Ignatius Press turns down copyright permission request....
  • From: noel jones [mailto:gedeckt@usit.net]
    Sent: Fri 7/17/2009 8:30 AM
    To:_______________ [copyright person at Ignatius Press]
    Subject: Rights

    Dear _____________,

    I'm involved in a parish project and am interested in securing the
    rights to reproduce the design, layout and engraving of the Order of
    the Mass from The Adoremus Hymnal.

    [we are , of course, securing required permissions from ICEL]

    We anticipate printing 1,200 copies.


    That's the easy part.


    I am also working on a project that will produce hymnals for churches
    that are custom created to their specifications. One option that they
    will have is including the Order of the Mass.

    Since these jobs will vary in the number of books printed, from as few
    as 100 and as many as 3,000....is there a blanket agreement of some
    sort that covers this?

    Thank you.

    Noel Jones, AAGO
    www.sjnmusic.com

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    Noel,

    For various reasons, one being that the Order of Mass is going to change in a year or two. We think it’s best if you start fresh.

    Thanks,
    _______________ [copyright person at Ignatius Press]

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    From: noel jones [mailto:gedeckt@usit.net]
    Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 4:34 PM
    To: _______________ [copyright person at Ignatius Press]
    Subject: Re: Rights

    St. Michael Hymnal licenses the engraving from you, that's what we want to do as well.

    Could you just pull their file and quote us the usual terms?

    We are fully aware of the Order of the Mass change.

    noel
    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

    On Jul 21, 2009, at 7:21 PM, _______________ [copyright person at Ignatius Press] wrote:

    Dear Noel,

    I am sorry but our answer is final.
  • [why did I post this? They are refusing to accept money for something they have the right to be paid for....the design, layout and engraving work for The Adoremus Hymnal, which is excellent.]

    They have licensed the use of it to the St. Michael Hymnal where it now appears.

    But now...they have decided to not license it and keep it from being disseminated to English-speaking Catholic with no discussion, nor reason aside from the looming change of Mass text.

    Is the hymnal I am working on going to be thrown away annually, recyled with newsprint? If so, reasoning behind the looming Mass text change would be silly....and they never even asked.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,507
    Noel, I may be missing something, but if not istm they're well within their rights...
  • They are well within their rights.

    It's just strange that now I have to pay to have someone set the Mass text even though someone else has already set it? I wasn't going to contact Adoremus since it is theirs and it didn't seem exactly right to say, hey, you really know what you are doing and I want what you did...but then I saw that Ignatius had done it fro Adoremus and already also licensed it for St. Michael's hymnal.

    If this was a recording, it would be a different story. [Mechanical License: You man not record anyone's music without permission. But once it has been recorded they cannot deny you recording of it. You must pay them, but they deny you.]

    Maybe it's a matter of cooperation? Maybe I'm just chopped liver?
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,210
    "Liver, come back to me...."

    Maybe they figure it's not worth the bother of drawing up a contract for a small short-term project.

    Come to think of it, that Order of Mass looks rather like the typesetting I've been doing lately with Gregorio.
  • Chonak, let's talk.
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    A simple yes is enough. contracts? Ridiculous. Absurd. Yes is enough. Just yes. what's the downside? None whatever. None.

    For CMAA, when people ask--and they don't even have to ask because we are Creative Commons--I write one word emails: yes. or: sure! or: please!

    What the heck kind of service to the faith is it to turn down a request to print the Order of Mass?

    I tell you, many people are in need of a serious attitude adjustment. I'm deeply disappointed by this. Post the email address and I'll write that I would like more details about this case so it can be discussed in an article.
  • penelope@ignatius.com
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    done. we'll see what turns up .
  • @Noel,
    I wouldn't worry too much about it, personally. The Adoremus hymnal is a very poor piece of work, and I know some of the musicians who were supposed to be consulted to put it together. In the end, non-musicians made the decisions. It shows. By the way, have you noticed the page turns in it? hahaha! what trash. It is doomed. Requiescat in pace.
  • Jules, the Adoremus may have flaws....but rises far above the throwaway stuff...and here I am interested only in the the Mass text portion.
  • Is it possible they see your project as more or less reproducing their booklet, "Mass of Vatican II", Code: MV2-P, $2 each? This booklet also uses the Adoremus Hymnal colors, fonts and layout.
  • Not unless they intend to also include hymns and chants as chosen by the director of music and printing limited run copies just for each parish, including in most instances a hymn to the Patron Saint of the church...including public domain and copyright hymns...diminishing the number of trees killed each year so that every church can have 700 songs that they will use just a percentage of...depending upon their taste in music.

