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In the announcements section Brian has made a posting about sharing notation and recordings as it applies to intellectual rights and copyright laws. http://www.shakuhachiforum.com/viewtopi … 3526#p3526
A few issues for thought or further discussion:
If a recording -- specifically a recording of non-copyrightable traditional composition such as choshi-- is out of print, is it unethical to share that recording with others? If so, why?
If a piece of notation is unavailable for common retail purchase through the admittedly limited resources American novice shakuhachi players have open to them, is it unethical to share that otherwise unavailable piece of notation?
May as well civilly discuss this out in the open. Feel free to add your own.
Last edited by Chris Moran (2006-09-09 16:39:30)
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Choshi is in the "public domain". If one wishes to record Choshi themselves they are free to share it all they want; however an artist's recording of Choshi or anything else is copyrightable and not shareable unless the owner says so.
Sit down and take pen in hand and write out Choshi. You would be the "creator' of your efforts and free to, again, do with them as you wish. Buy a copy of the notation and you are not free to redistribute it....
The long and short of it is "Create it and it's yours; do with it as you wish". Not the creator?. then we must respect the creators rights; or copyrights..
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I made that post as a disclaimer in order that it does not appear that one of the purposes of this forum is to enable illegal and/or unethical sharing of materials.
There are a lot of nuances in these arguments. Is the originator dead? Is it out of print? Is it difficult to procure? Etc. Some people live in such an obscure place that it is very difficult for them to buy things.
Some people are zero tolerance about copying notation or sharing soundfiles or burning CD's for somebody.
Other people do whatever they want because they don't want to pay for it or it's too much of a hassle for them to get the stuff from the original source. A lot of people feel entitled.
Most of us are probably somewhere in the middle, buying plenty of shakuhachi recordings and notation, but sometimes also using copies. I know for myself many times I have taken lessons and the teacher has handed me a copy of something. I don't bolt out the door in disgust. Frequently I end up buying the notation in question anyway later on when I can find it.
It's up to you guys what you want to do. I would say if you can find legitimate copies on Monty's site or Mejiro's site, that's the right thing to do.
As far as recording artists are concerned if they are worried about people burning copies of their work they should get off their asses and get their music on iTunes. Then anybody with a computer has no excuse not to pay for it.
Maybe one of the computer geniuses here can come up with some kind of download site for notation and try to buy the digital rights to distribute it from the authors.
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Hi all,
I studied Choshi from five master teachers of different styles.
When I studied Choshi in Japan, I learned it from Kinya Sogawa, Keisuki Zenyogi and Akikazu Nakamura. Kinya's copy of Choshi came in his own handwriting. Keisuke's was handwritten in front of me as he sang it to himself. Akikazu had me go to Mejiro to buy a copy of Honshirabe from Yokoyama's school (funny thing was that Aki kept telling me not to play certain passages as it was written).
This tells me that many teachers have probably contemplated how to dessiminate the music.
Namaste, Perry
Last edited by Yungflutes (2006-09-09 20:01:19)
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Since we're an international community here in these forums, it's worth noting that one person's copyright violation may be another person's right to share.
For example, in Canada, the Copyright Act has a specific exclusion that allows anyone to make a copy of someone else's audio recording for their personal use. ^ref This doesn't apply to printed works, but other countries may have their own cultural takes on that.
I'd venture to guess that most Canadians do not "abuse" this right to copy -- plenty of well-priced music stores up here. And probably lots of iTunes.ca users also.
-Darren.
Last edited by dstone (2006-09-11 02:27:34)
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Tairaku wrote:
Maybe one of the computer geniuses here can come up with some kind of download site for notation and try to buy the digital rights to distribute it from the authors.
I lately paid a business ebook 15 dollars, if it was printed, I would probably not buy it because it would cost me 40 dollars with the shipping. The buying process is very easy, you pay with the paypal, they send you a download link which will expire in 24 hours. Then you download a nice pdf with your name on the cover page.
I think the ebook business model is very profitable for the seller since you dont pay for printing and shipping and I am sure that anyone in the shakuhachi community would not distribute those digital copies when others can buy in reasonable prices.
Last edited by barokgs11 (2006-09-14 02:51:49)
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Tairaku wrote:
Some people are zero tolerance about copying notation or sharing soundfiles or burning CD's for somebody.
Other people do whatever they want because they don't want to pay for it or it's too much of a hassle for them to get the stuff from the original source. A lot of people feel entitled.
The striving to aquire music seems most appopriate in a balanced middle as you illustrated in your complete post. Gads, though, I hope that no one feels truly "entitled" to just take what they want of any thing.
Being a music-head I've always been committed to responsible music acessibility. I'm also a poetry and art-head and have watched entire poets and artists estates become completely inaccessible due to plain, downright family-heir nuerosis and/or greed.
Thanks for keeping the mental juices flowing on this topic.
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dstone wrote:
in Canada, the Copyright Act has a specific exclusion that allows anyone to make a copy of someone else's audio recording for their personal use. ^ref
This is probably connected to something else I heard -- that there is a special tax on blank tapes in Canada, intended to reimburse music companies for lost revenue due to music copying. I don't know how they get the money to the appropriate people. If they do.
James
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Of course there is also the trade of second hand materials. For example John Singer has piles of legitimate copies of the Kawase notation for sale. So it's not a copy, it's legal, but nobody makes money off it the second time around. Same with used CD's. We don't get a royalty when the second guy buys it.
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James wrote:
This is probably connected to something else I heard -- that there is a special tax on blank tapes in Canada, intended to reimburse music companies for lost revenue due to music copying. I don't know how they get the money to the appropriate people. If they do.
James
Since when did tax EVER get to the appropriate people...
...
Last edited by edosan (2006-09-11 18:15:33)
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James wrote:
This is probably connected to something else I heard -- that there is a special tax on blank tapes in Canada, intended to reimburse music companies for lost revenue due to music copying. I don't know how they get the money to the appropriate people. If they do.
Yes, this levy has been around for a few years. Not just tapes. CD-Rs and CD-RWs also. It has a lot of flaws, in my opinion.
1) it only credits writers and performers if they are Canadian (not surprising, since the program is administered by a Canadian organization, but not fair, since most "damage" done here would be to non-Canadian artists)
2) in calculating how to distribute the levy back to artists and writers, how much radio play an artist gets is a significant factor -- this obviously hurts genres that are popular to copy/trade but not radio-friendly
3) all blank CD-Rs are levied between $0.21 and $0.77 each, even if they're purchased and used for strictly data purposers (e.g. computer software, backups, photos, etc.) -- clearly inappropriate
edosan wrote:
Since when did tax EVER get to the appropriate people...
So true. This levy was so far off the mark from the beginning, it's a joke.
-Darren.
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