I haven't previously seen your posts (or I may have seen them but not remember them), but have just now looked at them. I am relieved to see that you are, in fact, supportive of IMSLP. And therefore, I apologize for my outburst in the previous post.brthrjon wrote:When I posted more politely you ignored me.
However, like I said in my previous post, I have been in fact very busy trying out various routes that IMSLP may take. My silence is tactical: remember when people found out PGC was going to take over IMSLP? UE's immediate response was to cut negotiations with me entirely, and notified me that they will be negotiating with PGC instead. This is even before any actual transfer of the site occurred, or negotiations with PGC even finished on my part. Nothing good comes of a self-imposed handicap of transparency so that your opponent can pick out the weak spots and attack when you are vulnerable.
However, since many people seem to have requested updates to the situation, I have asked Leonard (who has contact with me almost every day) to post updates of the situation on a generally weekly basis (unless there are absolutely no news). Obviously there will be no names or anything; but there will be dates and rough description of the events, and I hope that will be enough for you to relax knowing that IMSLP is not dead.
Actually, most of the questions I have answered already in various places, most prominently in my open letter. You might not have seen them as "answers", so here I will post a direct answer to a question Dr. Michael Geist asked me last year before he wrote his BBC article.And you still haven't addressed the points.
This should answer questions about intent. Speaking of which, I have already resisted no less than 5 attempts by other people to force a removal of a score on IMSLP, before the U-E threat.A ton of reasons:4. UE also argues that they didn't demand a site takedown. Why did you decide to take the site down rather than comply with their requests?
1. I have requested, but not yet received to this date, a list of all works that UE have found to infringe their copyright, along with the jurisdictions under which they infringe copyright. This makes me unable to actually comply with their requests.
2. I have no means by which or any idea how to implement the vague "upload filter" that they mentioned in their cease and desist letter, nor have I received a complete list of works owned by U-E, nor do I know who the "UE Artists" are that was mentioned in the cease and desist letter which they want me to protect against the uploading of. Considering the middle section of their letter, I believe they also want some sort of IP filtering. To be honest, to this date I'm not sure what they want me to do; they have issued contradictory orders, at one time asking for full proxy banning, and at another retracting that claim (or at least not mentioning it), and at another time (the C&D) asking for some "upload filter", and then dropping the request in later communication. Perhaps they need to sort out what they really want first.
3. I do not believe in the artificial shrinking of the public domain as a result of tactics like what U-E is using. The public domain should be public, and there should be as much attention paid to the public domain as to copyrighted works; there is no reason why public domain has to make way whenever there is a conflict. Copyright is to protect the interest of copyright owners, sure, but shouldn't the interests of the public in the public domain also be protected? Neither do I think it reasonable to impose a life+70 (or even +80, as they claimed for Spain) "international" copyright on all sites, especially when a quick look at Wikipedia shows that life+50 (and less) countries outnumber life+70 (and more) countries by a significant amount (a ratio of roughly 3:2 the last time I counted a few months ago).
4. I do not want people to work on a sinking boat. If I do comply with UE's request, what I have basically done is open the floodgates for any and all publishers to request the removal of any score on the site as long as it is not public domain in some country, perhaps on the other side of the world (they may even threaten scores obviously public domain if they have something to gain by doing so, like U-E is claiming for Mahler). I just cannot see IMSLP's future in that case to be very rosy; I can only see it slowly but surely crushed under the weight of publishers who are overzealous in enforcing nonexistent copyright. I have no desire to waste the time and effort of IMSLP contributors just to see this result.
Back then I actually thought I had a chance in the state I was in back then, and so did not want to unnecessarily worry IMSLP contributors. The decision to pull IMSLP was made on the night of the 18th, when it became clear that it will not happen.Why take it away without warning?
Also, I don't see the advantage in announcing "IMSLP is going to go down!" I'm not sure the courts are going to be very sympathetic to that action. The only thing that happens is that people will obviously take what they can. But if IMSLP is a community of people taking whatever they can for free, then IMSLP is not needed; there are better places to do this, as you yourself know. IMSLP is aimed at creating a sustainable community of music lovers who will use IMSLP as a platform for enjoying music and exchanging ideas. There are plenty of sites out there where the only thing you do is download things for free and watch their ads. I didn't spend two years of my life to imitate something like that, nor do I believe that is the kind of community IMSLP contributors want.
Rather than haphazardly (organization-wise) continuing the way we have been prior to the C&D, isn't it a good idea to regroup in the best way possible and have a good start to prevent possible future issues to the greatest extent? There are still indeed several issues (some non-legal) that need to be sorted out between IMSLP and the future host organization.Why wait until you've reviewd all of the docs before you start posting?
Things are never as simple as they appear to be. I've actually answered this question several times on the wiki. We have to ascertain 1) how far the organization is willing to go for IMSLP, and 2) how far the organization can go for IMSLP. Like I said above, if you are looking for something to do, ask the EFF why they have not responded to either of my e-mails.Why ignore offers of help from other pd sites?
Here I apologize for my outburst previously. Do understand that I've been working my ass (pardon me) off to get IMSLP online again, which is why I boiled when people accused me of not doing anything.Why get personal when you get asked questions?
I do apologize to both Cameron and you for my outburst, but I hope you will believe now that something is indeed being done. As many of you will know (especially former IMSLP admins), I almost never get angry, and when I do, there is always a good reason.
In fact, I've already answered most of them, perhaps not in such strong language as I wrote to Dr.Geist, but the answers were already there in the open letter. For example:Why ignore legitimate questions?
This is clearly answer #4 above. The other answers are scattered throughout this forum, though I believe #4 is the most crucial one.Rather than limping along and having to take down the site later on, I believe it is best to take the site down right now, so as to not waste the further efforts of IMSLP contributors.
I hope with this post, and the wiki updates that are going to happen, people will relax and know that something is being done.
Yours,
Feldmahler
