Sorabji question

[pies]

a

[Etude]

Has hinton commented on Noda's performances?  I wonder what he thinks of them.  He's probably the only one here that's seen the score.

I don't personally know of any comments he's made on them... He did mention a while back that he can't listen from his computer, so maybe he hasn't even heard them...  From my limited experience I'd say this is either the most bizarre performance of Sorabji to ever take place, or he's just plain not playing it properly a la GDM.

Now that I think about it, Noda is used to playing new complexity works (like Hikari Kiyama, for instance) where approximation to some extent is usually necessary just to actually get through the music.

[ahinton]

Thats bad news for Woolworths.

They were relying on the sales to keep them going until the new year.

No, Thal; even the at last failed Woolworths only relied for their sales upon CDs that had actually been released. Silly fellow!

Best,

Alistair

[Petter]

I thought that Habanera was really cool 

[pies]

edit: Nevermind.

[thalbergmad]

No, Thal; even the at last failed Woolworths only relied for their sales upon CDs that had actually been released. Silly fellow!

Yes, I am silly.

I would have thought they would have had thousands of pre release orders.

Thal

[ahinton]

Yes, I am silly.

I would have thought they would have had thousands of pre release orders.

Even if they had, it hardly matters any more, does it?

Best,

Alistair

[pies]

A

[pianowolfi]

Here are the last few pages of the last two etudes:

no. 99

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v107/tpmsd/IMG_0649.jpg

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v107/tpmsd/IMG_0650.jpg


no. 100

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v107/tpmsd/IMG_0651.jpg

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v107/tpmsd/IMG_0652.jpg

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v107/tpmsd/IMG_0653.jpg

Lol I think I'll stick to listening

[retrouvailles]

Where did you get these? Don't tell me you shelled out $400 for the whole book.

[ahinton]

Here are the last few pages of the last two etudes:

no. 99

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v107/tpmsd/IMG_0649.jpg

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v107/tpmsd/IMG_0650.jpg


no. 100

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v107/tpmsd/IMG_0651.jpg

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v107/tpmsd/IMG_0652.jpg

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v107/tpmsd/IMG_0653.jpg


I hope hinton doesn't mind that I'm posting this.

I do mind, actually: you didn't ask first, did you? I have no objection to the posting of extracts only, provided that they are very short, but I will appreciate the courtesy of a prior written request; apart from our own copyright, we have also to consider the editor, who has laboured on this work for thousands of hours. Fredrik Ullén has a couple of extracts from this edition on his website, but this follows the seeking and granting of due permissions.

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

Where did you get these? Don't tell me you shelled out $400 for the whole book.

Good question - and one to which I imagine I will not be alone in looking forward with interest to the answer...

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

To my knowledge, they have been floating around the Hintonet for some time.

Thal

[jabbz]

At least we know he didn't download them, as far as I'm aware paper is not yet able to travel across phone lines.

[ahinton]

To my knowledge, they have been floating around the Hintonet for some time.

They will have been "floating around the internet" at any time only as a direct consequence of someone having scanned and uploaded them there and this will have been done without permission having first been sought; the only permission given for this has been to Fredrik Ullén to include samples on his website, about which we have no problem whatsoever. To clarify, we also have no problem in principle with small samples being scanned and uploaded, provided that no complete works or parts of works are thus made available and provided also that due permission is sought for this in advance, as was the case with Fredrik Ullén; this is surely not unreasonable in the light of the immense energies that have been expended in order to make this material available in the first place.

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

At least we know he didn't download them, as far as I'm aware paper is not yet able to travel across phone lines.

We cannot necessarily be certain of the identity of the source of this material; all that we can say with certainty is that someone scanned and uploaded them in the first place and, since neither the editor himself nor Fredril Ullén did this or made it possible for someone else to do it, the person who did do it must have purchased it from us in the first place or got the material from someone else who had done so.

Best,

Alistair

[pies]

A

[thalbergmad]

They will have been "floating around the internet" at any time only as a direct consequence of someone having scanned and uploaded them there and this will have been done without permission having first been sought.

Well, you will be pleased to know that my computer sent the files direct to my trash can, so no copyright infringement from me.

Thal

[thalbergmad]

this is surely not unreasonable in the light of the immense energies that have been expended in order to make this material available in the first place.

