Book People Archive

Re: Conductors Pose First Challenge to Copyright Law


Dear All,

I'm amused (not!!) by the idea that if you performed Shostakovitch's music
illegally, by copying the score and not paying up, you would be pursued
by the police just as in the old days in Russia. So Communism and
Capitalism meet and shake hands, different objective same effect, the
repression of art. Shostakovitch would have loved that (not!!). 

Personally I would write the copyright holders a polite letter saying
we were going to perform the composer's music but instead we'll perform
Mozart for free. So you don't get the ill-gotten gains anyway, tough!!
Time to push these things back up the copyright holder's noses..if you
can find out who these silent people are!! 

Best Wishes (from the 13th century at the moment...no copyright here)
Tony Kline


[Moderator: Though note that Shostakovich did, during his lifetime,
 attempt to control the use of his music by others--
 see Shostakovich v. 20th Century-Fox (1949), where the composer sued
 to prevent the use of his work in an anti-Soviet motion picture that
 he disapproved of.  Shostakovich lost, in large part because the work
 had fallen into the public domain in the US, apparently due to the
 lack of copyright relations between the US and the Soviet Union
 at the time.  A law review article (mostly on another topic) at
 http://eon.law.harvard.edu/h2o/property/jurisdiction/Giganteedit.html
 includes a couple of paragraphs summarizing the story.  - JMO]

J Flenner <varney@[redacted]> wrote:

> http://www.law.com/cgi-bin/nwlink.cgi?ACG=ZZZUOX6WIUC

> Conductors Pose First Challenge to Copyright Law

> David Horrigan
> The National Law Journal
> November 27, 2001

> In what is apparently the first constitutional
> challenge to a 7-year-old federal copyright
> law, plaintiffs, including two orchestra
> conductors, have filed suit against the U.S.
> government in federal court in Denver,
> challenging a law that grants copyright
> protection to foreign works that were formerly
> in the public domain.
> .
> .
> .
> In one instance, a plaintiff, New York
> conductor Richard Kapp, who runs a recording
> label, found that the URAA pushed the costs for
> sheet music for works by such composers as
> Stravinsky, Shostakovich and Prokofiev from
> less than $100 to at least $1,000 -- and this
> only to rent the music.