Upcoming changes

[alma]

SHAME ON YOU!!!

Many users have collected this great library for FREE and now YOU make a killing with that stuff. The same as formerly seen at CD-db and Wikipedia. I run myself a Website with Forum and extensive scripts. It is NOT expensive!

SHAME ON YOU!!!

[Rob Peters]

I also wanted to argue against using CC-NonCommercial as a way to protect your content from misuse, because once you put a NonCommercial or NoDerivs clause on your work, you are keeping yourself exclusively in control of your work, making it non-free (as in freedom).

I fear a NC-license is still necessary for living composers, that is, if they don't want to lose complete control over the commercial use of their works. How would you feel if one of your pieces is picked up by a publisher, who proceeds to sell copies of it without you getting a dime? Or performed and put on a cd, with the same result? Some colleagues of mine already think I'm nuts for sharing my scores for free - so I think a plain CC 4.0 license is still a bridge too far.
But I agree that the present confusion about commercial and non-commercial use makes the NC license not an ideal instrument to protect your music.
For instance, which kind of concerts are deemed commercial in nature? What if you just collect donations to cover the cost of the venue and not with the intent to make a profit of it? Where I live (Holland), the income generated from "voluntary work", like playing a concert for just gas money or getting payed a bit for extra work are tax-free, which means to me they should be considered non-commercial activities. But then again, I've read about the very strict conditions for non-commercial concerts in the US.
I feel the NC-license should either be much more clear about the grounds it covers - or be split in 2 or more sub-licenses which go into more detail about the rights of use.
What the present NC-license does well though, is preventing the use of your files in a paywalled environment. Having to pay before getting access to your music would be a clear violation of the license - and I'm wondering if the present subscription system doesn't already present such a violation, since first-time visitors could get the (wrong) impression that the 15-second wait also applies for the CC files, and that they could get unrestricted access to these files only by subscribing. The subscription page should at least be more clear about this.

[bicinium]

I also wanted to argue against using CC-NonCommercial as a way to protect your content from misuse, because once you put a NonCommercial or NoDerivs clause on your work, you are keeping yourself exclusively in control of your work, making it non-free (as in freedom).

I fear a NC-license is still necessary for living composers, that is, if they don't want to lose complete control over the commercial use of their works. How would you feel if one of your pieces is picked up by a publisher, who proceeds to sell copies of it without you getting a dime? Or performed and put on a cd, with the same result? Some colleagues of mine already think I'm nuts for sharing my scores for free - so I think a plain CC 4.0 license is still a bridge too far.

Thank you for your educated reply. For those who compose for a living, I agree that NC is often necessary. I assume, though, that this typically isn't at stake when a work is uploaded to IMSLP, or is given a CC license to begin with. I was mainly thinking of scans, typesets and other secondary material.

As someone who is learning composition as a hobby; If I wanted to dissuade others from making derivatives of my compositions and profiting from them, I would use ShareAlike, since those editions and CD tracks would then be equally free, but I completely understand if someone doesn't find that acceptable. For typesets and such, NC is a waste, and I even wish IMSLP would let me license them under CC-Zero, because I don't want to force people to credit me for them.

To get back on topic, if a library of CC works introduces a paywall, it would be ineffective, because any subscriber could legally download everything and put it online somewhere else. That's my argument for why IMSLP can't endanger the freedom of your contributions.

[coulonnus]

I just logged out imslp and was able to download a modern, CC-NC-sharealike work without the 15-s delay. So why are we overloading this Topic with such cases?

Our new banner calls this Topic a rationale but it is'nt in simple English!

[Davydov]

Agreed Coulonnus, so I've changed the word "rationale" to "reasons" in the banner.

[mozartny]

Certainly a resource like IMSLP is more than worth the cost of a reasonable subscription fee. Count me in! There are many hidden costs in maintaining a website and data set and we are fortunate that the subscription model chosen does not eliminate a free option.