Well, immense energies are required to scan them as well.

Those old Curwen Editions are bastards to get under the scanner.

Thal

[Etude]

Yep, would've been better to ask first, but it's certainly made it very clear that Noda hasn't got a clue what he's doing.

[ahinton]

Maybe you've heard of this new phenomenon known as "libraries" in some cultures.    
I really don't care about your permission.  OK, that's a bit rude, but it's just 5 pages of an ~850 page work, and I didn't scan nor am I planning on scanning others.

Yes, it is indeed abit rude, as you say, especially given that I am hardly unaware of the existence of libraries of many kinds over the centuries and that I also specifically exonerated you from any accusation of having done any such thing. Do you really think that it is unreasonable to expect that anyone wanting to put a handful of pages of such material in front of the public be expected to have the common courtesy of asking first? We very much want people to have opportunities to see excerpts from Sorabji's scores and to be able to listen to fine performances of his work - this is a core aspect of our very existence as The Sorabji Archive; we just happen also to want to see the kinds of decency that some might find old-fashioned and unnecessary but that still means something to us to the extent that people try to show some kind of common (OK, maybe not any longer) courtesy in the form of appreciation of the immense labours of the editors (for which we are grateful beyond words) before they go publish (for that is what it is) extracts of their work; is that so unreasonable?

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

Well, you will be pleased to know that my computer sent the files direct to my trash can, so no copyright infringement from me.

I do not recall accusing you of this or anything else, Thal - and, for the record, I don't...

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

Well, immense energies are required to scan them as well.

Those old Curwen Editions are bastards to get under the scanner.

I cannot believe that you consider the respective energies to be on a par one with another but, in any case, why bother to expend energies in scanning something when it has already been done by us and is accordinly being made available in the paper format that most people still want? Even if and when it gets to the point where people prefer encrypted (ha! - what a joke that is!) .pdf files of these items to the old on-paper prints, would that of itself undermine the amounts of energy and time that the editors have spent in making the material available in the first place? I cannot stress enoung how valuable and time-consuming these editors' work has been and continues to be - and I do continue to feel that it is reasonable that it attracts the respect that it so richly deserves.

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

Paper copies are nice, but some of those 1920's editions are worth having since they are an item of beauty and occasionally sell for upwards of £450.

Of course, the energies involved cannot be compared and i do sympathise with your situation. If i had spent hours on a work and saw parts of it plastered over a public forum by some little sh*t without my permission, i would be pissed off as well.

However, maybe this slight infringement might lead to someone actually making a purchase, albeit i do agree your permission should have been sought in the first place.

Thal

[michel dvorsky]

Bizarre.

Just bizarre.

What has happened:

- A fan of Sorabji's music has posted a few pages of a copyrighted score.
- Given that it took hours to edit the damn thing, it is understandable for the owners of the intellectual copyright to be upset with the infringement.

But to me, it's just bizarre.  Like any patent, the ones who labor for hours ought to reap the rewards with a few years of monopoly profits.  But in practical terms, if the goal is to propagate the music of a highly obscure composer, then the restriction seems draconian to me.  I doubt very much that even enthusiasts would be willing to spend hundreds of dollars of the score.  But if the price were lowered to a reasonable $80 or something,  I still doubt that many more people would be tempted to buy it.

In short, the whole thing is very sad to me.  One can go to the library and take out a score of opus 109 and a recording of that work by Artur Schnabel for free.  Yet it costs hundreds of dollars to buy a work of an obscure composer, and those who seek to popularize it further wind up in trouble for doing so.  I am tempted to believe that Sorabji fans themselves recognize the inherent lack of market interest in the music and have to make up for it with extreme draconian measures. 

It would be a very very good sign for Sorabji if PDFs of his music were being circulated widely.

[pies]

A

[michel dvorsky]

OK, can we get over this little insignificant bit regarding what I should have done before posting the pics and just discuss the music?

Actually, any such conversation will probably just devolve into dvorsky and others calling it crap.

Can we just kill the thread?  I've deleted the pictures because you're all sh­itheads that don't deserve to see the score (*smug self-righteous elitist*).

