Re: Guide to Writing Orchestral Scores with Lilypond?????

[David Kastrup]

Antonio Gervasoni <address@hidden> writes:

> Hey guys!
>
> Sorry for not participating in the discussion about the copyrighted material
> in Urs tutorial. I'm finishing the music for a film and I have little time
> to read posts and make comments. ;-)
>
> I agree with Joseph's idea:
>
>> Well, here's what _I_ would do in your shoes: license freely all the parts
>> of 
>> the tutorial that are your copyright, and add a clear exception notice for 
>> musical examples that are still in copyright.
>
> However, I'm not a lawyer so I'm sure if this would work.
>
> All these problems with copyrights are always a real hassle. Copyrights are
> good, I mean, the idea itself is good. The problem is that the law has taken
> the matter to amazing extremes. Is there any sense in a legislation that
> allows someone to be accused of piracy and then sued for billions of
> dollars, while a doctor who amputates the wrong leg of a patient is liable
> for no more than 250,000? Does this make any sense? Are copyrights more
> valuable than someone's leg?

The basis for that is "damages".  A doctor accidentally amputating the
leg of a professional soccer player is likely in for more than "just"
250000.  Is the leg of a professional soccer player more valuable than
that of anybody else?  In a way, it is.

The problem is rather that copyright damages are calculated according to
some "maximum conceivable damage" theory not applied to legs (after all,
pretty much everybody sufficiently young could become a soccer player),
and that copyrights are making too much money, anyway, at the upper end
of the scale.  There is no other situation where scoring a major hit is
supposed to cater for you and some heirs for the rest of your life.

-- 
David Kastrup