[Boccaccio]

Some more thoughts from my side:

Concerning contributions that fall under a CC licence, as they do not fall under the 15 seconds rule, there is no need to discuss about whether there are potential issues with the NC licence or not. Another point about CC licenced editions is that if people stop uploading their editions on IMSLP but rather create their own website, I guess that sooner or later the files will find their way into IMSLP, so for the average user there will be not much difference between the situation before and after introducing the membership thing,

Obviously, things are a bit different for scans made by contributors or uploaded by contributors from other libraries like SLUB Dresden or ULB Darmstadt. I think they key thing here is to ask what motivates people to invest their time (and money) into this sort of activity?
As it is difficult to come up with a general answer to this question, I can only speak for myself (who imported among other things most of the ~1500 Graupner scores from Darmstadt to IMSLP). On the one hand, I felt that working on this project was a nice contrast to my real work as it does not require a lot of brain power but just some perseverance. On the other hand, I felt that I can contribute to an interesting community project, since according to the IMSLP FAQ:

Who owns IMSLP?
Nobody actually "owns" IMSLP. However, if there is one person to be credited for IMSLP, it is Feldmahler who started the whole project and is responsible for paying and maintaining the IMSLP servers which host the files, as well as is responsible for updating the Wiki software, and organization. Otherwise, IMSLP belongs to the community, that is, to all the people who have contributed to it.

Now what we learned these days (if we did not know this before already) is that in the end of the day IMSLP is not owned by the community but rather by Edward alone and he can in principle do with IMSLP whatever he likes (theoretically we could wake up one day and IMSLP is just gone if he pulled the plug). So this clear difference between what motivates me to contribute and what reality is like can be quite frustrating and make people stop working on the project anymore. The only conclusion can be that either IMSLP should convert into a community-owned project (this is clearly what I would favour) or at least the description in the FAQ should be changed so that people know precisely what to expect before they decide to join in.

Finally, I would like to ask a question that is not too closely related to IMSLP itself: Is there a reason why e.g. Wiki Commons does not have any big selection of music scores (typically you just find few sheet music there and often it's just one page out of a larger scale work)? I mean from a copyright point of view, it should be safe to have e.g. stuff like the Dresden or Darmstadt scores uploaded there. Formulated a bit more provocatively: Could Wiki Commons just mirror all (or large extents) of IMSLP?

[coulonnus]

Agreed Coulonnus, so I've changed the word "rationale" to "reasons" in the banner.

Thanks, but is "this announcement on the IMSLP Forums" imslp's very first post or this entire Topic? The link brings me to our most recent message.

[Davydov]

The link from the banner leads to IMSLP's first message in this thread. But your web browser may remember if you have already scrolled through to later pages.

[Notenschreiber]

Now what we learned these days (if we did not know this before already) is that in the end of the day IMSLP is not owned by the community but rather by Edward alone and he can in principle do with IMSLP whatever he likes (theoretically we could wake up one day and IMSLP is just gone if he pulled the plug). So this clear difference between what motivates me to contribute and what reality is like can be quite frustrating and make people stop working on the project anymore.

For me this is really a very important point. I don´t think at all, that Edward has the tendency to "pull the plug", but he can do it, if he wants to do so.
That is intolerable. IMSLP has become an important part of the musical community and nobody should have the power to terminate the project.

[imslp]

FOR SHAME - ALL OF YOU.

SHAME ON YOU!!!

It seems to me a bit ironic that the people who say things like this have contributed exactly 0 edits to IMSLP.

http://imslp.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/s59438msl0
http://imslp.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Alma

I'm not entirely sure why you believe you have the right to speak for IMSLP contributors, or why you believe you are entitled to anything. But perhaps you can enlighten me.

* * *

In any event, I've been thinking about why there is a disconnect between my intentions and what is reflected in these discussions. I think a piece of it may be summarized by the following chart which I put together today: http://imslp.org/wiki/Special:UCNB, which shows the number of edits for the top 100 users since January 1, 2015. (Sorry, only user ID for now - but if you don't know who user #1 is then you haven't been around much.) The Wikipedia counterpart to that chart is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... .80.931000.

One number I want to draw your attention to is the #1 to #100 ratio, namely, the number of edits of the hundredth user as a percentage of the number of edits of the first user. This ratio for Wikipedia is 11.98%; it is 0.48% for IMSLP. Frankly, it is probably much lower than 0.48% given user #1 also did the vast majority of copyright tagging which is not included in the edit count (if included, the count would likely more than double).

Why am I bringing up these numbers? I think in all the emotional discussions in this thread there lacks a certain quantitative aspect to put things in perspective, which I think also helps explain a bit of my thinking process and why I reached the conclusion I did. A major difference between Wikipedia and IMSLP is domain specificity - the music library/copyright aspect of IMSLP causes it to be hyper-specialized which in turn means significantly fewer users can meaningfully contribute, whereas you can almost always find your niche on Wikipedia. This also I think explains my response to Notenschreiber -

Now what we learned these days (if we did not know this before already) is that in the end of the day IMSLP is not owned by the community but rather by Edward alone and he can in principle do with IMSLP whatever he likes (theoretically we could wake up one day and IMSLP is just gone if he pulled the plug). So this clear difference between what motivates me to contribute and what reality is like can be quite frustrating and make people stop working on the project anymore.

