Upcoming changes

[coulonnus]

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

Perhaps this paragraph in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internati ... troduction is now an easier source of information on the reasons behind this change than this forum topic. And eventually it will be translated into other languages.

[StephenWest]

Here's another idea for raising money. Why doesn't IMSLP do a deal with an on-demand publisher such as Lulu to allow users, at the click of a button, to get a score printed in book form. I do this with some of my own re-typeset scores and the cost is not much greater than using an inkjet printer, even for a single copy of a book. Having a score in book form can be a lot more practical than a pile of printouts that can get muddled up or lose pages, so it is worth paying for. IMSLP could take a small commission on each book.

[coulonnus]

Here's another idea for raising money. Why doesn't IMSLP do a deal with an on-demand publisher such as Lulu to allow users, at the click of a button, to get a score printed in book form.[...]

There are already 2 such projects: http://performersedition.com/ which you find when you click the Printed copy of this file banner which shows up at the bottom of some scores,

http://imslp.org/wiki/IMSLP:Ordering_a_ ... et_Service but I don't know how both projects share the job.

[Starrmark]

The problem with virtually all print-on-demand services is the available page-sizes. All of the print-on demand publishing services that I have examined are setup to print out books, not music; books are usually smaller in size than printed music. For those services that I have seen, the largest page-size available is letter or A4. That means reducing the size of published sheet music to fit it on an 8.5x11" page. Whether the reduction is made during the original scan to fit in the letter-format of a PDF, or during the printing of the image on paper, the end result is the same. Reducing and printing most published music at letter-size paper makes it difficult to read or impossible to use in live performance. This is especially true of printed orchestral parts. Music librarians of professional orchestras will often refuse to accept published printed orchestral parts that have been reduced in size to fit on letter-sized paper.

Similarly, the vast majority of home printers were designed to print business documents at letter or legal size--both of which are much narrower than the page sizes used to publish sheet music--especially 19th Century and early 20th Century editions. So expanding a letter-size page to legal size while you print it out will not do you much good. The edges of the staffs will either run past the margins leaving you with no room to bind, or the staffs will run past the edges and off the paper. To print most sheet music at its originally published size, you need a printer that handles paper up to tabloid size--and then cut it down.



MS

[Gschladt]

Hi all,

I created my forum account for the sake of commenting this topic. I admittedly have made very little contribution to IMSLP (not more than a handful of edits), so I suppose I might get told to shut up because I don't have a say in this, but anyway.

There are three issues I would like to address. Sorry for the long post.

____

1. I have heard from two different lawyers (that don't know each other and that happen to be amateur musicians) that in the event some contributors wanted to file a lawsuit (e.g. as a class action) against IMSLP, they might have a case, at least in some jurisdictions, on the basis of vice of consent. They could argue that thousands of contributors that created the very product that is now being monetized have consented to give away their work (not the artistic work, but the active work of scanning and editing and uploading scores) for free under the clear and widespread understanding that the use of IMSLP was and would remain free, as supported by hundreds of discussion threads on this very forum.

Arguably, they might well loose the suit, but that is not the point. My question is : has Mr. Guo carefully studied this very possible scenario? If yes, in what way does this decision help the long - term sustainability of IMSLP, if it puts it at risk of facing costly lawsuits (let alone the remote possibility that such a class-action lawsuit might actually win and force IMSLP to pay damages to contributors)

_____

2. Right after I heard about the new membership plan, I heard a first-hand account of a very disturbing situation, which is even worse now.

A few months ago, the website of a European database of medieval and Renaissance music had a security breach, and the PDFs of several manuscripts scanned by them were taken by a IMSLP contributor and uploaded on IMSLP. While these were clearly public domain, they had not previously been available. The organisation that scanned them had to spend important time and financial ressources to get access to the original manuscripts which are preserved in various small churches and/or museums. We're talking hundreds of hours of research, of filling grant applications, searching for funds to finance the database and be able to pay to access the originals. Churches and museums often need to charge for giving access, because preservation of old and precious documents is costly (most probably a lot more costly than hosting IMSLP, if I may).

