ethical ubuntu

[Pete Ryland]

On Fri, Jun 16, 2006 at 01:34:13PM +0200, Jan Claeys wrote:
> (And in case of Mozart's music, you can copy the notes by hand to
> another sheet and sell that, because the publisher only owns the layout
> and probably some remarks he added on the sheets he publishes.  Mozart
> lived long before Mickey Mouse...)

Not true, you are still making a copy.  However, you can make an
"arrangement" which is a derived work.

But it's funny you mention Mozart.  He lived in the early days of copyright.
To protect their precious works, composers used to limit access to their
scores by only allowing performances by trusted groups (similarly, authors
would not allow copying of their books outside trusted libraries and one
would have to travel to them and pay to read a given work (this was around
the time of the invention of the printing press)).  Anyway, when still quite
young, Mozart wanted a copy of Allegri's Miserere, but was refused a copy.
He travelled to Rome and attended a performance in the one place it was
allowed and memorized the whole thing on one hearing and transcribed it when
he returned home.  It's actually a highly repetitive piece of music, but
still quite a feat.

Copyright laws were later introduced to allow books and music to be read and
performed as widely as possible whilst the author/composer retained the
rights (even performance rights) until 50 years after death.  This made
everyone happy.  Authors could make (big) profits from having their works
published, and readers were more than happy to buy the book rather than
having to travel to read.  The publishing/printing industry also flourished.

Patents were introduced for similar reasons, to give an incentive for
inventors to disclose their inventions rather than keep them secret in order
for them to profit from their work and at the same time allow the state of
the art to increase.  Sadly, copyright and patent law in their current forms
have outlived their usefulness to these ends IMO.

Pete