I responded. But I felt it had a degree of nuance to it

Listen to this story about spreading ideas:

[opus10no2]

The reason I and many rarely spend any money on music anymore is simple - the wealth of amazing music in the public domain renders it pointless to invest in an inferior product.

A huge problem for composers of today; why pay for Hinton when we have Beethoven for free?

[indutrial]

OK, can we get over this little insignificant bit regarding what I should have done before posting the pics and just discuss the music?

Actually, any such conversation will probably just devolve into dvorsky and others calling it crap.

Can we just kill the thread?  I've deleted the pictures because you're all sh­itheads that don't deserve to see the score (*smug self-righteous elitist*).

I know I don't deserve to see the full score for free, but I didn't feel bad about seeing two frigging pages of it (a fifth of a percent of the whole work). Should I feel more guilty about a time last summer when I sat in the UPenn library shamelessly leafing through the entire score for Toccata no. 1? A few pages here and there on the web is perfectly fine for chrissakes, if only for publicity's sake. If an artist has an album and a reviewer or fan decided to post a song on their website or on Youtube, I can't see how that could ever be a real problem.

[retrouvailles]

A huge problem for composers of today; why pay for Hinton when we have Beethoven for free?

Because Hinton and Beethoven could not be further from each other.

[ahinton]

Bizarre.

Just bizarre.

What has happened:

- A fan of Sorabji's music has posted a few pages of a copyrighted score.
- Given that it took hours to edit the damn thing, it is understandable for the owners of the intellectual copyright to be upset with the infringement.

I don't think that you read my remarks with sufficient care. We do not have an in-principle objection to sample pages of Sorabji scores being uploaded and made available on the internet; what we do expect, however, is that anyone wishing to do this simply requests permission to do so and, when the score concerned has been edited and typeset like the one in question has, that permission needs to come not only from us but from the editor - we own the copyright in the music but the editor's edition is the editor's copyright. It's just a matter of common(?) courtesy. Were we the kinds of curmudgeon that would refuse such permission under each and every conceivable circumstance, I could understand people disapproving of our stance; as I have said so many times before (and I apologise for repeating it here), with copyrights come copy responsibilities.

But to me, it's just bizarre.  Like any patent, the ones who labor for hours ought to reap the rewards with a few years of monopoly profits.  But in practical terms, if the goal is to propagate the music of a highly obscure composer, then the restriction seems draconian to me.  I doubt very much that even enthusiasts would be willing to spend hundreds of dollars of the score.  But if the price were lowered to a reasonable $80 or something,  I still doubt that many more people would be tempted to buy it.

Well, that's your opinion and you're entitled to it, of course, but I don't think you have much idea about the costs involved - and we are not a charity, nor are we subsidised in any way, so we have to run The Sorabji Archive as a business, like it or not. In order to issue copies of these scores on paper (which is still the format that we find most people seem to want), we have to expend many thousands of pounds on the equipment to do it (A3 photocopier punching and comb-binding machines, etc.), we have to take on board the cost of maintaining that equipment, we have to purchase the necessary consumables, (paper, binding combs, card covers, packaging materials, etc.) and we have to meet shipping costs; just to send a copy of the 100 Transcendental Studies by airmail to US using the printed papers service costs around £54 (which isn't as many US dollars as it used to be, but it's even now around the $80 mark that you suggest for the price of the whole thing!

In short, the whole thing is very sad to me.  One can go to the library and take out a score of opus 109 and a recording of that work by Artur Schnabel for free.  Yet it costs hundreds of dollars to buy a work of an obscure composer, and those who seek to popularize it further wind up in trouble for doing so.

I trust that you now understand WHY it costs hundreds of dollars to purchase that work, whose edition runs to 864 pages of music. No one is "winding up in trouble"; we have simply pointed out how this should be done.

I am tempted to believe that Sorabji fans themselves recognize the inherent lack of market interest in the music and have to make up for it with extreme draconian measures. 

I cannot speak for other "fans" but I can speak for what we do here and, if this alleged "inherent lack of market interest" were true, we would have gone under many years ago rather than having continued for more than two decades in which many new excellent editions have been created.

It would be a very very good sign for Sorabji if PDFs of his music were being circulated widely.

