On Sat, May 21, 2005 at 09:01:17PM -0700, Tony Baechler wrote:
Hi. Is there any kind of official statement or PG policy concerning works licensed under a Creative Commons license? Are such works acceptable?
If you look at V.71 in the FAQ, you will see the exact minimum terms that PG needs to post a copyrighted book: "perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive rights to distribute this book in electronic form through Project Gutenberg Web sites, CDs or other current and future formats. No royalties are due for these rights." Whether the medium of transfer of these rights is a letter, or a CC license, or a handwritten note attached to a pigeon's leg doesn't really matter. Do, however, remember that not all CC licenses are the same. Most of the "usual" CC licenses work for us, but, for example, the "Founders Copyright" CC license doesn't. We had the CC question with Cory Doctorow's first novel, and in that case he refused to give us a specific permission to publish his novel, on the basis that doing so would undermine the intent of his CC license, so we went ahead based on the CC license alone. A rather elegant exchange, that was. We can also take the GFDL, and any other published intent on the part of the copyright holder that gives us the rights we need to do it.
Also, is there anyone maintaining the PG music archive?
No.
I am asking because I know of several composers of classic MIDI files. I am planning to ask them to consider licensing their works under a Creative Commons type license. I can also mention Project Gutenberg and/or drop a name of someone for them to contact if they want or will allow PG to distribute their works. This would be good for PG because some composers have done a lot of classical music from a number of pre-1922 compositions. I don't think I can help with sheet music, and of course I have no way of knowing that the sheet music sources they used are in the public domain. I know that some of them also make various files available in mp3, but I don't think they offer other formats. Is this something I should consider on behalf of PG or not? If PG is interested in something like this, I would also ask them to consider just releasing their files into the public domain, but I doubt if that will happen. Thanks, and feel free to write me off list if it's easier.
I'm a little unclear about what we're talking about here. You're saying "composers", which implies original work or original arrangement of a work, but from pre-1923. A direct note-for-note copy of sheet music from the public domain to a new format like MIDI would never be copyrighted in the first place, at least in the USA, so a CC license would not apply. Only derivative works would, and then, in either case, the PD status of the original would need to be demonstrated: there's an awful lot of sheet music out there now that has been put into copyright by some editing or arrangement post-1923. This is one of those things that is difficult to discuss in the abstract; you'd need to establish clearance on a case-by-case basis, and you'd have to establish it with Greg, since he signs off on the not-straightforward cases. I can tell you that if you produce TP&V of the pre-23 sheet music, you can then clear that piece, and submit it in any format. jim