    This project of mine is two-fold, to make a large library of public-domain hymns available for free download for those who self-publish weekly, annual or permanent hymns for the parish.

    To create income, we plan to offer to print custom hymnals, music aside from copyright works included for free, the price for the assembly and printing of the hymnal itself.

    This as a book to supplement the use in enlightened parishes The Parish Book Of Chant, a book that serves as a bridge to wean people off hymns of suspect or a lack of theology and bad music. Rather than abandoning all hymns, in many cases it would seem to have a hymnal that has the favorite hymns of the congregation along with some unfamiliar ones....all for use at the Mass until the Propers are sung, but then being in the pews for singing at devotions.
  • Oh, and I forgot to mention that we did not and are not asking for anything other than what they offered to the St. Micheal hymnal people...the opportunity to pay them for the use of work already done.

    We can, of course, do it ourselves. And we already would have if they had not already done such a beautiful job. I refer to the Adoremus and St. Michael books and use that section all the time. I recommend it highly.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,507
    Noel,

    I have ideas all the time for no-brainer solutions that will help advance the cause of the simple nobility of the liturgy. When I ask people to work with me on them, sometimes they say yes, sometimes they say no. I can't make them see my idea. They have to see it themselves. Or, I have to move on.
  • Jules,
    I want you to know that at least one other church musician agrees with you about ADOREMUS 1.0.
    I'm going to reprint a review of it I composed many years ago when I first got my copies on my blog.
    www.musicgiftofgod.blogspot.com

    PS: I finally got the posting format correct at 1:05PST
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,973
    For what it's worth, I am not impressed with Adoremus, either. I find it too limited for any kind of general use.
  • Kathy, Moving On may be my middle name, I understand. Here we have a liturgy that we may not print without paying the church to start with.

    If you write an English Sanctus you cannot print it without getting permission from ICEL. Unless you do it in Latin, then there's no problem.

    Does this mean that there is no value in Latin? Is their English mass text worth more money? Why are we allowed to pray it without charge?

    Did the translators accept a fee for their work or do they get a percentage from the profits....and ICEL is a non-profit. Where does the money go?

    Follow the money.
  • CharlesW, I don't think anyone would ever consider buying the Adoremus for general use...it's for people who do not want a general use hymnal.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,507
    Okay, but you can't blame Ignatius for that. People can't be forced to share, and embarrassing them is not exactly a generous thing to do, is it?
  • AngelaRAngelaR
    Posts: 319
    You all should check out the new Latin Mass Hymnal. It's put out by a group of schola directors on the East Coast, designed for the Latin Novus Ordo. It has the texts of all the prayers with side-by-side English translation, a couple of the Eucharistic prayers, a few catechetical points, and some extra hymns in the back. The mass parts are written in modern notation.

    The best part? This group works entirely as volunteers, and so the hymnals are dirt cheap, and they don't care as much about copyright issues! We just started using them at Saint Mary's Cathedral in Peoria, IL, and they are both beautiful and easy to use. I can post the info in a few days on how to get a copy; one of the group is writing a descriptive paragraph about them as we speak.
  • Kathy, it's not a matter of forcing someone to share, rather the question is, why can one company purchase the right to use something that benefits the church and then, because the text is changing sometime off in the future it is not available to another company? And there is no discussion. No. It's final.

    I think that their work is just about perfect. So if I recreate an engraving that is as close to perfect as possible and it turns out to be the same as theirs....now I'm guilty of copyright infringement. After all I have seen it.

    And, if I use red and black effectively as they have done, that's also something that they have copyrighted now as port of their engraving. I know that red and black have been used for years, but they copyrighted it.

    They've copyrighted the entire Order of the Mass without writing a word of it. The layout, the colors, the spacing.