When alerted of the situation and asked if it was possible to please take the scores down from IMSLP and to please ask in the future before taking advantage of other's work, IMSLP's response was that the works were public domain, that they didn't need any authorization before using them and uploading them, and that the organization shouldn't have paid the churches to access the manuscripts, because these are public domain scores and as such should be available to all for free.

It is very ironic that only a few months later, Mr. Guo now charges money for using IMSLP for exactly the reasons he so easily discarded, and that he acknowledges the financial needs and difficulties of his own project but not those of others in a similar, yet worse situation (because this organization and those churches have far less options for finding money, and far more expenses).

Also very ironic is to read Mr. Guo on this thread commenting on the difficult and time consuming process of filing grant applications while he approves stealing work from people who actually go through that difficult process.

_____

3. This is from my own, perhaps limited, perspective as a graduate student/young music professional : people, at least here, are pissed. I hear about IMSLP and the situation almost every day from colleagues, teachers or friends. A lot are already boycotting the site and are suddenly discovering that libraries exists, interlibrary loans are now extremely easy and fast, and there are databases for specific genres elsewhere on the internet that have the same content (or better) than IMSLP. Sure, it takes a bit more time than searching through a single big database like IMSLP. But apparently many people are willing to do it rather than encourage this entreprise.

That should maybe serve as a reminder that people did play music before IMSLP.

[Gschladt]

On another issue : Mr. Guo has stated above that creating a non-profit is very complicated and time consuming and that is the main reason his company will remain a for-profit.

I'm sorry to say that this sounds much like a pile of bs. I can't speak for the situation in the US, but talking from my experience in founding three different non-profits, here in Canada (and mr. Guo should know, having started IMSLP here initially), it is very easy to create a non-profit. Easier than creating a for-profit company, actually.

You basically have one single form to fill, have it signed by three people that will act as the interim board of administrators, make a declaration on honour with a lawyer, judge or notary singing as witness (they are forbidden by law to charge you money for it), which can all be done in less than a day, and then wait for two weeks for the government to approve your file. They that's it, you have an officially incorporated non-profit.

[imslp]

1. I have heard from two different lawyers (that don't know each other and that happen to be amateur musicians) that in the event some contributors wanted to file a lawsuit (e.g. as a class action) against IMSLP, they might have a case, at least in some jurisdictions, on the basis of vice of consent. They could argue that thousands of contributors that created the very product that is now being monetized have consented to give away their work (not the artistic work, but the active work of scanning and editing and uploading scores) for free under the clear and widespread understanding that the use of IMSLP was and would remain free, as supported by hundreds of discussion threads on this very forum.

Arguably, they might well loose the suit, but that is not the point. My question is : has Mr. Guo carefully studied this very possible scenario? If yes, in what way does this decision help the long - term sustainability of IMSLP, if it puts it at risk of facing costly lawsuits (let alone the remote possibility that such a class-action lawsuit might actually win and force IMSLP to pay damages to contributors)

If you want to talk law, I'll just point out that: (i) none of the Creative Commons licensed files are subject to the waiting period (I could have just exempted CC-Non-Commercial files and not all CC files, but I'm not going to do that), and (ii) all edits to the IMSLP wiki itself are under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, not a CC-NC license.

2. Right after I heard about the new membership plan, I heard a first-hand account of a very disturbing situation, which is even worse now.

A few months ago, the website of a European database of medieval and Renaissance music had a security breach, and the PDFs of several manuscripts scanned by them were taken by a IMSLP contributor and uploaded on IMSLP. While these were clearly public domain, they had not previously been available. The organisation that scanned them had to spend important time and financial ressources to get access to the original manuscripts which are preserved in various small churches and/or museums. We're talking hundreds of hours of research, of filling grant applications, searching for funds to finance the database and be able to pay to access the originals. Churches and museums often need to charge for giving access, because preservation of old and precious documents is costly (most probably a lot more costly than hosting IMSLP, if I may).

When alerted of the situation and asked if it was possible to please take the scores down from IMSLP and to please ask in the future before taking advantage of other's work, IMSLP's response was that the works were public domain, that they didn't need any authorization before using them and uploading them, and that the organization shouldn't have paid the churches to access the manuscripts, because these are public domain scores and as such should be available to all for free.

