A matter of concern

[musik_man]

Hypothetical- If there were two editors who independently made performing editions of a piece of public domain music, and I performed that piece publicly from memory, how would they procede with a lawsuit against me?  Assume that both were attempting to make the scores accurate to the composer's intent, so all the notes are the same. 

I think that this scenario highlights the fact that an editor hasn't created a new musical work.  They've researched and collected information that was already public.  If I write a history of WWI, collecting and editing all the information, does anyone who teaches a class, or gives a lecture agreeing with my interpretation, owe me royalties?  It's the same scenario. 

The difference between these situations and a composer, is that the composer actually creates a new piece of music.  One couldn't create a Chopin Nocturne by one's self.  One could make an indentical urtext score of said Nocturne without using any urtext score.  The ironic thing, is that in making a performing edition, the editor explicitly does not want to create new art.  He wants to recreate what the composer wrote.  If I were to make a performing score with all the same notes, how would anyone be able to prove that I took the knowledge from the other editor's score and didn't compile on my own.  After all, if I research properly, I should end up with the same work.

If we can give people copyrights for making 'new' art in a performing edition, why can't an interpretation be considered 'new'?  Why not charge any performer who plays the Goldbergs to similarly to Gould?


On a separate item, intellectual property law should be a practical thing.  It's not some philisophical issue.  It exists, not because someone deserves to have complete control over any knowledge they create, but because people need to be rewarded for making knowledge if we want any new knowledge created.  This Hyperion decision goes completely against that practicality.  This sort of IP law discourages art.  If little Susie wants to perform an arrangement of a Disney song at her free recital, the law shouldn't get in her way.  Anyone who disagrees with this is a jackass.  I'll quote the kids of South Park.  "Art belongs to the public."  IP law merely exists to make sure that the maker of that art gets a just reward for his work.

[ahinton]

Hypothetical- If there were two editors who independently made performing editions of a piece of public domain music, and I performed that piece publicly from memory, how would they procede with a lawsuit against me?  Assume that both were attempting to make the scores accurate to the composer's intent, so all the notes are the same. 

I think that this scenario highlights the fact that an editor hasn't created a new musical work.  They've researched and collected information that was already public.  If I write a history of WWI, collecting and editing all the information, does anyone who teaches a class, or gives a lecture agreeing with my interpretation, owe me royalties?  It's the same scenario. 

The difference between these situations and a composer, is that the composer actually creates a new piece of music.  One couldn't create a Chopin Nocturne by one's self.  One could make an indentical urtext score of said Nocturne without using any urtext score.  The ironic thing, is that in making a performing edition, the editor explicitly does not want to create new art.  He wants to recreate what the composer wrote.  If I were to make a performing score with all the same notes, how would anyone be able to prove that I took the knowledge from the other editor's score and didn't compile on my own.  After all, if I research properly, I should end up with the same work.

If we can give people copyrights for making 'new' art in a performing edition, why can't an interpretation be considered 'new'?  Why not charge any performer who plays the Goldbergs to similarly to Gould?


On a separate item, intellectual property law should be a practical thing.  It's not some philisophical issue.  It exists, not because someone deserves to have complete control over any knowledge they create, but because people need to be rewarded for making knowledge if we want any new knowledge created.  This Hyperion decision goes completely against that practicality.  This sort of IP law discourages art.  If little Susie wants to perform an arrangement of a Disney song at her free recital, the law shouldn't get in her way.  Anyone who disagrees with this is a jackass.  I'll quote the kids of South Park.  "Art belongs to the public."  IP law merely exists to make sure that the maker of that art gets a just reward for his work.

Some important issues are aired here. I would add that the content of the first paragraph could just as easily be extended to encompass copyright music as well, with some obvious variations in overall result but with no compromise in principle to the argument offered here.

That said, I am prepared to accept the possibility that, when an editor works on something whose original text may in some sense be incomplete, some "original" work on the editor's part may be involved, but it must immediately be understood that the "originality" involved in such work would be down to the extent of the editor's understanding of the "original" material that enables him/her to "fill in some blanks" left by the composer in a way that is intended to be suggestive, albeit in a speculative way, of what the composer might have done had he/she lived or bothered to complete his/her own work. One has only to consider Anthony Payne's edition / elaboration / what-you-will of Elgar's Third Symphony, in the preparation of which it is well known that Mr Payne had to compose some material, since Elgar is known to have left insufficient material from which to assemble the symphony; it is patently obvious that what Mr Payne did was not to incorporate his own musical ideas into the finished product but to attempt to divine what Elgar's might have been. This is not in any sense to undermine what Mr Payne has achieved - only an idiot would seek to do that - but to point out the difference between a composer's own "original" work and that which he may accomplish in an editorial capacity to reproduce what another composer might have done. Here, however, we are arguably in the realms of Busoni's notion that a composer does not so much create but divine - in other words, he/she is a discoverer and revealer of what is already present and waiting to be found. Elgar himself spoke of something similar in the way in which he claimed to have "found" musical ideas "in the air" while walking in the Malvern Hills in Worcestershire, England - as though such ideas were already there - a resource waiting to be tapped. This is, again, not so very different to Schönberg's avowed belief that he was a mere vessel though which the ideas were transmitted. All this is - especially if taken entirely literally - potentially dispiriting to the composer! It is also self-evidently above and beyond the kinds of copyright establishment considerations that have been aired in this and other threads. That fact does not make it any the less relevant, however - and, indeed, it may throw a spanner into the works of these editorial copyright arguments.

That said, I do agree, in the present context, that, when the writer of the most recent post argues that
The difference between these situations and a composer is that the composer actually creates a new piece of music.
he is entirely correct.

When he goes on to assert
If we can give people copyrights for making 'new' art in a performing edition, why can't an interpretation be considered 'new'?
he is playing into the hands of Busoni (once again) who had the wisdom to suggest that performance and composition are in fact far more interlinked than many people had believed to be the case. All performances, as Busoni saw it, are in some sense transcriptions; transcription, in his expanded view, embraces a kind of re-interpretation, just as any performer's successive interpretations of his/her own or anyone else's music are by definition transcriptions of what has gone before, except to the extent that the literal definition of "transcription" suggests actual writing ("script"). Again, such considerations are well beyond anything which has been or even could be addressed meaningfully by present or future copyright law.

"Musik_man"'s observation that intellectual property law, in the form of copyright establishment and assertion in practice, exists for the purpose of ensuring that originators are duly rewarded for their original work is an inalienable truth; his additional quote that "art belongs to the public" is, as he himself well demonstrates in his argument, in no sense incompatible with this fact, for it is patently (sorry!) obvious that no composer in his/her right mind seeks to invoke copyright law for the purpose of ensuring that his/her work is kept to him/herself. Music is, after all, a communicative means.

Best,

Alistair