not heard anyone else experience this, it may be because of some weird uploading limit with your ISP. It may be a good idea to use a bandwidth monitor to watch your upload speed, so that you know what happened and whether it is still sending or not. A google search for "bandwidth monitor" produces this, this and this. Looking the website, all of them seem to be pretty good, and the first one looks particularly easy to use, though it is only a trial period (but maybe is long enough to figure out the problem? ). But as I do not use Windows, I am unable to try it out for you :/

So now I have downloaded Firefox, and tried again. Even more frustrating. All I get is a message at the bottom of the page saying "Sending request to IMSLP.org" and then nothing. Just freezes up.

A bandwidth monitor is in order So that you know what is happening.

While I'm trying to work out what to do next, I'll tantalize you with the titles of some scores I've acquired in the past week. (A music shop was having a big clearance sale). Please tell me if any of the following are illegal to submit.

Hehehe.

BARSANTI - Concerto Grosso in D major, Op. 3 No. 4. Eulenburg Edition No. 776, Copyright 1953 by Ernst Eulenburg Ltd.

This is public domain in Canada.

BEETHOVEN - Trio in C major (Op.87) for 2 oboes & cor anglais. Eulenburg Edition No. 104, no date.

This would require more inspection... does it list London or Leipzig as the place of publication? Do the fonts and such look old?

BEETHOVEN - Songs, Op. 98 (An die Ferne Geliebte). For high voice. Lyrics in German and English. Schirmer Vol. 616. "Copyright 1902 by G. Schirmer, Inc. Copyright renewal assigned, 1929, to G. Schirmer, Inc."

BRAHMS - Quintet Op. 34 for Piano, 2 Violins, Viola & Cello in F minor. Kalmus miniature score K00800. No date and no copyright notice. In excellent condition but the score looks like a reprint of an old edition.

Both should be in the public domain.

BRAHMS - Various choral works with piano accompaniment, Op. 52 & 65. (Liebeslieder-Walzer and Neue Liebeslieder.) Kalmus study score No. 1163, no date.

This would require more inspection; I suspect it is a reprint, but I don't have the score so I cannot say.

DITTERSDORF - String Quartet No. 1 in D major. Eulenburg Edition No. 106, 1938.

DITTERSDORF - String Quartet No. 2 in B flat major. Eulenburg Edition No. 107, 1937.

Public domain... also, does it say London or Leipzig as the place of publication?

HANDEL - Sonatas Nos. 1-3 for Flute & Piano. Edition Peters, No. 2018a. No date or copyright notice to be seen anywhere.

Hmm... would it be possible for you to check the score in accordance with the dating tips in this page? I suspect it is in the public domain since the edition number is very low, but it may be a good idea to make sure.

Leonardo LEO (1694 - 1744) - Concerto in D major for violoncello and string orchestra. Eulenburg Edition No. 1218, 1958.

Originally I would say no, but it may be in the public domain if more research was done on it, in light of recent discoveries of mine in copyright law (from Carolus). It may be a good idea to keep this for later when the other certain public domain publications are already scanned and submitted

MANFREDINI - Concerto grosso in C major Op. 3 no. 12. Eulenburg Edition No. 375, 1957.

This would be public domain for certain next year... so maybe this should also be saved for later like the last one

MENDELSSOHN - Quartet No. 3 for Piano, Violin, Viola & Cello, Op. 3. Kalmus Study Score No. 1192, no date and no copyright notice.

Likely a reprint too, but not sure... more investigation needed.

REGER - String Trio in A minor, Op. 77b. Eulenburg Edition No. 288. "Copyright 1904 by Lauerbach & Kuhn, assigned to Ed. Bote & G. Bock, assigned to Associated Music Publishers Inc, New Copyright 1932."

This is public domain for sure.

Now, if you want to see any of these on the website, I'm going to have to figure out what is going wrong with the uploads...

I think the bandwidth meter is the first place to go, just to see what is happening (i.e. is the upload dying in the middle, or does it never start, etc.?), and then react accordingly. It may also be a good idea to send me one page of a black and white scan of yours that you are trying to upload via e-mail (imslp@imslp.org) just so that I can check whether there are any problems there.

