One Last word on Madame Tournemire. If one calls somebody a "profiteer," especially in a public forum and bases that "evidence" on the hearsay of others, that is known as gossip. Gossip is un-Christian. If she were alive it might even be actionable.

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Canada is fine, too! Again, I know nothing of copyright law, so as far as I know it might still be illegal to print it in Canada with the specific intent to bring it back to the US for use. Intellectual property law is so (in my opinion, deliberately) confusing.

Curses! Foiled again!

Though I suspected that was the case.

Solution: download for "private use." Practice and memorize. Perform at service. Simple, elegant, effective.

I've been inquiring about whether or not something in the French public domain falls into international public domain. After all, a composer could have chosen a U.S. house if he/she wanted U.S. law to be in force.

As an academic, I don't face this issue very often. I usually just download or photocopy whatever whenever.

I've been on the phone with two different copyright lawyers this morning and gotten two different answers. Stand by for more information.

Basically, it sounds like it's most likely legal for someone in Canada to print out this collection and send it to me here. I'm waiting to hear from the Canadian Copyright Office to double check that it's in the public domain, following the lawyer's advice.

As to the performance (even if the public domain score was acquired legally), he said no, it's probably illegal. I referred him to the Music Publishers Association site posted above, and he said it would be wise to contact ASCAP to be sure of the law. I'm doing so now. I'll let you know when I get an answer from someone official.

Is this tome of interest to any Tournemirians out there?

Pascal Ianco, Charles Tournemire, ou Le mythe de Tristan (Papillon, Geneva, 2001).

I haven't read it myself, I simply saw it in a bibliographical listing.

on the other hand, if someone does legally obtain some music from Canada, can they then photocopy it legally here in the US and mail it to the rest of us? :-)

I don't think so. However, your statement about performing copyrighted works is a little bit off. If you have purchased copyrighted music, you can perform it and play it, period (so long as the performance is not for profit). The religious exemption of copyrighted works seems to be related to music which you do not own. Copying said music is still illegal. Take, for example, Doug Shadle's suggestion of downloading, studying/memorizing, then playing from memory. I think that would be acceptable. It's fuzzy and I've found that ten different copyright attorneys will give you ten different interpretations of the law.

I'm still waiting to hear back from a few places, but the plan to have a friend in Canada print/mail the score, then use it only for Mass seems legit up to this point. I found one book of scores at the Duquesne library, but they're tough to come by. It would be great to have the whole set available like this.

I haven't heard about Gounod's heirs, but current law does treat compositions differently from other media:

WP

The linked :fr article has more detail and it sounds like the added term can reach 14 and 2/3rds of a year, but the exact duration seems to depend on complications like added leap year days. For Morts pour la Patrie the term is 100 instead of 70 years, so count on waiting for Alain.

Performance rights are separate from copyright law as such, and are policed by BMI and ASCAP; typically the venue pays for the license. The exemption is for religious services and has nothing to do with profitability. I suppose Marajoy's emoticon indicates tongue-in-cheek, and that she knows better. To Andrew I suggest he have his Canadian friend send him an empty but postmarked envelope and make the contraband copies himself; then at least one of the two might get off the hook. :-|

Seems that I misremembered what I'd read about Gounod's heirs; it was (according to Honegger) Johann Strauss's daughter and heiress, not any descendant of Gounod's, who died of hunger because her father's work wasn't protected by copyright. Honegger did mention Gounod's family, but only as part of his general campaign to increase what was then the fifty-years-after-death term of copyright protection. (Source: James Harding, The Ox on the Roof [London, 1972], p. 231.)

Generally speaking, Noel, it falls under fair use. But the real question is about the channel through which the copy is acquired. In the Tournemire case, it's nebulous, but say for the sake of example that we know with certainty that it's copyrighted.

Let's compare this to a library, the ultimate legitimate source of copyright materials: I have created .pdf scans of materials from permanent collections in libraries (i.e., items were not available for check out but the PDF allowed me to take them home to study and to use in my research). The library acquired the documents/scores through legal channels. As a logged patron of the library, my use is thus beyond reproach.

Moving more fully into the digital world, I have also downloaded copyrighted documents from library-sponsored collections. This is essentially the same thing as making a .pdf scan, just that someone made the scan for me and made it available for download.

This brings us closer to the scenario at hand: is there really a material difference between getting the score from a library or from Joe Uploader down the street? If it is theoretically possible to make copies legally, it shouldn't really matter where exactly those copies originated. In itself, then, downloading wasn't the violation. Joe Uploader is the violator for distributing without permission. And either way, once I have it, shouldn't I be able to use it according to the accepted norms of fair use? Knowingly downloading from an illegitimate source is clearly pushing the boundary (the old Napster, etc.), but in the Tournemire case here, where it's unclear, I think it would be ok if the intention is good.

As this progression demonstrates, the constraints of fair use are just as fuzzy as the rest of copyright protection. Given that copyright seems to defy all logic, I can't guarantee that what I'm saying is correct; it only makes sense to me. There is a good website hosted by Stanford that goes into much more detail about fair use. YMMV!

I realize this answer to your question was long-winded, but I also realize that perhaps my statement might have led you (or others) to believe that I think downloading willy nilly is OK as long as it's for private use. There is fair use, and frequently this equates to private study resulting in criticism. To amend what I wrote above, then, I would add something about downloading through *legitimate* channels (which doesn't always mean "paying full price for it").

Maybe the distinction negates the provocativeness of the statement, but I felt like it was necessary to diffuse the notion that taking copyrighted material is sinful. It isn't, when fair use is at play. We scholars always fight uphill battles against copyright just to do our jobs, so I tend to lean on the loose side of fair use.

I might add that a colleague of mine who studies French music from Tournemire's era believes that when the music is in public domain in the home country, it's in public domain everywhere. To me this also makes sense, but as I said, logic means nothing to the framers of copyright.

It's also worth noting that "fair use" is not really an exception to copyright law so much as it is an affirmative defense if you are taken to court. In other words, if you are sued by someone, and you claim fair use, the burden of proof is on you to prove that it falls within fair use law. Since this is one case where such a thing is fuzzy, it's best not to take the chance.

Nope. But there are lawyers, who are much more dangerous. ;-)

For all interested, a symposium will be held in Miami dealing with Tournemire's L'Orgue Mystique in the first week in Feb. 2012  You can read about it on the Musica Sacra events site.

A full day of organ recitals will culminate with a Solemn Pontifical Mass in the Extraordinary Form celebrated by our archbishop, Thomas Wenski, at 7:30 PM on Feb.2 in which the L'Orgue Mystique set for the Feast of the Purification will be performed throughout the Mass by Thomas Schuster on the wonderful Ruffatti organ at the Church of the Epiphany in South Miami.

If L'Orgue Mystique is either too daunting or too long to use during a typical Sunday Mass, you may want to look at the Preludes and Amens....short wonderful one page pieces...the Preludes are written for the same Sundays and Feasts as L'Orgue Mystique...there are a dozen or so Amens for selected Feasts.

 

Has this conference in Pittsburgh in October been publicized on here yet?
http://musicasacra.com/tournemire/
(Well, if it hasn't... here ya go!)