Copyright music

[porcupine]

I absolutely love piano street and it's one of my favourite websites! I enjoy looking at the forum topics, although I admit I don't contribute regularly, and I love all the music downloads.
However, there's one thing which puzzles (and disappoints) me. I'm in the UK and when I try to download music by, for example, Prokofiev or Bartok, a message pops up preventing me from doing so because the music is still in copyright in the UK. I don't understand this, because I have paid for Gold membership and I think this should entitle me to download all the music - after all, I HAVE paid my subscription so I'm not asking to have it for free! Isn't it the same as buying music from a shop?

[pianoplayjl]

Yes, it is sort of trying ot buy from a shop but i've never downloaded music from pianostreet because i've never been a goldmember.

[tyui]

The terms and conditions state:

Copyrights
1. Piano Street distributes classical piano music. Excluded are those composers who have their own copyrights, or whose copyrights are held and protected by Editors, Associations, Institutions and Heirs.
2. In no case Piano Street can make available for download any sheet music whose copyrights are currently exclusively held by others.
3. Subscriber agrees not to violate any copyrights that Piano Street has on all distributed documents or sound files and on the website. All duplication, reproduction, sale and advertising of the aforementioned documents is strictly forbidden without prior consent from Piano Street.

In the UK, I believe, copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years, but if the works are hosted on pianostreet, it is possible that it follows US laws(where works are public domain if published before 1923), or somewhere where copyright lasts life+50 years, hence the message. When you're paying for a membership, you're probably paying to cover the cost of bandwidth(and perhaps editing).

[porcupine]

Thanks for the clarification - what you say makes sense - I should have read the ts and cs more carefully!
It's still a great website though 

[ahinton]

In the UK, I believe, copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years, but if the works are hosted on pianostreet, it is possible that it follows US laws (where works are public domain if published before 1923), or somewhere where copyright lasts life+50 years, hence the message.

Copyright is an absolute minefield, not least because of the inconsistencies between the intellectual property laws of different countries. The 70-year rule (in which music enters the public domain on 1 January of the year following 70 years after the composer's death, so if a composer dies on 2 January 2012 his/her work goes into public domain on 1 January 2083) is now the most prevalent copyright term, since many contries have adopted it in recent years, but there remain many exceptions to this. It's always a problem when websites such as IMSLP offer downloads of public doman scores, because the internet knows no national or legislative boundaries, which is why IMSLP (and some other similar organisations) warn potential downloaders to ensure that it's legal to download scores in their countries before they proceed to do so.

Paying a membership to a website that offers downloads is not the same in principle as paying for hard copy scores, because the sites concerned are not (usually) licensed to disseminate copyright material by its owners whereas its publishers are.

Best,

Alistair

[tyui]

I was mistaken in my last post. The way I see it(correct me if I'm wrong), pianostreet takes public domain sheet music for free, edits it, thus copyrighting it, and they license it to you for free, with the gold membership being used to pay for bandwidth. In countries where Prokofiev and Bartok are not public domain, they didn't pay for a license, so they are unable to distribute their music there.

Am I right?

[nilsjohan]

I was mistaken in my last post. The way I see it(correct me if I'm wrong), pianostreet takes public domain sheet music for free, edits it, thus copyrighting it, and they license it to you for free, with the gold membership being used to pay for bandwidth. In countries where Prokofiev and Bartok are not public domain, they didn't pay for a license, so they are unable to distribute their music there.

Am I right?

That's right, (except that bandwidth is not the only cost involved).
"Pay for a licence" would in this case mean to pay the publishers a license fee for each download of each copyright protected score. This cannot be included within a flat membership fee.