Jody: I realize that my response is hardly timely, but I'm just catching up with old digests and wanted to add some info in regards to threads in the digest concerning copyright as it relates to music roll reproduction. I'd like to make those interested in the subject aware of an excellent book. Wri...

> From: ADBYTES@delphi.com > To: rolls@foxtail.com > > Subject: Re: Automatic Music Digest 96.01.28 > > ...... but somehow I feel that sooner or later > one or more of the numbers will wind up in some software company's > product! And when that happens, you take your copyright statement, and your ju...

Steve Harder brings up a n important point: > Date: Wed, 21 Feb 1996 17:56:44 -0600 > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > To: automatic-music@foxtail.com > From: Steve Harder > > Subject: Tonneson Piano Roll cutting ??s > [Partial snip.] > Could someone also offer comments on what is fair...

I'm investigating setting up a Web Site for the digests and associated materials. I'd really rather do it on a machine that I own and control, but it may make sense to do it on a "Service Bureau" where the bandwidth would be better. I'm currently looking at scruz.net as the hosting location, as they...

Several recent postings about copyright issues prompts this reply. [ Editor's Note: refer to [ [ Digest 961121, Andy LaTorre [ Digest 961122, Angelo Rulli [ Digest 961125, Bill Jelen These points do not apply to anything created after December 31, 1977. They do apply to musical compositions (as well...

Digest 97.01.13 contained a reply from Ed Berlin to S. K. Goodman that thoroughly confused me. It dealt with copyright and public domain and mentioned 1906 as cutoff date. Up until the 1970's, when Congress began to consider overhaul of copyright law, the United States law had the same basic provisi...

I would not even make the effort to argue law (which always confuses me), but base my statement about 1906 being the cut-off in the 1970s on my experience with publishers and libraries. In the late '70s I was writing a history of ragtime with *many* musical examples, and was careful to ask for repri...

•Juergen Hocker mentions copyright problems standing in the way of copying Conlon Nancarrow's piano rolls. Nancarrow lived and did much of his work in Mexico. I wonder whether Mexican or American copyright law applies to the rolls? Of course, with permission from the composer's heirs, anything can b...

•Matthew Caulfield wrote: > Juergen Hocker mentions copyright problems standing in the way of > copying Conlon Nancarrow's piano rolls. Nancarrow lived and did much > of his work in Mexico. I wonder whether Mexican or American copyright > law applies to the rolls? Both are signatories of the Berne C...

•In the Digest from Monday, 30 March, Art Reblitz replied to my comment "... and how about scanning old books, out of print, and putting them on a CD?". He is right, of course, in warning for offending copyrights. If you are a publisher, you want to make sure, eventually in advance, that your copyri...

•I began making piano rolls for sale many years ago in partnership with two other people (it was the old, familiar story -- I had the know-how but no money, they had money), both of whom became sick with worry that by retailing the rolls we would be driving a coach and horses through the British cop...

•"Happy Birthday", copyright 1935, has had its copyright renewed. That's why restaurants with waiters who sing to you on your birthday sometimes use a "corporate" birthday tune instead. They're not paying the license fee. Did I hear a rumor that Michael Jackson (yes, "the" Michael Jackson) purchased...

•Gary Jones wrote: > "Happy Birthday", copyright 1935, has had its copyright renewed. Under modern law, a copyright cannot be "renewed" any more, and under the law at the time "Happy Birthday" was written, it could only be renewed once, in 1952. "Happy Birthday's" copyright was scheduled to expire a...

•I have been reading with interest the recent postings on the copyright status of "Happy Birthday". It is my understanding that the copyright to this song has been one of the most tightly held in history. Last evening, I noticed that a Dairy Queen commercial was playing the popularly known Happy Bir...

•Glenn Morris sends word that a lawsuit filed by Universal Music Australia against Sharman License Holdings (Kazaa file sharing software) will be defended by citing an 1899 ruling about pianola rolls: "Boosey vs Whight (1899) involved copyright charges arising over the production of pianola rolls, i...

•How nice to see this ruling surface again, even if it has a desperate air about it in the particular case. The original was between Boosey, music publishers, and George Whight, Aeolian's UK dealer in 1899 (and very soon to be bought out to form the UK branch of the Aeolian Company). It's pretty wel...

•Well this _is_ an interesting defense. And to the computer-uninformed it just might work. Most judges seem to be "computer-uninformed". Being that nowadays music is rarely recorded to a true [analog] "sound recording" (this being vinyl or analog tape) and today is almost always in a digital format...

•[ Ray Finch wrote in 040608 MMDigest: >> Being that nowadays music is rarely recorded to a true [analog] >> "sound recording" (this being vinyl or analog tape) and today >> is almost always in a digital format, This overlooks the essential difference between sound recordings, digital or analogue, a...

•The key point about both the Boosey vs Whight and White-Smith vs. Apollo court cases was that a piano roll does not hold sheet music (or a performance), but rather the coding needed to make a machine produce a performance. Both cases date to the days where virtually all rolls were arranged, so only...

•Sun, 09 Nov 2008, Roger Wiegand says: > Various organizations, Google as a prime example, have digitization > and publication (with fairly sophisticated search capability) of > virtually everything as a goal. I'd suggest that those who want to > make the information available look into partnering w...