IMSLP Gets Reactivated...

[Corno Dolce]

Dear MIMFers,

On 01 Jul 08 12:00AM EST IMSLP will once again be open for business.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.............

[Krummhorn]

Yippee

Yowser, this is great news. I knew it was going to be June/July timeframe, but also saw that updated info ... kept pinching myself, and it still hurts, so it must be true.

Thanks for the info, RAdm Corno Dolce

[Contratrombone64]

sorry, what on earth is IMSLP?

[Krummhorn]

Hi CT64,

IMSLP is a site of all classical public domain music, from orchestral scores to keyboard.
It got taken down by its owner(s) after an Austrian outfit "claimed" that several listings considered to be PD by Canadian law, were not such according to Austrian copyright law. Instead of fighting the issue, the owner decided to shut it down, regroup, and bring it back up this year.

Here is the link for the temporary main page of IMSLP.

[Contratrombone64]

Funny really ... it's rather like Disney having the audacity to copyright its versions of Andersen fairytales ... for god's sake.

[rojo]

Excellent news.

Such a fantastic resource. I look forward to using it again.

Thanks for sharing, CD.

[Corno Dolce]

For all those wondering which Austrian firm brought about all the troubles, the firm's name is Universal Editions(UE). I really despise and loathe UE because of the nasty staff who seem not to care a whit about whether the order is correctly fulfilled. Their customer-unfriendly policies seem to have started about ten years ago and it steadily went downhill from there. I took my business elsewhere two years ago - Good Riddance To Bad Rubbish!!!

[Krummhorn]

Corno Dolce,

I had heard of similar circumstances regarding UE from other colleague friends of mine.

They would promise the moon and then only deliver a moon rock in return, if anything at all. It's like they wanted to corner the market on all PD scores, regardless if they legally had any rights to do so or not ... I'm sure this "incident" really improved their sales portfolio and turned them into a world class publisher ... ... Not!!

I still fail to see why IMSLP just didn't remove the works of the Austrian composers in question (listed in the lawsuit) instead of shutting down the entire site. Seems it would have been a fairly easy couple day project to remove those. If I recall correctly, UE's only complaint was for certain Austrian composers.

Oh well ... all water under the bridge now ... and the end result is that this great resource will be again be available to all the world.