Preparing for the future

An e-mail sent to pr and copyright at universaledition.com

[2008-02-05]

To whom it may concern,

It saddens me when good companies, companies that have provided such benefit in the past, make silly mistakes. In fact, it saddens me enough to write to them in the hope that perhaps they will learn, revert, and continue to be of benefit in the future.

I searched for Beethoven's Erioca Variations on the Internet, and discovered that until recently it was available at the International Music Score Library Project. As you are aware, IMSLP was closed as a result of a Cease and Desist letter from Universal Edition.

From a PR perspective this could not have been a wise decision on the part of UE. UE must have decided that their loss of revenue from music older than 50 years post mortem but younger than 70 years outweighed the financial implications of the enmity that would arise as a result of their action. UE's decision must, surely, have been the product of lengthy group consideration.

What saddens me more than UE's action is the ignorance their decision reveals; an ignorance of the fundamental nature of the Internet, and how business must deal with it. I myself am affiliated with a publisher. But we have a clearer understanding of the way the Internet works on a social level, and how to work with it instead of against it, for our financial benefit, and the social benefit of the Internet's users.

I cannot explain it better that Kevin Kelly. His erudite article can be found at this address:
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/01/better_than_fre.php

Anyone who deals with digitisable material ought to memorise what he has to say.

I hope you will reconsider your actions, and convince Feldmahler to restore the IMSLP. That move will undoubtedly restore your credibility in the eyes of your ex-customers, and possibly even win you more customers.

Yours faithfully,

Norman.

Subject: FW: Preparing for the future
From: Jonathan Irons
Date: 20/02/2008 19:12

Dear Mr Hooper,

thank you for your e-mail. We are indeed sorry that you feel we have acted inappropriately.

Beethoven's Eroica Variations are not published by UE. We did not request nor wish that they be taken offline, nor the thousands of other public domain works included in the database. We merely requested that valid copyright legislation be respected. The administrators refused to discuss this with us - and have since shown themselves not to be interested in a serious discussion of the issues at hand. The IMSLP website was not closed due to UE's C&D letter - as the administrators themselves have confirmed. They chose to close the site - whilst maintaining that our claim had no legal grounds, which is of course strange to say the least.

What saddens us is that people think that simply because we wish to see valid existing copyright regulations respected, we are money-grabbing cynics. One fundamental mistake often made in the accusations against us is that our copyright demands only have validity if they are directly related to immediate financial loss. This shows a lack of understanding of the principles of copyright law and indeed of the principles of the publishing of serious music.

Your comments on our ignorance are duly noted. As a former CEO of an internet company legally distributing sheet music on the internet I also have my experiences and opinions. I also never recieved a C&D.

I appreciate that some feel that existing copyright legislation is not suitable for the online world where everything should be free. Unfortunately, until those laws are changed - and you are feel to lobby your country's government for this - we will continue to follow up on violations.

We will also continue to develop our own internet activities, including the legal distribution of over 1400 titles to download and print from www.freehandmusic.com. Unfortunately though, not for free.

Yours sincerely

Jonathan Irons

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