It would be a good thing if smaples of his work were made available on the internet, as indeed they are; I hope, however, that you can now see that we would be in no position to spen all that money simply in order to provide items for free.

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

The reason I and many rarely spend any money on music anymore is simple - the wealth of amazing music in the public domain renders it pointless to invest in an inferior product.

A huge problem for composers of today; why pay for Hinton when we have Beethoven for free?

For the answer to the first bit you'd have to ask people who have paid for copies of my scores or CDs of my work; as to "Beethoven for free", why do you suppose that many thousands of people still continue to buy paper copies of his scores?

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

I know I don't deserve to see the full score for free, but I didn't feel bad about seeing two frigging pages of it (a fifth of a percent of the whole work). Should I feel more guilty about a time last summer when I sat in the UPenn library shamelessly leafing through the entire score for Toccata no. 1? A few pages here and there on the web is perfectly fine for chrissakes, if only for publicity's sake.

Agreed.

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

it costs hundreds of dollars to buy a work of an obscure composer

We've dealt with the cost question, so let's now briefly address the obscurity one. In writing as you do here it might have been as well had you first considered that, less than thirty years ago, there was not a single commercial recording of any of Sorabji's music in the market place, whereas there have since been well over 30 of them, many of which are still available today (which they wouldn't be if there were insufficient market for them). Just over thirty years ago, the tiny handful of Sorabji's scores that were available in print started to go out of print one at a time and, by the time the composer died in 1988, aged 96, they had all disappeared from view, but every known note that he wrote is now available in ms. form, all the out-of-print publications are now back in circulation and there are many new editions as well. We have documented many hundreds of Sorabji performances and broadcasts that have taken place over the past thirty years. Sorabji is obviously more "obscure" than Beethoven and likely will always remain so, but this "obscurity" has lessened substantially since the mid-1970s.

These are not personal opinions; they are plain facts.

Best,

Alistair

[pianowolfi]

The reason I and many rarely spend any money on music anymore is simple - the wealth of amazing music in the public domain renders it pointless to invest in an inferior product.

If you plan to work seriously on a composition, by whatever composer, free internets scores are often not good for more than a first glance at a piece. Many free internet scores are no Urtext and of obscure quality. Usually I use them to get a first impression and decide If I want to play them or give them to students, but once I have decided I go and buy a decent edition. Anyway I want to pay the composers/editors for doing their good work.

I think Alistair does a great job.

[thalbergmad]

as to "Beethoven for free", why do you suppose that many thousands of people still continue to buy paper copies of his scores?

I was not aware that thousands still did and perhaps the ones that do, have yet to realise that they don't have to.

Thal

[ahinton]

If you plan to work seriously on a composition, by whatever composer, free internets scores are often not good for more than a first glance at a piece. Many free internet scores are no Urtext and of obscure quality. Usually I use them to get a first impression and decide If I want to play them or give them to students, but once I have decided I go and buy a decent edition. Anyway I want to pay the composers/editors for doing their good work.

I think Alistair does a great job.

Thank you very much for your compliment, which I hope that to some extent I may manage to deserve; that said, I cannot emphasise enough the really great job being done by the skilled and dedicated editors of Sorabji's scores, without the results of which it would be almost impossible for Sorabji's music to be disseminated in performances, broadcasts and recordings as is increasingly the case.

There is another aspect to what some people seem to feel about this vexed subject and it is perhaps a kind of adjunct to, or by-product of, that subject and it is this; those people who seem to believe that they possess some kind of divine right to whatever music they want, always free of charge, appear to assume that it is broadly unnecessary for composers to derive financial reward for what they do - no justification for this bizarre reasoning is offered by such people, of course (I wonder why?!). I'm sure I'm not making this up and, as evidence to suggest otherwise, I can perhaps do no better than refer such people (and anyone else interested) to the article on this by Richard Morrison in the current edition of BBC Music Magazine in which he observes not only that other professionals outside the world of music making (such as lawyers, accountants, etc.) expect to make a decent living from what they do if they're good enough at it to deserve such reward but also that rank-and-file orchestral violinists would expect to earn far more than composers for what they do. He not unnaturally questions why this is and counters the old chestnut about "it's all the composers' fault" by observing that he has witnessed well-attended and well-received premières of quite a few new works in recent times whose composers are nevertheless pretty much on the bread-line in terms of what they get for what they've written. What he doesn't add is the insult to injury that, whilst most salaried professionals and even self-employed business people expect to be paid for their work within a reasonable period of time, composers often have to wait many months or even years to receive royalty payments on performances, broadcasts and recordings of their work. He adds that this situation is hardly helped by the BBC having just slashed "classical" composers' broadcast royalties by around half. OK, of course very few people ever contemplate embarking upon a career in composition for the principal purpose of making money at it (and composers' opportunities for commercial gains in the fields of broadcasting and films are diminishing these days in any case), but that does not of itself justify an expectation that it doesn't matter what the composer gets paid; that expectation, however, does appear to be in line with the expectation with which I began this paragraph - i.e. that composers ought to offer their scores on the internet free of charge.

