Re: MIDI sequencing -- copyrightable??

On Fri, 26 May 2000, Mark Charette <charette[_at_]sneezy.org> wrote:
>
> If indeed editorial changes, which to the layman may look
> insignificant but as you probably know take years of research are
> not copyrightable, what is the incentive to do that work other
> than the joy of knowing that you "got it right"? Dan Leeson, an
> eminent Mozart scholar, spent over 20 years on one measure of a
> work. He gets his pleasure out of hearing the work performed
> correctly, but what of someone else who expects some sort of
> compensation? Is this type of research altruistic only?

In situations where the original is the enemy of the true, a copyist (I consider an editor a species of copyist) who chooses the true waives all claim to originality -- and hence to copyright -- in those editorial features which simply establish what someone else originally wrote. This is my opinion of what the law will be whenever the Feist v. Rural Telephone, Matthew Bender v. West, and other decisions repudiating the "sweat of the brow" concept of copyright are interprete properly. Possibly not all judges can be counted on to understand or accept this most excellent rule, however.

Your professor has his academic laurels, and also (at least originally) the copyrights in his own original work: the journal articles, the books, any "suggestions for performance" that he might include in a published edition of a work he edited (assuming it is not a work for hire), and so forth.

Tim Phillips
<hrothgar[_at_]telepath.com> Received on Sat May 27 2000 - 17:42:26 GMT