It is very ironic that only a few months later, Mr. Guo now charges money for using IMSLP for exactly the reasons he so easily discarded, and that he acknowledges the financial needs and difficulties of his own project but not those of others in a similar, yet worse situation (because this organization and those churches have far less options for finding money, and far more expenses).

Also very ironic is to read Mr. Guo on this thread commenting on the difficult and time consuming process of filing grant applications while he approves stealing work from people who actually go through that difficult process.

I don't know where you got the idea that files on IMSLP can no longer be downloaded for free. Rather, let me clarify that your argument is either (i) you don't like to wait 15 seconds and believe you are entitled to otherwise, or (ii) you don't like to or don't think it appropriate to give the organization hosting IMSLP money to build up a sustainable organization at this point. Nothing wrong with either argument; I just don't think your implication that "public domain scores" are no longer "available to all for free" is terribly accurate.

And I don't know where the irony is. Public domain music can always be freely copied without royalties - there are many sites out there that host IMSLP scores, and we haven't said anything to them or asked them to take anything down. That's the beauty of public domain - it is available for all to copy.

By the way, grants are a different thing in the US than the EU, where certain governments are mandated to spend a percentage of tax revenue on the arts. No such thing in the US. I asked a librarian from BnF if there was a chance IMSLP could get grants from BnF or an EU government organization. She laughed softly.

3. This is from my own, perhaps limited, perspective as a graduate student/young music professional : people, at least here, are pissed. I hear about IMSLP and the situation almost every day from colleagues, teachers or friends. A lot are already boycotting the site and are suddenly discovering that libraries exists, interlibrary loans are now extremely easy and fast, and there are databases for specific genres elsewhere on the internet that have the same content (or better) than IMSLP. Sure, it takes a bit more time than searching through a single big database like IMSLP. But apparently many people are willing to do it rather than encourage this entreprise.

That should maybe serve as a reminder that people did play music before IMSLP.

Yes, people also had to spend hours at (or going to) the library before IMSLP, but I'm glad that your colleagues have discovered good alternatives. As I mentioned above there are many sites out there with IMSLP files anyhow. I'm always a proponent of people using whatever works easiest for them; I have no desire to force people to use or do anything.

[Gschladt]

Please, do not put words in my mouth or use fallacies against people who disagree with you. You're only managing to antagonize people by doing so. Especially when people are only asking legitimate questions and trying to offer a constructive perspective.

1. What i asked was a simple question : did you consider to possibility to be sued, and if he, how do you consider that to be sustainable management?

Because that is a possibility, and it is important for members of this community to know how IMSLP would deal with that.

2. You are making stuff up instead of responding to the actual issue. The issue is that what you replied (very disrespectfully) to this organization, is in direct contradiction with your recent decision. I felt important to point this out to other users, as it is obviously not a publicly known fact, and it does show some worrying signs of hypocrisy.

Yes, one could say the files are still available for free, but you have breached the trust people had in IMSLP, and nobody can now say or believe that the files will continue to be available for free in the future. Nobody knows, you are asking us to blindly believe you just after you cynically announced between Christmas and New Year that the very principle behind your site is now void,without transparently exposing the reasons behind the decision

I do understand that getting grants is harder in the US. Nobody forced you to establish IMSLP in the US, though.

3.your defensive and increasingly condescending replies are not helping IMSLP regain our trust. Your objective should always be for IMSLP to grow. Discarding the fact that many people will now boycott the site and find other alternatives as trivial and unimportant is a worrying display of arrogance and irrational stubbornness that shows that you have lost sight of the objectives you should be pursuing, focusing instead on winning a petty argument.

I urge you to make IMSLP's financial data public and to start the transition to a non-profit. This is the only way you can show your good faith.

[imslp]

Please, do not put words in my mouth or use fallacies against people who disagree with you. You're only managing to antagonize people by doing so. Especially when people are only asking legitimate questions and trying to offer a constructive perspective.

Ok, please let me know where I put words in your mouth or used fallacies.