Does anyone here truly believe that composers are - and indeed should be - some kind of "special case" in this to the extent that there are genuine and credible reasons why they need not and should not necessarily expect anything like the same financial rewards for their work as do other professionals both within and outside the field of music making? If so, I, for one (and I'm sure many others here as well) would be intrigued to read them.

Best,

Alistair

[argerichfan]

This has been an interesting thread to read, and I appreciate what people have contributed.

I've long wanted to work my way (via recording) through OC, but without a score I cannot imagine summoning up the extended concentration to get through more than a little at a time.  (And of course there's no point in putting it on as 'background' music.)

No library I have access to has that score, so wouldn't it be cool if one could borrow a pdf for a few weeks or so?  Perhaps with a built in prevention to saving it on the desktop?

Alistair would certainly understand that whilst I have more than a casual interest in OC, that's not enough to justify the purchase cost of the paper score. 

[indutrial]

Does anyone here truly believe that composers are - and indeed should be - some kind of "special case" in this to the extent that there are genuine and credible reasons why they need not and should not necessarily expect anything like the same financial rewards for their work as do other professionals both within and outside the field of music making? If so, I, for one (and I'm sure many others here as well) would be intrigued to read them.

Best,

Alistair

I certainly believe that composers deserve compensation for their work. As far as sheet music goes, I would argue that nothing can or will work in their favor unless the production side is much more privatized (a la Alastair publishing his own scores, people putting their scores up on Sibeliusmusic.com for a printing price, etc..). When music is wrapped up in the collapsing disaster that is the old-guard music-publishing world, no one should expect that anyone beyond the publisher themselves are going to gain real-world profits. A lot of their bogusly-inflated pricing schemes and horrible customer service has definitely resulted in more liberties being taken in the world of sharers and scanners.

I still honestly don't think that the scanning and sharing of music, even things like Sorabji scores, results in anything seriously detrimental or damaging. Any serious musician who's not simply some jaded brat college kid will probably end up buying the scores for real when he/she realizes that 8.5x11 printouts of those A3 pages won't cut it on the piano stand. And even if they tough it out with the freebee, the performance will most likely be a profitless student recital or free show where donations can be made in the lobby. I have been to 5-6 recitals in the past two months and I think I only paid admission once...and these were performances of works by living composers who were in attendance.

[ahinton]

This has been an interesting thread to read, and I appreciate what people have contributed.

I've long wanted to work my way (via recording) through OC, but without a score I cannot imagine summoning up the extended concentration to get through more than a little at a time.  (And of course there's no point in putting it on as 'background' music.)

No library I have access to has that score, so wouldn't it be cool if one could borrow a pdf for a few weeks or so?  Perhaps with a built in prevention to saving it on the desktop?

Alistair would certainly understand that whilst I have more than a casual interest in OC, that's not enough to justify the purchase cost of the paper score. 

Encrypting a .pdf file of OC could, of course, be achieved but such encryption is, we understand, fairly easy to unpick (not that we are suggesting that you would personally contemplate doing any such thing). Only each individual can justify or otherwise the purchase cost of anything, be it a score of OC or anything else. What we could do (if it is of any interest to you) is offer you a cheaper copy of that score on paper at A4 size, loose-leaf rather than bound with covers; this would be less costly both to produce and to ship; it that idea might appeal, please email us at sorabji-archive@lineone.net with your shipping details and we can provide you with a quote for that which would work out considerably less than its purchase price as advertised on our website.

