IMSLP Forums

HI all,
I saw that the Complete Works by Gibbons are marked TB

http://imslp.org/wiki/Complete_Keyboard ... ,_Orlando)

The same are part of the Sibley Library.

https://urresearch.rochester.edu/search ... ctionId=63

Is this a mistake?

Thanks
Ctesibius

Sibley is a little less strict about this type of thing than we are. Their primary criterion is whether the item in question is still available for sale. The Stainer and Bell issue you mention has a valid copyright notice under US law, and I have no easy means to determine if a renewal was filed. That's why it's imprisoned in the [TB] jail.

Sorry, I hadn't noticed this thread before. This actually seems to have slipped through our net, as we don't usually publish things after 1923. However, looking at it, this might be considered PD in the US as it was published without a proper copyright notice. The only date is in the preface. In any event, the publisher hasn't complained about it, but if they did we'd certainly take it down or embargo it.

Hi Jim, The copyright notice appears to be a valid one (see the first page of music), so unless there was no renewal (a high possibility with Stainer & Bell) it would be protected in the USA. BTW, did you notice that the Molinari orchestration of Debussy's L'Isle Joyeuse was actually published in 1923 with a fully compliant notice? (Durand hardly ever missed a beat when in came to copyright formalities.)

Ah--I didn't go to the first page of music, having seen the TP sans date and then 1925 in the preface. As for the Debussy, we haven't posted it yet, but the date that shows up in the catalog record, and not in brackets so I'm assuming it is printed there somewhere, is 1904. How did you know we were digitizing it?

Jim, that date is a mistake, for the orchestration anyway. Often times Durand and others will publish the original date on a new orchestration or transcription. In this case, the plate range is consistent with the 1923 date which is printed on the first page of music. This has already been digitized, by the way, and was posted last week or thereabouts.

Do you have a url for it, because I don't see it listed anywhere--none of my searches turn up anything.

Here's the Sibley URL for the Debussy-Molinari: http://hdl.handle.net/1802/13051 Durand was actually protecting the original piano version (published 1904) when they placed the 1904 claim on the cover - making sure the 1923 claim was on the first page of music. That's why you sometimes see dual notices on arrangements, such as: Copyright @1904, 1923 by Durand & Cie. Under the 1909 law republication of a work without the original notice could be interpreted as republication without notice (though it was later held that a new arrangement or version only required the notice for that version). A friend of mine at a certain music publisher in a southern state that specializes in reprints has been drooling over that orchestration for years, so I know for a fact that it was renewed right on time (in the typical Durand manner).

Not to mention the dates on certain records in WorldCat can be sketchy unless they are compared to other records of the same item.

I see now where the original cataloger got the 1904 date, which is why this score made the cut on the NEH grant. It will probably be fixed when it comes up for cataloging review in the next few weeks.

In another interesting twist to the saga of both these works, a recent conversation with an IP lawyer who is also a strong library advocate reminded me of the only useful bit to come out of CTEA, and that is Section 180h. Sez the copyright office:

Under new section 108(h), during the last 20 years of any term of copyright protection of a published work, a library or archives may—for purposes of preservation, scholarship, or research—reproduce, distribute, display, or perform in facsimile or digital form a copy or phonorecord of the work or portions of the work. The library or archives may take advantage of this exemption only if it has first determined, on the basis of a reasonable investigation, that:

1. the work is not subject to normal commercial exploitation; and
2. a copy or phonorecord of the work cannot be obtained at a reasonable price.


Hence, both of these works fall under that rubric, which is why Sibley would be granted permission to make them available, but why they couldn't be posted to IMSLP. I've added wording to their metadata to reflect that.

That's a very interesting provision of the CTEA that I'd forgotten about. I wonder if we would qualify as a library or archive. The Molinari orchestration does not appear to be available for sale at Sheet Music Plus or any other place I checked, so it would most likely qualify as being "not subject to normal commercial exploitation" under most reasonable definitions of the phrase. The Gibbons is probably in the same boat. I will be looking into this issue. If we qualify, 20 years of [TB] nonsense (published between 1923 and 1942) might be set free - at least for some lesser-known titles.

True, but if that became or is the case now if we indeed qualify, it would be difficult to institute this retroactively. Although, we could at least go through and "release" the files scanned by Sibley that meet this description.

Section 108 only defines libraries this way:

§ 108. Limitations on exclusive rights: Reproduction by libraries and archives

(a) Except as otherwise provided in this title and notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement of copyright for a library or archives, or any of its employees acting within the scope of their employment, to reproduce no more than one copy or phonorecord of a work, except as provided in subsections (b) and (c), or to distribute such copy or phonorecord, under the conditions specified by this section, if —
...
(2) the collections of the library or archives are (i) open to the public, or (ii) available not only to researchers affiliated with the library or archives or with the institution of which it is a part, but also to other persons doing research in a specialized field; and


I'm no lawyer, so I don't know how qualified IMSLP would be for this. I know that museums are not qualified, and that one of the key recommendations of the Section 108 Study Group is to include them.