    Does anyone have a right to copyright the Mass?
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,210
    It's not logical for them to refuse you, but really you are free to do a new engraving, and as long as it doesn't look like a photo-reproduction of theirs, you're fine.

    Besides, there are obvious imperfections in theirs which you would not want to repeat: inconsistencies in margins, in vertical spacing, and in the engraving. Just look at all the cases where a bold text was not ended by a bold period! Tsk, tsk.

    And as Charles pointed out in his review, devoting 50 pages to the eucharistic prayers -- including once-a-year variations on the Communicantes -- is probably not really necessary.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,507
    They copyrighted red? They copyrighted black? Or did they copyright red-and-black? If so, better inform the Arizona Cardinals that their team colors break the law. Also, we'd better have a talk with Stendhal!
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,210
    Don't mind Noel, Kathy, he's on a roll. At least he didn't argue that they copyrighted "a", "e", "i', "o", and "u". :-)
  • They didn't? t ws gng t b s hrd t snd mls wtht vwls.

    Ths s gdd nws.

    n l

    Everyone remember...a copyright is worthless. All that it does is give you a right to attempt to sue somebody. I doubt that ICEL understands that. Unless they want to sue people...and never, ever, get into a legal battle with anyone who has more money than you do.
  • JamJam
    Posts: 636
    Can you imagine what kind of flak a Catholic organization would get if they tried to sue people for using the Mass?!

    and I'm sure the flak they SHOULD get would be even more.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,507
    "Everyone remember...a copyright is worthless. All that it does is give you a right to attempt to sue somebody."

    This is like saying that the pink slip on my car "only" means I have the right not to be towed, or that a fence around a sheep paddock "only" means I have right to own a shotgun.

    A copyright says "I put a lot of time, money and effort into developing this layout, and it belongs to me. If you want to use it, ask. I may say yes, I may say no. Please respect my wishes. Thank you."
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,507
    Frankly I think IP should be considered personal property, just like a bow tie is personal property. Anyone is free to imitate my dashing style, in fact PLEASE make some attempt to dress better, but you may not use the actual tie unless I give it to you.
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    Well, Kathy, there is a huge difference. A bow tie is property because it is scarce and physically owned. It requires no legislation to make it private property. It requires only homesteading of original factors or trade through mutual consent. So called "intellectual property" is not scarce and not physical and requires legislation to make it property, i.e. it always involves forcing people not to effect copies of something that is infinitely reproducible. It is a modern invention unknown in earlier ages, e.g. Mozart, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Machaut, Brahms, etc. never knew of something called copyright. For the Church or Church publishers before the 20th century, recourse to monopolistic, state-enforce policies would have been unthinkable.
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    Agreed with Kathy on this. Type-setting IS a lot of work, it's not just a matter of putting the "red book" on the copier. I agree also that it's irrational for them to refuse to give their product to Noel, but that's within their rights. They're not copyrighting red or black, but copyrighting that particular layout that they made. If Noel wants to make one in the same style, I believe he would be in his rights to do so. But this is about them refusing to save him the time and energy.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,507
    Does "scarce" have a special definition in economics?
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,973
    Intellectual property does belong to it's creator, and I have no problem with that. Short of the old GIA trick of changing three words in a hymn and copyrighting it, I am sure Noel, you can be just as creative as anyone at Ignatius Press. The actual mass wordings would be, I would think, something to resolve with ICEL, not Ignatius.
  • Not so much as saving time and energy, but paying them for the excellent work! I was asking how much they charge, not for charity. Though charity does have its appeal.

    Of course, this is the Catholic way. Ignore the Mass translations of the Anglican church and make out OWN!
  • AngelaRAngelaR
    Posts: 319
    Okay, I know this is slightly off the subject, but if you are looking for a typesetting that you most likely won't have to pay a cent for (in modern notation), you need to check out the Latin Mass Hymnal.
  • Chironomo
    Posts: 29
    "Short of the old GIA trick of changing three words in a hymn and copyrighting it..."