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

A lot of their bogusly-inflated pricing schemes and horrible customer service has definitely resulted in more liberties being taken in the world of sharers and scanners.

I still honestly don't think that the scanning and sharing of music, even things like Sorabji scores, results in anything seriously detrimental or damaging.

I agree with all of this.

Anyone who is seriously interested will buy scores, therefore i see no great loss in scanning and sharing online.

Thal

[javacisnotrecognized]

There is another aspect to what some people seem to feel about this vexed subject and it is perhaps a kind of adjunct to, or by-product of, that subject and it is this; those people who seem to believe that they possess some kind of divine right to whatever music they want, always free of charge, appear to assume that it is broadly unnecessary for composers to derive financial reward for what they do - no justification for this bizarre reasoning is offered by such people, of course (I wonder why?!).

"Music is a right, but only for those who deserve it." - A. B. Michelangeli

No library I have access to has that score, so wouldn't it be cool if one could borrow a pdf for a few weeks or so?  Perhaps with a built in prevention to saving it on the desktop?

(One of) the problem(s) is that if you can read the score, you can save it with enough hackery. Nowadays, friendly anonymous people on the internet will kindly hack these things for you.

Have you heard of DRM ? It was (Is?) an attempt to make certain types of  media inaccessible to the user of a computer system except for certain programs that will only play back the media if it is verified - for example, your DVD playing program will only playback your DRM'd DVD if it can verify you obtained it legally. (Don't take my word on this, I haven't kept in touch very well)

Anyway, there was a great outcry from the usebase about how "It is MY computer, and it should do what _I_ want" and eventually some kids cracked the DRM system with a very long hex string (It's been patched multiple times since then). Google around for things like "DRM" and "Sony BMG scandal" and you will quickly find what I'm talking about.

Basically, no borrowing PDFs.

[ahinton]

I certainly believe that composers deserve compensation for their work. As far as sheet music goes, I would argue that nothing can or will work in their favor unless the production side is much more privatized (a la Alastair publishing his own scores, people putting their scores up on Sibeliusmusic.com for a printing price, etc..). When music is wrapped up in the collapsing disaster that is the old-guard music-publishing world, no one should expect that anyone beyond the publisher themselves are going to gain real-world profits. A lot of their bogusly-inflated pricing schemes and horrible customer service has definitely resulted in more liberties being taken in the world of sharers and scanners.

I don't think that such accusations can fairly be levelled at all music publishers but I must agree with you that there have been and still are all too many instances of the kind of thing to which you rightly draw attention here.

I still honestly don't think that the scanning and sharing of music, even things like Sorabji scores, results in anything seriously detrimental or damaging. Any serious musician who's not simply some jaded brat college kid will probably end up buying the scores for real when he/she realizes that 8.5x11 printouts of those A3 pages won't cut it on the piano stand. And even if they tough it out with the freebee, the performance will most likely be a profitless student recital or free show where donations can be made in the lobby. I have been to 5-6 recitals in the past two months and I think I only paid admission once...and these were performances of works by living composers who were in attendance.

You have a point that I accept in principle but I have to add that, in practice, as we know from experience, there are people out there who scan and upload scores and/or obtain such scans/uploads with the avowed intent of selling copies of them; now whilst I accept that this is almost certainly not what happens in the majority of cases, it is undoubtedly true that, when someone does indeed sell such copies of OC or other items for whatever price without permission, the law has been breached and we are the losers. Of course if everyone were that unscrupulous we would be out of business and, as we aren't, it is plainly obvious that most people aren't that unscrupulous, but whilst we cannot easily prevent this kind of activity from taking place, we do not want to risk encouraging it.

Any further thoughts from amyone here in more general terms in regard to the financial plight of most composers?...

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

"Music is a right, but only for those who deserve it." - A. B. Michelangeli

(One of) the problem(s) is that if you can read the score, you can save it with enough hackery. Nowadays, friendly anonymous people on the internet will kindly hack these things for you.

