Welcome to one of the most active flamenco sites on the Internet. Guests can read most posts but if you want to participate click here to register.
This site is dedicated to the memory of Paco de Lucía, Ron Mitchell, Guy Williams, Linda Elvira, Philip John Lee, Craig Eros, Ben Woods, David Serva and Tom Blackshear who went ahead of us.
We receive 12,200 visitors a month from 200 countries and 1.7 million page impressions a year. To advertise on this site please contact us.
(makes me wonder if it was alright to post those few screenshots. I'm fairly certain that under French law posting one page like that is fine, but I don't really know for other countries)
It is OK because copyright has limitations. A couple of important ones are fair use, for criticism/discussion, and for educational purposes. Posting a small excerpt of a work in response to a specific question about a chord/measure is squarely into educational purposes and discussion/criticism, so it does not violate copyright.
Separately, by the letter of the law any derivative work which was produced illegally cannot acquire copyright protections, so...
I can't seem to find that concept in French. In fact, most articles I find just use "fair use" as is ("le fair use est ..."). I think the closest thing we have in French law is the "droit de courte citation" ("right of short quotations" I guess). In the French IP Code, there's an article (122-5 3a if you really want to nerd out) that comes close to fair use: "l'auteur ne peut interdire (...) les analyses et courtes citations justifiées par le caractère critique, polémique, pédagogique, scientifique ou d'information de l'oeuvre à laquelle elles sont incorporées".
However, it is unclear to me how this applies to music scores. It allows for "short quotations" but what is considered a "short quotation" varies depending on the nature of the work. I know that there are sectorial agreements that cover music scores. For instance, in education, you can hand out up to 3 consecutive pages provided it doesn't exceed 10% of the whole piece. But that applies to official education bodies that are signatories to that agreement. Music schools have more leeway, but only if they sign (and pay for) an agreement with the "Société des éditeurs et auteurs de musique" (SEAM). Being covered by neither, I'm not sure what the maximum for a "short quotation" would be on an open-acess forum like this.
Confusing as hell
_____________________________
"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
there's an article (122-5 3a if you really want to nerd out) that comes close to fair use: "l'auteur ne peut interdire (...) les analyses et courtes citations justifiées par le caractère critique, polémique, pédagogique, scientifique ou d'information de l'oeuvre à laquelle elles sont incorporées".
However, it is unclear to me how this applies to music scores. It allows for "short quotations" but what is considered a "short quotation" varies depending on the nature of the work.
Yeah, that sounds like what fair use is trying to cover as a concept.
For example in the US, there are a number of factors to consider in order to evaluate 'fair use', the law even spells out the main four in section 107, as seen here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
If you click on that page on the NOTES tab, you will see a discussion and guidelines on what this means in practice.
Interesting. I can already see some differences pop up, the major one being the 1992 addition of "The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use (...)" In French law there is no "fair use" on unpublished works, as far as I know. I'd have to dig a little deeper though, since the term used in French is "divulgué", which may have different implications than "published" would.
Re: Google, it seems there's always some legal proceedings underway with them in France. Currently the big one is on their rights to publish titles and introductory sentences of press articles in their search results. I believe I read that Google was going to back down on that one, though I haven't been following it closely.
_____________________________
"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
Faucher’s mistakes came in handy after he started publishing legit books (that myself and msybe 5 other guys ever bought?
quote:
I didn't realise I was in such an exclusive group having purchased one of his books.
Me too, i have a stack of them. I don't use them much though. If i want to play something i learn it from the recording, but it's nice to have alain's transcription to "compare notes" with or help out if I'm really stuck.