Discussion of all things related to Public Domain

[tom poe <tompoe AT renonevada.net>]

Hi, Chris:  Will do.  Nice to meet you on the Internet.
Thanks,
Tom
Reno, NV
http://www.studioforrecording.org/
http://www.ibiblio.org/studioforrecording/
http://renotahoe.pm.org/


On Thursday 11 April 2002 03:02, Chris Sawer wrote:
> In message <02040514160100.24846@aether> you wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> > How's your account with uklinux.net?  Do you think they'd be a good site
> > to host my web sites?
>
> They're more of an ISP than a web hosting service, so they're quite
> expensive for just web hosting. They seem pretty competent, though, and
> always let us know when there are problems, but I'm not sure how good their
> bandwidth is. I also don't know whether they accept subscribers from
> outside the UK.
>
> I have a site hosted with Spellings Computer Services, however
> ( http://www.spellings.net/ ) and have always found them reliable, and
> reasonably priced (for the UK, that is).
>
> > I'm currently with an outfit in Canada, but they got bought out by some
> > Big Guys, and their credibility is showing.
>
> Ah, right. That seems to happen a lot with the internet.
> onelist -> egroups -> yahoo is one service that springs to mind.
>
> > So, back to the music-related questions.  I'm truly one of the typical
> > listeners, and know nothing about music, so bear with me.  In the U.S.,
> > as I understand it, there is a licensing organization that has a staff
> > watch for any new establishments that offer live entertainment, and
> > promptly shows up and signs them up for their "license" to perform. 
> > Among their arguments for those who balk, is a mention that they own some
> > 40 "arrangements" of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat".  Now, how does this
> > concept of "arrangements" work with regard to your sheetmusic?
>
> Well, the basic tune of "row, row, row your boat" - what you would hum if
> someone asked you how it went - is presumably out of copyright, and the
> same for the words. [as a quick aside here, some famous tunes are /not/ out
> of copyright, such as "happy birthday", which is why in movies they often
> sing "for he's a jolly good fellow", instead - to avoid license payments].
>
> Anyway, assuming "row, row, row your boat" is out of copyright, then I
> could typeset it myself and stick it up on the internet without any
> problems. However, if you look in a music book it won't just have the tune.
> If it's a piano book, it will have some kind of accompaniment for the left
> hand. For other instruments, they may have written it in a certain key
> signature, or maybe changed the tune ever so slightly. You could even make
> an orchestral version. Each of these would be an arrangement /based on/
> "row, row, row your boat", but the copyright would belong to the person who
> made the arrangement. Just because the tune itself is out of copyright
> doesn't mean that the arrangement is, so that is why we have to be careful
> on Mutopia.
>
> A similar problem arises with the editor - the person who adds phrasing
> marks, dynamics, etc. to the music, so we have to be careful with which
> editions we accept as well.
>
> > The questions I want to ask are because a small group of characters have
> > decided to form and develop an organization dedicated to creating
> > community-based recording studios that provide FREE recording services
> > for artists and musicians, in return for the works being placed in the
> > Public Domain.
>
> Sounds interesting. I guess this is fundamentally different from Mutopia,
> though, in that recording studios cost money to build and run whereas
> Mutopia doesn't actually cost us anything.
>
> Anyway, thanks for your interest, and if there's anything else you want to
> know, feel free to ask.
>
> Chris