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A friend of mine found an early work by Frank Martin, the Piano Quintet, posted on Petrucci some time ago, but it no longer appears to be available. In fact, I see now that there is not even a listing for the composer. What is his status? I would have thought that his compositions before 1923 might be acceptable to post, so I was surprised to not see his name listed.

Not sure why it was removed, but it was probably before we had a US server setup for works that were only free in the US. As long those early works (and there are only about 3-5) are uploaded to the US server, there shouldn't be any reason why we can't host them. And most of those early works have been digitized by Sibley library like the piano quintet here: http://hdl.handle.net/1802/1294. Despite logging in with a username, however, I can't download the file.

Perhaps the Sibley note: "The publication will be available to view starting on date : 2044-01-01" might have something to do with it...?

Yes but the piece is public domain in the US right now. The other piece Sibley has by Martin is available for download. Perhaps if Jim skims across this thread he can offer some explanation.

I just sent a question to Sibley about this. Also, the mention of log-in interests me, as I don't remember ever doing so on their site before downloading. Does that give expanded access to items?

Hi all, I'm the one that set the "available to view" date on the Frank Martin piano quintet. I did that because it is in copyright in the EU, and the University of Rochester digital repository where the files reside does not have software to distinguish geographical territories. We have received cease-and-desist letters in the past, so we do now "embargo" (i.e., set an "available to view" date) until the latest date of entry into PD (which generally turns out to be the date of EU entry, as in this case). We may have missed a few, which would lead to inconsistent results; if you don't tell, I won't ask, but if I know about it, it is incumbent on me to do the embargo. In the past, various people on IMSLP have made it a project to mirror the embargoed items that are PD in the US, but I'm not sure how the process worked. It probably involved making the files available to the individual doing the mirroring, but I've forgotten the details. I'd be very open to helping it happen for a second round!

Alice again, with an addendum re the login -- sadly, doing so will not help to retrieve embargoed materials unless you are part of the University of Rochester and log in with your UR net id; and generally not even then. So logging in will not be worth your time. Getting things up on IMSLP will work though!

alicecarli wrote:In the past, various people on IMSLP have made it a project to mirror the embargoed items that are PD in the US, but I'm not sure how the process worked. It probably involved making the files available to the individual doing the mirroring, but I've forgotten the details.

I'm not sure how far "in the past" you're talking about, but I've never heard of anything like this before and in more than four years of knowing the Sibley site and (very) occasionally uploading things myself here, I remember it as having everything, including these so-called "embargoed" items, freely available to download for all. The Sibley Mirroring Project never had any private file sharing, everything was just gotten directly from the site, and that includes many items not PD in the EU or elsewhere. I assume this is a development that has occurred in just the last few months? In any case, I'm more than a little surprised that you would receive C&D letters, since there is no legal reason to enforce the copyright laws of a country within any other country (bilateral treaties notwithstanding) - but it is of course a lot to ask to have to go through whatever proceedings are necessary to dispute the notices. (I guess I'm reacting a bit much because I'm well aware this is the same argument UE used to get IMSLP to shut down some six years ago, and pretty much the same bullying tactics. Still, it's rather a shame.)

And yet Martin's "Pavane couleur du temps" (piano duet version), published in 1921, is currently on the Sibley site.

My impression of the timing for the last "project" (and yes, this was beyond the Sibley mirroring) for uploading restricted Sibley material to IMSLP was about a year or so ago, and it may have been informal and volunteer. Jim Farrington is the person who actually has fielded the C&Ds. There have not been many and they have mostly (but I think not all) been from French publishers. Most of the embargoing has been within the past year, now that the big grant project targeting only PD stuff is done and I am putting more energy into reformatting more recent materials that are unbindable but still very much in copyright worldwide. Part of that process meant developing policy regarding copyright status, including balancing the desires to provide access, protect the rights of composers and avoid scrutiny. I will repeat: Please don't tell me about something that is accessible as a means of arguing that something else should be. It puts me in a difficult position, since what I should do is then remove access to your example. I know that some scores by obscure composers that are PD in the US but not in the EU did creep in as accessible, and I don't want to be forced to do a big project of systematically finding them and delaying access. As I say, my institution cannot limit access geographically, so the last piece of my new workflow is making files available to IMSLP that are PD in some areas but not others. Daphnis, I did get your private message about doing that and will be happy to do so in whatever way works best for you. But I could not figure out how to respond to the private message! If you send me your e-mail address I could put a bunch of things in Dropbox for you. I could add that as a routine step in my process, if that route works for you. It would be good if you would then send me notice of the ones you're done with. How does that sound?

Thanks. I will PM you my email. We can then discuss things offline.