1. What i asked was a simple question : did you consider to possibility to be sued, and if he, how do you consider that to be sustainable management?

Because that is a possibility, and it is important for members of this community to know how IMSLP would deal with that.

Not sure what you want me to say - I already answered your question in my last post. Also, IMSLP has always had to live with the threat of a different kind of lawsuit - I'll just remind you how IMSLP was down for some 9 months 8 years ago because we didn't have money to defend ourselves from a frivolous suit from UE.

2. You are making stuff up instead of responding to the actual issue. The issue is that what you replied (very disrespectfully) to this organization, is in direct contradiction with your recent decision. I felt important to point this out to other users, as it is obviously not a publicly known fact, and it does show some worrying signs of hypocrisy.

Yes, one could say the files are still available for free, but you have breached the trust people had in IMSLP, and nobody can now say or believe that the files will continue to be available for free in the future. Nobody knows, you are asking us to blindly believe you just after you cynically announced between Christmas and New Year that the very principle behind your site is now void,without transparently exposing the reasons behind the decision

I do understand that getting grants is harder in the US. Nobody forced you to establish IMSLP in the US, though.

Still not sure I see the contradiction. Actually, it is quite publicly known that we will not take down any file unless it is actually illegal, but maybe you weren't aware of the UE debacle 8 years ago and the result of that.

Canada has the same issue regarding grants by the way.

3.your defensive and increasingly condescending replies are not helping IMSLP regain our trust. Your objective should always be for IMSLP to grow. Discarding the fact that many people will now boycott the site and find other alternatives as trivial and unimportant is a worrying display of arrogance and irrational stubbornness that shows that you have lost sight of the objectives you should be pursuing, focusing instead on winning a petty argument.

I urge you to make IMSLP's financial data public and to start the transition to a non-profit. This is the only way you can show your good faith.

Let me clarify a few things. This course of action was decided on by a group - me and certain contributors to IMSLP, and is a course of action we believe is the best at this moment in time. You may have misunderstood my tone as "condescending", but I did not say what I said before sarcastically nor was I trying to display arrogance. Rather, it is what it is.

[Richety]

Here's another idea for raising money. Why doesn't IMSLP do a deal with an on-demand publisher such as Lulu to allow users, at the click of a button, to get a score printed in book form.[...]

There are already 2 such projects: http://performersedition.com/ which you find when you click the Printed copy of this file banner which shows up at the bottom of some scores,

http://imslp.org/wiki/IMSLP:Ordering_a_ ... et_Service but I don't know how both projects share the job.

Oh my, this is wonderful. I had never seen this before. I notice that with performersedition, you can order bound copies at very cheap rates. There are lots of things hidden on IMSLP that I'm not certain everyone has noticed such as this.

[discophage]

IMSLP says " Public domain music can always be freely copied without royalties".

No, it is not as simple as that. Beyond copyright protection, all developped countries tend to protect the specific work put into making even a public domain score public. The jurisprudence on this is fluctuating - it used to be, in anglo-saxon law, the "sweat of the brow" doctrine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow), but that has been abandonned, at least in the case of directories, with the Supreme Court stating that work and expense alone were not enough to grant protection. The famous Feist vs Rural Telephone Supreme Court ruling is in fact not directly applicable to the case of out-of-copyright scores, because there the point was to decide if "sweat of the brow" was enough to grant copyright protection to a publication which in itself did not display the required originality to make it the product of an "authorship"; with old scores we are talking about the extinction of the delays of copyright protection. But clearly courts are looking for some kind of balance between public domain and the protection of the economic efforts and interests put into making public out-of-copyright material. A book as been written about this, (http://www.amazon.com/Whats-Wrong-Copyi ... 0674743970), which you can partly browse on Google: https://books.google.fr/books?id=_7O7CA ... er&f=false

French courts, for instance, will crack down strongly on "economic parasitism" and unfair competition, which is the fact for a competitor to take advantage, without authorization, of the efforts, investments and work of another seller in order to sell cheaper without incurring the expenses. Although nobody seems to know exactly what the legal basis of this is, even scores of out-of-copyright works published by established publishers are protected against photocopying and unauthorised reproduction - the moot point being whether it is based on copyright (the originality of the outlay of the notes on the paper, maybe even of the scanty Urtext indications) or on economic parasitism - and I'm not aware of any lawsuit on the matter that would have said how legal this is, and what the legal foundation of it would be. Now to this IMSLP may want to respond that, in the case mentioned by Gschladt, they haven't reproduced recent printed copies but old hand-written manuscripts. But still, clearly, what they did was to take advantage, without authorization, of the efforts, investments and work by the other organization to make these manuscripts available for free, so that seems to fit pretty well the French definition of "economic parasitism".

