It isn't legal to photocopy them for personal use/retypsetting so that you can play them?
I believe there are no 'fair use' exceptions in British law, certainly with sheet music anyway. Certainly it is legally prudent to assume this is the case... hence Trinity (http://www.tcm.ac.uk)'s policy of requiring written permission from the publisher for all photocopies used in exams.
Now, I could write to Schott and say something along the lines of, "Hey, I have this music you published, I'm playing it in two different groups, can I make some copies so we can actually, er, practise and stuff?" but the likelihood is that they'd reply, "No, you have to buy more copies."
Personally if people kept stealing my expensive music I probably would photocopy them and not use the originals, but that's probably illegal and if people keep them then not very ethical.
Well, the thing is, stealing the clarinet part is stupid without stealing the other parts: you can't re-create the thing from just the one part. The piano part does, to be fair, have tiny clarinet and horn parts above it, but as far as I'm concerned anyone who wants to re-create the whole thing from those is a) mad and b) welcome to do it if they want to put in the hours... it's a lot more than just a cut-and-paste job with a photocopier if you want to make it readable, and at minimum wage you'd be better off buying a new copy instead. So, in practical terms there isn't much ethical trouble in copyright terms with someone running off with a photocopy of one part: it isn't going to result in fewer sales of the original, and in fact I'd probably then have to buy another copy to replace the missing part. (My Brahms horn trio is without a piano part but thankfully someone has public-domain typeset that, if rather shoddily, and I can get it online.) But the fact that it could happen in theory means that no, I can't photocopy a part (not even the clarinet part, which doesn't have all the information) and give it to someone to learn. Or not legally, anyway.
Most musicians don't steal music on purpose: they just forget to give it back, and it gets put in a pile of papers to be dealt with, and once every two or three years they come across it and think, "Oh, must give that back to $person," and put it in another pile of papers and Nothing Happens. Meanwhile they've moved or their phone number has changed or they've stopped going to that particular music summer school and I can't remember their last name and it's really rather a lot of work to hound people for a bit of paper.
I think copyright laws have got stupid, they were supposed to be fair in recompensating the original rights holder, not restricting people from fair use afterwards.
But people might steel all our musics and use them to earn monies! Oh NOES!!!!eleventy!! Because, er, that's NOT what the publisher is doing in this case: making profit with minimal effort from work that was done by someone else around 100 years ago.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-05-31 03:09 pm (UTC)I believe there are no 'fair use' exceptions in British law, certainly with sheet music anyway. Certainly it is legally prudent to assume this is the case... hence Trinity (http://www.tcm.ac.uk)'s policy of requiring written permission from the publisher for all photocopies used in exams.
Now, I could write to Schott and say something along the lines of, "Hey, I have this music you published, I'm playing it in two different groups, can I make some copies so we can actually, er, practise and stuff?" but the likelihood is that they'd reply, "No, you have to buy more copies."
Personally if people kept stealing my expensive music I probably would photocopy them and not use the originals, but that's probably illegal and if people keep them then not very ethical.
Well, the thing is, stealing the clarinet part is stupid without stealing the other parts: you can't re-create the thing from just the one part. The piano part does, to be fair, have tiny clarinet and horn parts above it, but as far as I'm concerned anyone who wants to re-create the whole thing from those is a) mad and b) welcome to do it if they want to put in the hours... it's a lot more than just a cut-and-paste job with a photocopier if you want to make it readable, and at minimum wage you'd be better off buying a new copy instead. So, in practical terms there isn't much ethical trouble in copyright terms with someone running off with a photocopy of one part: it isn't going to result in fewer sales of the original, and in fact I'd probably then have to buy another copy to replace the missing part. (My Brahms horn trio is without a piano part but thankfully someone has public-domain typeset that, if rather shoddily, and I can get it online.) But the fact that it could happen in theory means that no, I can't photocopy a part (not even the clarinet part, which doesn't have all the information) and give it to someone to learn. Or not legally, anyway.
Most musicians don't steal music on purpose: they just forget to give it back, and it gets put in a pile of papers to be dealt with, and once every two or three years they come across it and think, "Oh, must give that back to $person," and put it in another pile of papers and Nothing Happens. Meanwhile they've moved or their phone number has changed or they've stopped going to that particular music summer school and I can't remember their last name and it's really rather a lot of work to hound people for a bit of paper.
I think copyright laws have got stupid, they were supposed to be fair in recompensating the original rights holder, not restricting people from fair use afterwards.
But people might steel all our musics and use them to earn monies! Oh NOES!!!!eleventy!! Because, er, that's NOT what the publisher is doing in this case: making profit with minimal effort from work that was done by someone else around 100 years ago.
Le sigh. Yes, copyright laws have got stupid.