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There's no page dedicated to his music. I want a piano score for the Symphony no.7 : 'Leningrad'

You'll have to wait another 17 years until the copyright expires (assuming you are in a "life+50" country), or otherwise buy the score.

Hi Leonard,

if, hypothetically speaking, I wanted to design a variant of the composer category page, which used a different colour scheme, and with fewer options, for example, adding works pages not being one of them: presumably I would need to be in the site designer group and have access to the Mediawiki page space?

I must confess myself puzzled that Stravinsky is currently entitled to a page when Shostakovich is not, and neither composer may have any of their works posted here. :-)

Regards, Philip

I guess this matter should be discussed in a separate thread if we want to pursue it. As a matter of fact, I'm not too happy about the Stravinsky "workaround", as it clearly violates the site policy of not linking to externally hosted sheet music.

As a general rule, I think that in light of the existence of the IMDBP, there should be on IMSLP only pages for composers and works for which scores are actually available for download. I have to admit though that the two projects are currently not nearly as well integrated as they should be. For example, the search engine (which is currently quite broken anyway, at least from a user perspective, as presumably all those buttons are perfectly unintelligible for the vast majority of IMSLP users, but I digress) would need to work cross-site, so as to list results from IMDBP when no results are found on IMSLP.

I think that first we would need to know more precisely where Feldmahler is heading with the IMDBP in order to make reasonable plans. One thing that I would want to avoid at all costs is to clutter the Category:Composers with hundreds of pages from which nothing can be downloaded.

The reason why I created a Stravinsky page linking to a forum post which in turn links to an archive of the US-only PD works was to 1.) to avoid constant uploading of files to IMSLP that clearly could not exist and therefore had to be monitored and cleaned-up by Carolus and the other admins and 2.) to quell the constant bickering and posting requests and flames on the forums. The difference between Stravinsky and Shostakovich having pages is that Stravinsky has quite a few works PD in the US while Shostakovich has none (or maybe 1 or 2).

Actually Shotsakovich has up through Op. 6 I believe...

But those are only regarding the written date. Only a few of those were actually published before 1923, so really not much is extant, and certainly not enough to warrant creating a page on IMSLP and thus rocking the copyright boat...

Hi all,

I would think this is as good a place as any to discuss the matter, given that the original issue of Shostakovich has been dealt with; simply have one of the forum moderators rename the topic and put it in the appropriate discussion place.

Once again I think I will probably find few people agreeing with my points of view on the philosophy of the IMSLP site, which would lead me to the conclusion that there ought to be Category pages for unhosted composers, and that these need not clutter the Category:Composers if that is deemed to be "avoided at all costs" (pace LV), but that they instead populate a different category (e.g. Category:Unhosted composers!). Don't forget, this is a Wiki after all! Yes, you can have different categories!

I've occasionally suggested that such pages might use a different colour scheme as instant visual indication that they are distinct from the remainder of the IMSLP collection; that the page be equipped with whatever bells and whistles that are thought necessary to protect the user from being disappointed when they find no scores available to download.

Whether the composer has one work or a dozen in the public domain, or several pieces out of copyright in the US or dozens, is I think, fairly irrelevant to the issue. The question I mischievously put is, why should Stravinsky get a privileged position that is not shared by the potentially huge number of (currently, but not necessarily so in the future) unhosted IMSLP composers?

I suppose the fact that IMDBP is still in "beta" contributes to the awkwardness of all this. The search features over there are quite badly broken, and the creation of an item over at IMDBP presupposes a representative score of that work to be available on IMSLP for linking purposes.

The fact that a composer was born, lived, created a number of musical works, and possibly is still alive or died less than fifty years ago, doesn’t suddenly confer all discussion of them into a copyright vacuum that IMSLP is unable to penetrate.

The last time I checked, you can't copyright a person's name. Nor is a laundry list (or for example, a worklist of compositions) copyrightable as "original creative expression"; otherwise we could not host information on IMSLP such as a Stravinsky or Shostakovich worklist.

I would envisage there being a set of composers and compositions that can only be "hosted" over at IMDBP, because the actual sheet music is copyrighted and no permission granted, whereas neither the concept or title of the work, the nature of what instruments and resources it uses, nor the identity of its author can be publicly suppressed, unless we suddenly redefine the verb "to publish".

If the view is that we should not have unhosted composers, because it is confusing to have names on the website without works to download, then to me that gives the impression that the people who visit and use IMSLP are assumed to be stupid or ignorant.

I would like to think they are not.

I would like to think that the few people who visit the IMSLP website, get quickly disappointed, and then come to the forums to ask "But couldn't you have some Shostakovich available?" are the exception, not the rule; upon visiting a website with copious quantities of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, but no Shostakovich, I would hope that most people would think to themselves, "I suppose that's because Shostakovich is too recent". Which in a very real sense, is the actual reason.

So here's a "slippery slope" argument. Yes, I know it's a strawman, but please entertain it briefly.

If we were determined to have IMSLP cater to the lowest common denominator, and design the website to be not sending out "mixed messages" à la the Stravinsky page, then sure: why have a worklist for an unhosted composer? Confusing. Can you download this composer, or can't you? No? In that case: get rid of it.

Let's extend that (quite deliberately weak) argument a little further. Why do we have a worklist for composer X, who has only one or two works available to be downloaded from IMSLP? Why are you listing all of these hundreds of things, when you don't have more than one or two of them available? Equally confusing! Again, this argument would suggest: get rid of it.