Also, in the example mentioned by Gschladt, those .pdf manuscripts were stolen from the institution, and ISLMP's resposting of them could be construed as "possession of stolen goods":

"Possession of stolen goods is a crime in which an individual has bought, been given, or acquired stolen goods some other way (other than they themselves having stolen them). In many jurisdictions, if an individual has accepted possession of goods or property and knew they were stolen, then the individual is typically charged with a misdemeanor or felony, depending on the value of the stolen goods." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possessio ... olen_goods).

So IMSLP's claim that " Public domain music can always be freely copied without royalties" can be accepted only with strong provisos: what you could have done was use those .pdf manuscripts, made a transcription of them in modern print with Sibelius or any other similar software, and published that. That would have been, indeed, "freely copying" them with no royalties owed. It would still be a form of "exploitation of stolen goods", but you could always claim that you never had those .pdfs from the other instituton, that you went directly to the monasteries to copyy the manuscripts yourselves, or what not. Not very credible... (I bet the monasteries in questions have no record whatsoever of your visit), but could always be pleaded. But just re-posting the stolen .pdfs? That's pretty edgy.

Of course nobody will prosecute or sue for medieval manuscripts. The institution victim of the piracy probably doesn't have the money to so. Yes it IS ironic that ISMLP should complain for having had to shut down for months because it didn't have the money to defend itself against a frivolous suit, when it is actually taking advantage of the same situation from other institutions. This is a world where wolf eats wolf and grasshoper eats grasshoper.

It would be easy to just rejoice that those manuscripts, whatever their origin, are made public and available for free. I'm not so sure. That would be very short-term thiking. That kind of piracy has run out of business CD labels like Biddulph or Pearl (is Pearl still in business? I don't think so) or Tahra and others that speciaized in reissues of old 78s. So we were all happy at one point to find these recordings cheaper from the pirates... until the day nobody was left to issue them in the first place. It's Lion Kingdom under the rule of Scar. If we don't let the institutions that go through the trouble and expense of unearthing those old manuscripts make some profit out of it... nobody will unearth those old manuscripts any more and we'll all lose. I'm not comfortable with the fact that IMSLP should publish scores against the will of their possessors, as a result of robbery (and further brag about it), just as I am not comfortable with the fact that IMSLP should now be trying to monetize scores that were entrusted to it with the understanding tha they would be available for free. But there's a pattern, and it's not a good one.

[Rob Peters]

If we don't let the institutions that go through the trouble and expense of unearthing those old manuscripts make some profit out of it... nobody will unearth those old manuscripts any more and we'll all lose.

That made me chuckle.
If this was true - people can't be motivated to work hard to unearth the hidden gems of our cultural heritage unless they get payed for it - IMSLP wouldn't exists, or at least not in its present form. This website is living proof that you CAN get thousands of people to work on a common goal, and if that goal is lofty enough, they don't even require payment.
In my opinion, there should never be a legal or even moral obligation to pay for public domain material.

[Gschladt]

Rob Peters

Are you willing, then, to visit every European monastery's crypt and look for old scores? Or visit museums and pay to have access to rare scores? And then study those scores and compile them, and spend hundreds of hours of your time doing research, and then share all of this for free? Also, are you willing to buy all these old scores and spend your own money preserving 250+ year-old documents?

The vast majority of the content of IMSLP is/was already widely available from other sources. IMSLP itself doesn't do anything as far as unearthing old manuscripts or old editions. There are a few rare scores here, which have been mostly shared by other institutions or uploaded by people who happened to have or stumble accross them.

