IMSLP Forums

Hello. Please, upload this one in PDF format. On the site it's deleted, unfortunately.

This score is not actually deleted: access is blocked because it was published first in 1993, and it is considered still under copyright in the US and in Europe.

However, I'm not sure whether the copyright status in Europe was correctly evaluated. Melartin died in 1937, so this work was published before the EU copyright period (70 years) expired, and therefore it should not be eligible for the "Editio princeps" concept. Maybe there is another reason why it is currently blocked. I'll check on this with other copyright reviewers more expert than me.

Max

Thank you! I hope you will manage to resolve it.

If it was actually first published before 1993, then it shouldn't be here at all.

@kataskionn, I'm afraid you'll either have to purchase a copy or find one at a local library.

We have the composer's manuscript and not the 1993 publication posted. Would the manuscript be saddled with the same copyright restrictions as the 1993 publication? Would the fact that the work was first published in 1993 have any affect on the copyright status of the manuscript?

Thanks,
Cypressdome

That's basically (one thing that) editio princeps law is about, as I understand- resolving copyright questions about manuscripts (and of "the work itself" or something like- i.e. resolving such questions as do I have the right to use this manuscript as a basis for my own new (even if free) edition-(and/)or-performance when I presumptively have had no access to the 1993 edition that already exists... just for example...)
Was the work performed in Melartin's lifetime? That counts as "publication" under many editio princeps statutes, I gather, so that 1993 would no longer be the date of "first publication".

(If we had the 1993 publication posted, I think we wouldn't be arguing editio princeps, we'd be arguing urtext issues, and if there was no possibility of arguing that it was an urtext, we'd be arguing how fast could someone hit the delete (ok, or just keeping it blocked, granted) button. Erm, sorry, inappropriate humor. And since I'm not a member of the CR admin team that "we" is more a "IMSLP" or a should-be-they (or you) we.

Thank you all. I think all these stupid laws regarding "no less than 70-years-after-death" must be totally ignored and forgotten. I am absolutely sure that all composers would be happy if somebody at the other part of the world would search their works.

And if IMSLP chiefs would granted access for contemporary music, the site would become dominant. By far there are another sources of the XX-th century music.

Very brief and partial answer: this site went down for 2 whole years because of something much, much, much much much less than that...

This is another glaring example of the very disputable criteria that are used to claim "editio princeps rights" - nothing to do with a "finders reward" for previously unknown works, if someone just picks a work from a published library catalog!

The source of the manuscript scan and of the first printed edition is the Sibelius academy in Finland. With few exceptions none of the European libraries have ever granted publishers the editio princeps rights for their own valuable holdings - they might as well close shop if publishers thereby could veto normal use of an unpublished work at the library. On the contrary, recently many libraries have started to explicitly exclude the free download of scans of their unpublished manuscripts from any copyright protection under editio princeps, if a publisher asks for permission for commercial publication.

At least regarding copyright in the EU, the questionable copyright block at imslp for the Melartin Sonata can easily be circumvented, because the scan is just a mirror of the original scan at Sibelius Academy - just click on the link and download directly - if a publishers wants to enforce editio princeps rights he would have to sue Sibelius Academy!

... and I am sure a diligent copyright re-review would also come to the conclusion, that Sibelius Academy should know the relevant copyright laws for one their own holdings - and that imslp could not possibly infringe copyright by just mirroring the scan.

P.S.: A few months ago their was a similar case "http://imslp.org/wiki/Echo_(Lotti,_Antonio)", with a recent scan available at the Stockholm "Utile Dulci" collection, and a first edition published in 1997 using a different source. A re-review unblocked the scan by transfer to the EU server.

IMSLP currently has several Melartin manuscripts posted from the Sibelius Academy. Most of them are marked for copyright as V for Canada and either C or V for both the U.S. and the E.U. Most of the work pages have no first publication information (and I think there's still one that suggests the composer wrote the work in the year of his birth). For some of these works searches of Worldcat turn up nothing regarding published versions. The Fantasia Apocalyptica seems to be the only score that's blocked (and is so in both the US and the EU). Since IMSLP has the potential to have hundreds of Melartin's manuscripts posted here from the Sibelius Academy website it would be most helpful (at least for me) for a CR to provide some guidance as far as his manuscripts are concerned.

Many thanks,
Cypressdome

kalliwoda wrote:P.S.: A few months ago their was a similar case "http://imslp.org/wiki/Echo_(Lotti,_Antonio)", with a recent scan available at the Stockholm "Utile Dulci" collection, and a first edition published in 1997 using a different source. A re-review unblocked the scan by transfer to the EU server.

Well, in that case the 1997 publication was only in an arrangement, which does affect copyright status differently...not completely sure about the difference between US and EU law in those cases, though.
Under US law, it used to be that new first editions of previously unpublished works did get full copyright protection - for all forms of the work, from my impressions including original manuscripts etc. This was changed as of 2003 (IIRC) so that a new edition had to have something more original to it in order to warrant copyright protection, and I think the copyright restrictions on original manuscripts resulting from new publications may have been lifted. I am not completely sure about this, however, partially because my knowledge is a little rusty at present and partially because this is a weird area of the law anyway. Now, for EU law, it is my understanding that (a) if a first edition appears over 70 years after the last surviving author's death, then it is subject to editio princeps (we generally assume 25 years), which applies to all earlier versions of the work (incl. MSS); and (b) if it appears within the 70-year period, then it is not subject to copyright protection beyond the end of those 70 years. In this case, Melartin died in 1937 and this work was first published in 1993 (before the revision to US law) - so the US tag of 2049 is correct, but the EU tag of 2019 is not correct because it was published less than 70 years after Melartin's death. So actually the correct tag should be V/49/V, which I will change it to in a minute. I accept the blame for this tag from last summer (it was me who tagged it), I probably didn't think it through fully
In general, if a work by Melartin has not yet been published, it is in the public domain in the US by now (so could be tagged V/V/V). We should be careful when uploading scores from the Sibelius Academy to check their publication history, but other than that they should be fine to upload (the manuscripts, that is).

By the way, slightly offtopic, but Melartin's symphonies 1-5 have been published (whether in facsimile or in editions I do not know) and fairly recently - did not want to mention as much on the IMSLP Wishlist request for them (given the Wishlist rules) but it seems in order to do so somewhere. E.g. Melartin: Symfoni nr.2, pub. "Helsinki : Teosto ry : [Distribution by] Suomalaisen musiikin tiedotuskeskus, 1993.". (Note re Worldcat-and-other-places searching for those who haven't sussed it out already- try your searches in several languages (and idioms, and - just flexibility generally ...), especially that of the composer - this might not have turned up under Symphony. This is not a comment directed to Cypressdome - who I know knows this - but a general one. (Including to myself- of course.) )

(I've heard that Lotti Echo sonata on the radio, even more tangentially- maybe the only work I've heard of his. Hope to see it in score someday; it really is a nice and memorable work. Maybe I'll see if I can find that printed edition )

I see the tag has been corrected now. Yes, if something was first published within the initial term, the copyright expired in the EU at the end of that term. In the USA it will be protected until 2047. If the publication had taken place after 2002, it would have expired on 1/1/2008 just as in the EU. If the work was performed during the composer's lifetime or over 50 years ago (which seems likely), the work is free in Canada.

Carolus wrote:I see the tag has been corrected now.

Yes, and the file is now available on the EU server.

Max