I'm sorry that you're experiencing these problems ^^;; I'm sure there is a way to fix it... just try the bandwidth meter, and possibly split the file into smaller ones, and tell me what happens

About the copyright status, start with the ones that are public domain for sure, and deal with the others later It'll also give us a chance to maybe do research on it.

Also, people feel free to correct me if I'm wrong anywhere!

OK, now I have a bandwidth monitor, and I have just repeated the process, and essentially the upload process never gets started. The message at the bottom of the page just says "Waiting for http://imslp.org/wiki/Special:Upload... and the "upload" bit on the bandwidth monitor just registers zero.

I'll send you a page of one of my B&W scans so you can see what I'm doing wrong. (or what my Epson Perfection 1660 Photo Scanner is doing wrong).

Thanks for the pages on how to date scores, etc. I'll study them carefully.

aldona

Hmm... does the bandwidth monitor register anything when you surf the net? (just to make sure it works correctly) Also (just to make sure), I assume that you are using Windows?

Also, can you try uploading a very small (say, less than 500KB, maybe a single page?) PDF file to the wiki? Can you also try uploading the larger file to http://www.imslpforums.org/upload/ and see if it works, and what the bandwidth meter shows? Also, if I remember correctly, you managed to upload files fine before? Did anything change between then and now?

I'm just trying to narrow down the problem... I'm very sorry that there are problems when uploading when you want to contribute to IMSLP :/

Hi Aldona, a quick note on Eulenburg: Any Eulenburg score dated before 1939 was actually published in Leipzig, since the company's headquarters were located there until that date, the year Kurt Eulenburg moved the firm to London. The Leipzig facility was closed and never reopened. Also, many of the lower edition numbers were actually from the 1880s and 1890s - part of the over 1000 titles from the Payne and Donajowski miniature scores that formed the nucleus of the Eulenburgs kleine Partitur Ausgabe starting in 1894. The plate numbers are a better guide for dating Eulenburg scores than the edition number, which was re-used whenever an older work was taken out of print.

The only titles in your recent list that have any prospect at all of being under copyright in the USA are the Barsanti, Leo, Manfredini, and maybe the Dittersdorf (which appears to be a case where Eulenburg recycled the older catalog numbers 106, 107 after retiring the original item). Apart from a few American works dating from the 1930s and 40s, Kalmus did not issue any original copyrights until the late 1960s - only reprints (which are public domain).

OK, I think I'm winning (sort of).

I managed to upload a small file (single page) - a Schubert partsong for male voices a capella (Fischerlied, D.364). It uploaded successfully - but my Bandwidth Monitor Pro is still stubbornly showing zero!

Also, I couldn't help but notice...my single page ended up being >2000kB, whereas something like the entire "Trout" Quintet is >9000kB - how come my scans seem to be eating up so much more bandwidth? Is it my scanner, or the 720dpi resolution? If I reduced it to 300dpi, would it still look as clear?

Thank you all for your ongoing patience with a complete newbie (whose only real previous experience with scanning and publishing etc, was to edit the church bulletin).

This discussion has sort of evolved beyond copyright to the more technical "how-to" matters, please move it to another place if that's more appropriate. I'll get back onto the copyright matters once I've got the technical aspects sorted out.

Have to go...I'd love to spend all my time disseminating music, but this nasty annoying thing called "work" keeps interrupting...

aldona

Hmm... the problem is not with your scanner, or the resolution (the high resolution is good!), but the fact that even though the scan is monochrome, it is stored as a color image. I've forced conversion to monochrome, and uploaded the result... and as you can see, even though the image is the same, the size is only 96KB

What program are you using to create PDF files? Is there a way to force the scanned image to save to monochrome? Also avoid saving to JPG files like the plague; JPG is both color and lossy. Instead, try TIFF or PNG, though you will still have to find a way to force it into a monochrome image. This basically depends on what kind of PDF creation setup you have... I'll give more advice once you tell me what programs you are using

Also, do try to see if you can convert the scan into TIFF; it makes things so much easier