Have you heard of DRM ? It was (Is?) an attempt to make certain types of  media inaccessible to the user of a computer system except for certain programs that will only play back the media if it is verified - for example, your DVD playing program will only playback your DRM'd DVD if it can verify you obtained it legally. (Don't take my word on this, I haven't kept in touch very well)

Anyway, there was a great outcry from the usebase about how "It is MY computer, and it should do what _I_ want" and eventually some kids cracked the DRM system with a very long hex string (It's been patched multiple times since then). Google around for things like "DRM" and "Sony BMG scandal" and you will quickly find what I'm talking about.

Basically, no borrowing PDFs.

Thank you; I'm relieved to observe that it's not only me saying this kind of thing!

Best,

Alistair

[javacisnotrecognized]

Thank you; I'm relieved to observe that it's not only me saying this kind of thing!

Best,

Alistair

I want to make it clear now - I am not "for" the concept of DRM (Which stands for digital rights management, btw) or "against" the concept, I just wanted to point out that it IS necessary to be careful (As Ahinton is), and you can't simply "Build in prevention for saving to the desktop", as nice as it would be. (I would not be the first to be in outrage about only being allowed to save a file to one place on the system anyway, but that is a topic for a very, very different thread)

I also believe, personally, that music SHOULD be free for anyone who has gone through the trouble of learning to appreciate/perform it. We are given ears for free, we are given many beautiful and amazing things for free, indeed - music seems, to me, more akin to a force of nature instead of the work of an individual.

However, I realize that allowing music to be free is not financially viable, particularly in this day and age (I blame our cultures, for being unable to recognize fine things when they see them) and I'm willing to work with that...

Also, I wanted to be able to talk with the awsum Alstair Hinton, curator of the friggen'  SORABJI ARCHIVE

[argerichfan]

(One of) the problem(s) is that if you can read the score, you can save it with enough hackery. Nowadays, friendly anonymous people on the internet will kindly hack these things for you.
[...]
Basically, no borrowing PDFs.

Right-O, rather naive of me to think so, but my intentions were honest!  It would be the same thing with pictures, of course.  Someone put some nifty pix on Flickr that I couldn't drag to my desktop, but as I just had to have them, I simply launched 'Grab' (on my Mac) and helped myself.  (Not that I would do that with Alistair's scores...)

[ahinton]

I want to make it clear now - I am not "for" the concept of DRM (Which stands for digital rights management, btw) or "against" the concept, I just wanted to point out that it IS necessary to be careful (As Ahinton is), and you can't simply "Build in prevention for saving to the desktop", as nice as it would be. (I would not be the first to be in outrage about only being allowed to save a file to one place on the system anyway, but that is a topic for a very, very different thread)

I also believe, personally, that music SHOULD be free for anyone who has gone through the trouble of learning to appreciate/perform it. We are given ears for free, we are given many beautiful and amazing things for free, indeed - music seems, to me, more akin to a force of nature instead of the work of an individual.

However, I realize that allowing music to be free is not financially viable, particularly in this day and age (I blame our cultures, for being unable to recognize fine things when they see them) and I'm willing to work with that...

Also, I wanted to be able to talk with the awsum Alstair Hinton, curator of the friggen'  SORABJI ARCHIVE

I am not trying to restrict the availability of the music for which I am responsible - very much the reverse, in fact. Also, I am not "awsum" (or indeed any other more or less legitimate spelling of "awesome") and The Sorabji Archive is in no sense "friggin"; I can be spoken and written to and I will always try to be as helpful as I can in providing information to bona fide enquirers.

You write that
"We are given ears for free, we are given many beautiful and amazing things for free, indeed - music seems, to me, more akin to a force of nature instead of the work of an individual"
We are indeed "given" those ears and various things supposedly or arguably "for free" but, if any of them has an inherent value, they are not literally "for free", even if they might seem to have been "given" in that spirit. Of course music inhabits an area that might reasonably be described as "a force of nature", but that doesn't of itself mean that those who as a direct consequence thereof become involved in efforts to translate that "force of nature" into the kinds of terms that listeners can appreciate should have to endure the burden of being unpaid - or poorly and inefficiently paid - for what they do.

Best,

Alistair

[richard black]

I also believe, personally, that music SHOULD be free for anyone who has gone through the trouble of learning to appreciate/perform it.

Why only for them?

