Mises Wire

Copyright Kills Amazing Music Project

Copyright Kills Amazing Music Project
A very cool project has been killed by copyright. According to Wikipedia,
"The International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) was a project for the creation of a virtual library of public domain music scores, based on the wiki principle. Since its launch on February 16, 2006, more than 15,000 scores, for 9,000 works, by over 1,000 composers were uploaded, making it one of the largest public domain music score collections on the web. The project used MediaWiki software to provide contributors with a familiar interface. "Following a cease and desist letter from Universal Edition of Vienna, IMSLP closed on October 19, 2007... The cease and desist letter expressed concern that some works that are in public domain in the server's location in Canada with copyright protection of 50 years post mortem, but which are protected by the 70 years post mortem term in some other countries were available in those countries. ... It has since moved to a temporary site with no content."
Anyone who loves music ought to mourn its passing. Except for those who also support copyright, who should be tarred and feathered. (Thanks to Tim Virkkala)
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