For me this is really a very important point. I don´t think at all, that Edward has the tendency to "pull the plug", but he can do it, if he wants to do so.
That is intolerable. IMSLP has become an important part of the musical community and nobody should have the power to terminate the project.

I agree 100%. It is absolutely intolerable, and preventing it is the ultimate and most important goal of these recent changes. This is also what the top music librarians from national libraries were worried about at the IAML conference last June, and why they hounded me on my revenue sources. They understand how hard it is to raise money as a classical music library - even they themselves (as national libraries) worry about money. And they understand how crucial money is to long term preservation, no matter how much we try to coat it otherwise.

I absolutely want to make sure IMSLP does not get "unplugged". I would otherwise have wasted at least 10 years of my life. But I can't just hand off IMSLP to the next random person who passes by, now can I? My vision is to have a strong IMSLP supported by both contributors and paid staff - an IMSLP that is immune to the whims or personal circumstances of crucial people. Life happens - people move on, get married, find a new job, and so forth. Not having any income means contributing to IMSLP is the first on the chopping block. And as I mentioned before, unlike 10 years ago, IMSLP is not a new or novel thing anymore - as IMSLP gets bigger and bigger and people start to take IMSLP for granted, contributing to IMSLP also starts to look more and more like a profession.

And, to circle back to the chart I had earlier - in case anyone is wondering, I consider the first user a close personal friend of mine. I talk to him every week, and I know how much he has sacrificed for IMSLP. I've discussed the recent changes with him many times, and he is entirely supportive. If you want to say who can "unplug" IMSLP, I'm not the only one. And yes, one of the near term goals is to lessen his workload by working with other top contributors, both to spread out the contribution base but also so that he can get some much deserved rest.

[mmacauley]

As a long-time IMSLP user I would be glad to contribute towards server costs if the relevant information were made public. For example, what are the ongoing costs, how much has been donated and how much is stll needed towards certain targets. Despite the advice of your librarian contacts I have yet to be convinced of the need for a paid staff to maintain what remains (as I understand it) a wiki-based community archive. Maintaining and staffing a physical archive, it seems to me, would be a quite different matter.

On a different note, sometime within the last month or two the IMSLP website has started causing the K-Meleon browser (a lightweight variant of Firefox for older Windows computers) to crash. This now happens every time I try to access the site (IMSLP is the only site I know of which causes this), so I have to switch to Chrome, which runs like molasses on this computer. Perhaps some new script related to the subscription announcement is not backwards-compatible?

Here are the details in the "About K-Meleon" window:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/31.0 K-Meleon/75.1

[imslp]

As a long-time IMSLP user I would be glad to contribute towards server costs if the relevant information were made public. For example, what are the ongoing costs, how much has been donated and how much is stll needed towards certain targets. Despite the advice of your librarian contacts I have yet to be convinced of the need for a paid staff to maintain what remains (as I understand it) a wiki-based community archive. Maintaining and staffing a physical archive, it seems to me, would be a quite different matter.

This goes back to my point earlier actually. Sorry to be blunt, but why do you believe you have the standing to comment on the need for paid staff, when you haven't contributed a single edit?

http://imslp.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Mmacauley

On a different note, sometime within the last month or two the IMSLP website has started causing the K-Meleon browser (a lightweight variant of Firefox for older Windows computers) to crash. This now happens every time I try to access the site (IMSLP is the only site I know of which causes this), so I have to switch to Chrome, which runs like molasses on this computer. Perhaps some new script related to the subscription announcement is not backwards-compatible?

Here are the details in the "About K-Meleon" window:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/31.0 K-Meleon/75.1

This has nothing to do with the subscription functions. The subscription functions only matter during the download process, not for browsing the site.

[KGill]

... why do you believe you have the standing to comment on the need for paid staff, when you haven't contributed a single edit?

Why did you open a public discussion if you're not going to listen to anyone but yourself and Carl?

[imslp]

... why do you believe you have the standing to comment on the need for paid staff, when you haven't contributed a single edit?

Why did you open a public discussion if you're not going to listen to anyone but yourself and Carl?

I welcome thoughtful constructive criticism from users (I've responded at some length to e-mail discussions with non-contributor users), but just saying "shame on you" or "I don't know why you need paid staff, oh and by the way, fix this problem for me" (which is doubly ironic as the poster is apparently disinclined to contribute himself) is not too constructive I think.