In the days when music was 'free' - centuries ago - people understood that musicians had to eat and either simply employed them at court or in church or (among the peasantry) fed, clothed and accommodated them when they came to the village to play tunes for the local hop. One of the unfortunate side-effects of the welfare state (and mechanised civilisation in general) is that generations have grown up who think that milk come from bottles, electricity and water are fundamental human rights and healthcare, infrastructure and music and all the other arts are paid for by 'someone else'.

[ahinton]

Why only for them?

In the days when music was 'free' - centuries ago - people understood that musicians had to eat and either simply employed them at court or in church or (among the peasantry) fed, clothed and accommodated them when they came to the village to play tunes for the local hop.

Yes - so I wonder why some people no longer understand anythng of the kind - or is it simply that some people have chosen to ignore it for the sake of their own convenience?...

One of the unfortunate side-effects of the welfare state (and mechanised civilisation in general) is that generations have grown up who think that milk come from bottles, electricity and water are fundamental human rights and healthcare, infrastructure and music and all the other arts are paid for by 'someone else'.

Indeed - although, of course, not everyone lives in a "welfare state". That said, I do think that some of these things could reasonably be thought of as "fundamental human rights" but that this does not mean that they should or can be universally provided for free - nor indeed are they for most people, even in a welfare state. It's a myth that is tiresomely promoted by government (some governments more than others, admittedly) that state education, healthcare, etc. are provided "free at the point of use"; these things are not free but subsidised by the taxpayer who also has to pay supplementary charges for various parts thereof (more so in some countries that operate welfare systems than in others). By the way - "bottles"? - there I was thinking that milk came in plastic containers supplied by Tesco until I came to live near a dairy farm...

The arts, however, are far more widely thought of as "paid for by 'someone else'", as you put it and, of course, there are subsidies and public and private sponsorships around, but that doesn't alter the fact that the vast majority of composers in particular get a pretty raw deal of it; even among those who can understand that a conductor, solo pianist, orchestral player and even accompanist(!) expects to be paid for what they do are to be found those who simply seem unable or unwilling to grasp that the same needs to apply to composers but largely doesn't. I recall a few years ago the UK PRS (Performing Right Society) declaring that less than 5% of its writer members (mainly composers) received in excess of £5,000 per year for their work (and some received much less than this), a sum that is marginally less than half of what someone would expect to receive for a full time job at the UK statutory minimum wage for which, in many cases, few if any qualifications or professional skills would be required; the recent c.50% reduction in BBC royalty rates will clearly only make this already parlous situation worse for those who get their work broadcast in UK. What kind of sense does that make and why has it come about?

Whatever may be the answer/s to those questions, one thing can be certain; notwithstanding what you say here (which clearly refers to times long past), it is nothing new. As I'm sure you know (although some others here may not), it is [probably almost a century since Busoni advised van Dieren to use his non-musical skills for the purpose of securing an income from another source in order that he could compose just as he wished; wise advice, no doubt, yet why should van Dieren have felt it necessary to take it? A lot of good it did him to try to keep these two entirely separate occupations going; he died in his 40s. This is not to suggest that composers should never do anything else, of course, but if a composer is going (at least some of the time) to work at composition on a full-time basis, he/she is, in most cases, likely to need to make some kind of living from it.

Now I'm sure that most if not all of us would not wish to see any kind of return to the days of yore when composers got paid by means of wealthy people's patronage or by being a servant of church or state, but at least those kinds of situation embraced some degree of recognition that, in principle, composers deserve to be paid for what they do.

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

A short postscript to the question of composers and their ability or otherwise to derive an income from their work...

It has come to my notice that, in today's sale of music manuscripts, letters and other musical memorabilia. etc., at Sotheby's in London, the working ms. of Chopin's Tarantella (hardly the summit of his achievement, I think it less than unfair to suggest) and another of the first of his Trois Nouvelles Études, managed to fetch between them well in excess of their reserves - more than six hundred thousand pounds, in fact. OK, so it helps to be dead for abit, one may assume, although if one is so before such things stand any chance of happening, one will not make much success of deriving any kind of "living" from such sales; that said, it might also be argued that what one really needs for survival in a profoundly credit-crunched recessive global economic disaster zone such as that with which we are currently beleaguered is a handful of previously long unseen Chopin mss. up one's sleeve...

Best,

Alistair