    You left off the part where they insert an asterisk with the original words at the bottom of the page . That takes some real kahunas...
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,973
    I know. They have no shame.
  • Mr. Z
    Posts: 159
    Jeffery Tucker,

    My oh my, I am surprised at you!

    By citing the "in Mozart's time," situation, with its lack of "copyright" understanding, you seem to be panning the very idea.


    An advocate for "fair play" would not recite such apples and oranges equations about fair use and copyright -- and actually, "fair use" is what is the operational principal in some of the scenarios you seem to be responding to, which modern copyright does allow for. IP ("so called" --??--, as you write, for a long established legal principal and societal norm?) has given society great benefits and there is a plethora of reasons for not demonizing copyright law, especially in principal, and yes, legislation is where WE as a free democratic society get to weigh in on what is fair to the CREATORS (I would suspect their are a fair number of creative types here, who just might like to get paid some fine day). This "in Mozart's time" argument is really a canard. Who would want to go to the trouble and expense of typesetting a work except the originator, or sponsor of such, in those days? I am sure it was done, but not easily and not without great expense. There would be nowhere near the copyright infringement of recorded works today, for example, if one had to go to the trouble and expense of going into the studio and basically recording everything again from scratch as a "sound-alike, just to give a sort of parallel, though certainly an imperfect one. There is just no comparison of "in Mozart's time" with modern digital reproduction or "Xeroxing" and distribution channels.

    As far as what is truly fair, in this arena, I do accept in principal the idea that one should not, per se, "own" translations of texts, especially in the case of liturgical texts and Scripture, as if these were totally original works. But this wholesale panning of copyright legislation, which is what you seem to be suggesting, anyway, is beyond the pale for those who speak, somewhat at least, in an advocacy capacity for any part of the creative community, church based or otherwise. Please help clarify if I have mischaracterized your position.

    I realize too, that a discussion that starts or ends with bow ties may be completely tongue in cheek, but "scarcity" is a completely relative term here.
  • I'm digging up this old thread because a remarkable irony occurs to me on the Adoremus Hymnal issue. The CMAA is listed in the front matter as having done the work on it, together with the Adoremus Society. Then of course Ignatius published it under some contractual arrangement. NOW of course Ignatius is denying permission to reprint to the CMAA's own people! That about sums up the problem.
  • eft94530eft94530
    Posts: 1,577
    Jeffrey, I am glad you did dig up this old thread.
    It keeps all the thoughts on a particular topic together, and simplifies searching.

    frogman: "I forgot to mention that we did not and are not asking for anything other than what they offered to the St. Micheal hymnal people...the opportunity to pay them for the use of work already done."

    Only by re-reading the entire thread, to see what Jeffrey was talking about,
    did I see that you did forget to mention it!
    Maybe if you had been more explicit they would have understood better?
    It is difficult to read so many Forum posts and keep distinct the different thread content;
    some assume knowledge only available in parallel threads.
    The parallel threads content (context for this one?) is not coming to mind for me,
    and with this isolated re-read, this thread strikes me differently.
  • Mr. Z
    Posts: 159
    Not knowing the history, nor the scope of this - i would pose a couple of questions.

    Was the CMAA paid for any of their contribution, and if so, would you care to disclose any of those arrangements? Probably not necessary to know, (actual arrangements) for the point of discussion but would be interesting nonetheless.

    Now, Mr. Jones seems to have found a work around in the chonak connection, which might catapult him to distributing his own version of the same type hymnal, for which he could the recoup some of his time investment, or well beyond God willing. The examlpe of the one chonak page I looked at was stunning. All the necessary material would be in the public domain, I would suppose, but please inform me better there if not the case.

    Finale can "copy" i.e., read through scanning. notation, and reconstruction from there is pretty basic, i.e., new music font, layouts, etc., though I am not sure about this regarding nuemes. Perhaps someone can chime in on that aspect.

    Gee, some guys "get off" in the criminal justice system. I think we ought to throw it all away. That is the gist of this kind of iconoclast thinking from this person''s standpoint.
  • I wish I knew the arrangements. I doubt that it was ever formalized. In those days, folks were just glad for someone to print stuff.
  • Mr. Z
    Posts: 159
    So, the CMAA was paid?
  • I have no idea. I seriously doubt it.