But research on historical sources is a very important field of study, and no unfortunately, not everyone is willing to work for free in this world. Not that researchers make much money anyway. But research costs money, and preservation of antique documents also costs money. This is a reality we should at least acknowledge

Same logic for, let's say, some Urtext editions. When Bärenreiter publishes a scholarly edition of a work, it is most of the time the result of hundreds of hours of research and study and work. I never print Urtext scores or parts from IMSLP, and if I need to buy a Mozart score, I'll throw in the 25$ and buy the Barenreiter copy, because the work behind the edition is worth something, and I understand that funding research is already a huge challenge in this greedy world, and we shouldn't take away one of the rare source of funding researchers have.

Or is it preferable to have evereything available, but no new research done in the future?

[Gschladt]

But we are digressing from the topic at hand.

Let me reply to Mr. Guo.

Ok, please let me know where I put words in your mouth or used fallacies.

Here, which is the same fallacy you used repeatedly in this thread before :

I don't know where you got the idea that files on IMSLP can no longer be downloaded for free. Rather, let me clarify that your argument is either (i) you don't like to wait 15 seconds and believe you are entitled to otherwise, or (ii) you don't like to or don't think it appropriate to give the organization hosting IMSLP money to build up a sustainable organization at this point. Nothing wrong with either argument; I just don't think your implication that "public domain scores" are no longer "available to all for free" is terribly accurate.

No, people that disagree with you or are outraged by your decision are not spoiled brats who ''feel entitled'', even though it's probably just easier for you to convince yourself of that than realising that there are actually legitimate reasons why people would be angry.

I already answered your question in my last post. Also, IMSLP has always had to live with the threat of a different kind of lawsuit - I'll just remind you how IMSLP was down for some 9 months 8 years ago because we didn't have money to defend ourselves from a frivolous suit from UE.

No you didn't answer.

Yes, I am well aware of the UE lawsuit threat saga, thank you. I was already a user and follower of the site back then. I don't quite get your argument. Because you already have had to face a lawsuit, you'd be immune to other lawsuits? I don't get your reasoning.

My question remains : Have you, or have you not, considered the possibility of being sued by the very people that allowed you have a monetizable product?

Or more generally, when you considered implementing these changes, had you foreseen the current backlash?

Still not sure I see the contradiction. Actually, it is quite publicly known that we will not take down any file unless it is actually illegal, but maybe you weren't aware of the UE debacle 8 years ago and the result of that.

The contradiction is you whine about the difficulty of finding sources of funding other than monetizing the site while you tell other organizations that have an infintely smaller pool of potential donors and infinitely more limited options for funding to basically go f*ck themselves while you monetize the files that have been stolen from them!



All that being said, as someone trying to keep various non-profit projects afloat, I totally understand that you have to make tough choices sometimes, and that ensuring the long term sustainability of such a project is hard. But the bottom line is, as of now and until proven otherwise, IMSLP is no longer a community-driven project, it is a one man-owned business selling a product.


What is your financial plan for the long-term sustainability of IMSLP?
How much money is needed, and for what purposes?
How much money is already being generated from other sources?
How much money per year do you expect to gather through the membership plan?
What other funding options have you explored?
Why haven't you explored the idea of calling for donations?
What is your plan for making IMSLP into a non-profit?


Those are the questions that need to be answered, and the longer you wait before adressing them, the less likely it is that people will believe in your good faith. Please, help us all understanding the situation, and help yourself a little. We're all aiming for the same goals, here.

[Rob Peters]

The vast majority of the content of IMSLP is/was already widely available from other sources. IMSLP itself doesn't do anything as far as unearthing old manuscripts or old editions.

How about the numerous rare editions, owned by IMSLP contributors, who went through the trouble of scanning, improving the scans manually and uploading hundreds of pages of hard-to-find music? A very significant portion of the scores here are exclusive to IMSLP and can't be found anywhere else.
I really think you're underestimating the work done by IMSLP volunteers - and overestimating the work of (well-payed and often government-funded) library scanners.

But yes, we digress. I'm more curious now to hear Mr. Guo's response to your notes.