Normally, one assumes that if you operate your business exclusively within the confines
of a single country, you need concern yourself with only the laws of that particular country. Doing business on the Internet challenges this assumption as illustrated by the recently forced hiatus of
classical music site International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP).
IMSLP
is a free online library which offers its visitors copies of musical scores that
are in the public domain. The site’s
owner, its server and its operations are based in Canada so it relied on Canadian law
when determining which musical scores were in the public domain and could be
permissibly offered through the site.
According
to Canadian law, a work falls into the public domain fifty years after
the
death of its creator. However, the law of the United States and many
European countries give copyright another twenty years and do not place
a work into the public domain until seventy years after the death of
the creator. Universal Edition, an Austrian-based music publisher of
classical music, issued a cease-and-desist letter to IMSLP. In the
letter, Universal Edition identified itself as the administrator of
several classical music scores that were offered on IMSLP and that were
still under the protection of copyright law in Austria. Universal
Edition then threatened legal action applying Austrian law if the IMSLP
did not either remove the relevant scores or provide a filtering system
to block access to the scores by users in
the European Union.
If
IMSLP has no other connections to Austria other than the site being
passively available to users located in Austria, it’s a long shot that
Universal Edition would be successful in applying Austrian law or
filing suit against IMSLP in an Austrian court. However, being a
non-profit site founded by a current student and run by volunteers,
IMSLP was not in a financial position to fight this legal battle and
ultimately decided to close the site – at least temporarily. The site
founder, who identifies himself as Feldmahler, explains, “ . . . as a
student I did not have the resources to resist even an absurd threat
from a company with money to pay
lawyers to attack music.” You can find the open letter from IMSLP
explaining the situation here.
Fortunately,
Feldmahler has not completely given up on the project. Although the
website is on indefinite hiatus, he writes “. . . I will not be taking
major actions with regards to IMSLP until the end of this semester . .
. However, I will continue accepting offers to own or host IMSLP, very
preferably by
Canadian organizations . . . I will also be responding to e-mails and
discussion on the forums, . . . IMSLP is
not dead.”
Leave a Reply