As I see it the argument to not host pages is an argument of exclusivity, as well as a tacit acknowledgment that the world as it exists is too complex and confusing, so that we should deliberately limit the purview of the website to keep things artificially simple. Surely the IMSLP's philosophy is one of inclusiveness, however, extending not only beyond the public domain as it is currently defined, but also allowing copyrighted works that have been permitted to be shared on the website.

In any case, the site policy is definitely not one of exclusivity, pretending that the world outside of IMSLP doesn't exist: we have ads linking to Amazon for both recordings and sheet music; there are numerous links to external references such as Wikipedia. Although we usually don't link to a publisher's website directly, if you click on the link for Breitkopf & Hawkes (or some other arbitrary "B&H"), you'll probably end up at the IMSLP page about B&H, which then might include a link to the company's website.

In short, I see nothing wrong with telling visitors "yes, we have no bananas, today*" (* but come back on 1st of January 20XX, when the said banana enters the PD: this is what we have said in the past about Sibelius, Vaughan Williams, etc.). I can see nothing wrong with telling visitors, yes if you want to buy this particular banana in the meantime, then these are the grocers who stock them.

If "doing the right thing" includes not abusing copyright, then we should be directing requests for certain composers to the appropriate publishers – or suggesting in some cases: turn off your Internet and go visit a real library!

Apologies for the long-windedness.

Regards, PML

pml wrote:Once again I think I will probably find few people agreeing with my points of view on the philosophy of the IMSLP site, which would lead me to the conclusion that there ought to be Category pages for unhosted composers, and that these need not clutter the Category:Composers if that is deemed to be "avoided at all costs" (pace LV), but that they instead populate a different category (e.g. Category:Unhosted composers!). Don't forget, this is a Wiki after all! Yes, you can have different categories!

Oh, you can? And here I was thinking that wikis could handle only one category at a time... Kidding aside, putting them in a different category would certainly be a good start. It's not that I want to ban non-PD composers altogether. If we have one category that says "Here is what you can download" and another one which says "Here is what you can't", then that's pretty OK with me. What I would not agree with is a situtation like "Here are all the composers of the world. For a few of them we actually have something to download. Try to guess which!" That would definitely not be user-friendly. It would be like a library catalog listing all authors of the world, and then on the shelf you just find a slip of paper saying "Sorry, no books here".

Thanks for noticing that my Obama quotation was almost entirely facetious. :-) PML

Philip, your well-formed and thoughtful responses are always a delight to read. Allow me to issue my (now) $0.0002 on the issue:

there ought to be Category pages for unhosted composers

I am not and never have been opposed to this, in fact I welcome it in the spirit you suggest (i.e. Category:Unhosted composers). As I mentioned, this was but one driving reason behind my decision to create a "blank" composer page, and since I have, has anyone noticed any posts, forum or talk, complaining about our disservice to Stravinsky? I have not myself. But that may be irrelevant. A different color scheme would be appropriate for hosting composers' pages not PD in Canada along with a blaring red banner clearly stating why the page is empty.

why should Stravinsky get a privileged position that is not shared by the potentially huge number of (currently, but not necessarily so in the future) unhosted IMSLP composers?

I wouldn't say it is privileged simply because it exists (my having created it notwithstanding) but because it is such a hot-ticket issue that by not having it in some form was creating a drain on page and forum admins. time and resources.

In general, I think there's far too much thought and nail-biting concern over a minor issue such as whether there should be composer's pages that are null. And my response is this: If it becomes an issue where either 1.) users are uploading works not PD in Canada to a composer page they created, remove the work but leave the page moving it to an unhosted category with a stern warning, 2.) users request scores on the forum or wishlist for the same, a page can be created explaining why their wishes cannot be fulfilled.

Daphnis,

I think I'm in agreement with you about null pages; I don't mind them at all.

For example, my reaction upon seeing the category page for Claudio Monteverdi, which had been marked for deletion as there were no scores submitted to the sole work page, was to upload my typeset of Act I of L'Orfeo, allowing me to remove the deletion notice. :-)

Empty pages (providing that the composer is permissible to be hosted) should be a goad for contributors to fill the gap, not a cause for angst or fear of horror vacui.

Regards, Philip

I agree, I think empty pages for composers that are otherwise legal are incentives for users to upload. No problem with them here...
And thank you for your typeset of L'Orfeo! Wonderful thing to have I'm sure.

I'm sort of intrigued by Philip's idea of having pages for composers like Shostakovich with a different layout or design that would very obviously stand out. Such pages might end up saving us the annoyance of deleting pages that are constantly being created by visitors who don't comprehend that composers like Shostakovich are under copyright in most of the world.

Having such pages could do far more than serve as (yet another) reminder that the works cannot be uploaded here, however. Information about these composers and their works would add to IMSLP's value as a resource and could serve as a platform for discussing the works, etc.

The curious thing I've noticed is that very few of the thousands of work-pages at IMSLP have anything added on their discussion pages. I'm somewhat surprised that this feature is not used more often.

One thing preventing the idea at present is that the fte template for composer pages doesn't work on pages that aren't in the Category namespace. That shouldn't prevent a derivative template being designed, which has some elements in common with the hosted composer template, while others are different (no link to "add a work to this page"). Hence my first post upthread.

As for discussions on work pages, I don't think there's a critical mass to make that happen yet. If you're not checking the Talk: wiki spaces for recent changes, or have no watch-list item set for the pieces you want to talk about, then it makes it hard to maintain a conversation that no one may be listening to, and so I think people are instinctively taking such discussions to the forums instead.

Regards, PML