If all I’ve done is provide a free-to-download pdf of the text set to a particular tune, and not made any other specific claims or releases in terms of copyright, that other musician will need to specifically request and receive my permission before re-setting the text to another tune.

Now- that might not seem like too much friction to some people, but it is. The requirement to ask permission deflates the moment of inspiration when someone suddenly finds or realizes exactly the thing that is needed.

THIS.

Really, the whole piece is at the required-reading level. Please read it.

I think it might be helpful to back up a step and ask a different question.

IS open source music working? No, it is not. The revolution has not occurred.

Why not? Because the resources are not in place to make a large enough body of work of consistent quality, nor to market this. The market goes on without us. Without any of us. Face it, we are a niche. CPDL is the only aspect of open source sacred music that has a broad base of use, and let's face it, that is not anywhere near as broad as OCP.

Why are we not succeeding? Because no one gets paid.

(Adam, you should put a kind of lojack on your hymns, that works like the fees on software. After 5 uses or 1 month, you have to pay for it.)

There are two problems with not being paid.

The first is the obvious practical side. Unless someone is retired or independently wealthy or (like Jeff O and Adam B, apparently) sleeps about two hours a night, it is very difficult to produce a great deal of work.

The second is more interesting: people respect what they pay for. I once worked with a nun who had been doing Religious Ed for about 40 years. I was telling her about a program I was starting up at the parish, and her main advice to me was to charge for it. I was like, what? And she said that if you charge for a program people will attend all the sessions, but if you don't charge they are much more likely to just not show.

It took a while for my choir to get used to CPDL resources. I would print them out and they would not respect them. They wanted to use something more "official," from a book.

We have few books, no series that I know of, no programs, and zero marketing. Those "reading sessions" that publishers do in parishes? That is marketing, pure and simple. The catalogs that they send out with the CDs? Marketing. We don't have that.

People trust things for different reasons. Many, many people trust professionals more than they trust amateurs; they believe that professional work is the "official" work and they will buy it. There are many people who will not download and make copies of work that wasn't "officially" published, even though it is free.

A lot more people use Microsoft Word than OpenOffice. Why? Trust. Why? Because it's expensive.

Adam,

The stated goal of the CMAA is "Sacred Music in Every Parish." A little tiny niche does not come close to meeting that goal.

I agree that groups at work could part of the answer. However I think we're really not taking the consumer into account here. The people who make the decisions, ultimately, are priests. What are they looking for? I don't mean the rare priest who makes the ROTR as a top priority, but the regular priest. They want a book that will help them do what they need to do, for all the people they are working with.

Personally I believe that the St Michael Hymnal is the most successful outreach the ROTR has accomplished so far. But that is still a niche.

Btw, Adam, I apologize for deflecting the thread. I realize that for the most part we're talking about apples and oranges.

This is what I don't see as a possible outcome: changing the landscape completely. The landscape is glossy, mostly just ok productions by two companies (mostly one) slightly supplemented here and there by 6 little companies, 150 lone guns, and one Jeff Ostrowski. I don't imagine that changing anytime, do you?

CW- Again, I have to say: Open Source HAS, IN FACT, changed the landscape of software development. Completely. There's been a revolution. It happened. It worked. The landscape IS different.

Did it "live up to the hype"? Probably not, because the prognosticators are always wrong. No one - not even the ones doing it - could have imagined the impact of the Open Source movement on software and computing in general.

For goodness sakes- if you are using an Android phone, you have Open Source software in your pocket. IN YOUR POCKET! Even if you are using the totally, way better in every way iPhone, most of the apps on there probably incorporate Open Source software in one way or another. Over 60% of all websites are run on Apache HTTP server, another Open Source project. More than 90% of today's 500 fastest supercomputers, including the 10 fastest, run some variant of Linux.

Do I expect the same thing here? Well, no- everyone uses computers. Not everyone uses Sacred Music. But that doesn't mean there isn't an amazing potential for who-knows-what kind of awesomeness.

That's what I'm advocating: awesomeness.

But enough talk. I have manifested my manifesto- it is time for me to put my lack of money where my mouth is and get to work. I'll be posting updates on that as we go...

"Sure, Charlie, just order what Graduale Romanums, Simplexes, Libers, Hymnariums for the quires, enough Kyriales for the folks, and keep using CPDL for your polyphony as much as possible as 2.95 per octavo of 5 pages seems exorbitant." But that's not likely to be heard in our lifetimes or our grandchildren's I suspect.

Yes, exactly.

I'm not doubting that Open Source works with software, not at all. I'm just lamenting that so far it hasn't worked with Church music.

Also I would like to succeed you, Charles, in honor of your service.

Ok. I will concede that there are aspects of your vision that I don't understand, and which might work.

Although personally I'm kinda defaulting to the hierarchical publishing house model and doubting anything else could gain a market share.

You calling me old, Sonny?

Ok, I guess neither of us KNOWS OCP's market share. I would guess 85%. Is that wrong?

I'm writing from the great state of Lazio, Rome, Italy. Here there are beautiful papal liturgies which I happily praise. Here in parishes there is a little booklet sponsored by the bishops' conferences, verses without music, very little of it very good, for the 4-hymn parish Mass. There are no propers in the booklet.

I have access to a current English hymnal which is much better but still not propers-conversant.

Is anything we are doing truly able to compete with the low-Mass four-hymn mentality? If not, what can we do to get into the game? More free stuff?

I'm suggesting that all means at our disposal should be employed, and this is a means that could have far-reaching effects and has not yet been fully employed.

Definitely agree. If the demand for good sacred music increases enough, the major publishers will get back into that market.

Woot! Cantica novica is on top!

As Ben points out- even in neutral searches- the first two results are Cantica Nova.

Further- as JT has said - "Google loves" this forum. - I remarkably high portion of liturgical-music-based queries and questions end up here.

Music is art. How many people are interested in an open source file which they can and want to change? Perhaps I don't clearly understand the concept. Please define in 25 words or less.

ahhh,... 3D manuscript paper?

You say you want a revolution?

We ALL want to change the world.

How many people are interested in an open source file which they can and want to change?

I want one all the time. Haven't you ever needed to transpose something? Wanted to write a descant? Fix a poorly-done harmonization? Change one heretical word in an otherwise perfectly fine hymn? Combine two almost-perfect translations into one perfect translation? Pair a text and tune that no one else has paired before? Write an organ fantasy on an existing piece of music?

More than most other art forms (except maybe cooking) music depends on a continual process of adaptation, borrowing, stealing, improving. The creativity of composers, the practical needs of a specific performance, the sudden inspiration of the Holy Spirit...

Up until fairly recently, all of this happened in a perfectly natural ecology of artistic give-and-take. Copyright law, an unnatural and unprecedented intrusion on the free market brought to us by the government, interrupted that natural process and (way worse) has managed to convince everyone that it is perfectly natural and reasonable.

The solution to that problem is good licensing. That is- making things Free.

The issue of file types and Open Source is a second, not-quite-as-important issue, which could help catalyze the movement, and provide cool secondary benefits (like computer analysis of vast numbers of musical scores).

That is- good licensing sets things free. Open sourcing things give them wings.

Perhaps I don't clearly understand the concept. Please define in 25 words or less.

Forgive my long explanations. I have not yet had time to write a shorter one. I will attempt to do so in the near future.

I would have thought that copyright was invented by publishers and authors who wanted to ensure that their work was paid for rather than stolen by any Joe Wiseacre with a printing press.

But I would love to be able to download all the hymnals in the world and transpose and rearrange them.

By the way, since it's 2013 I'm pretty sure the copyright period for All Praise to Thee, for Thou, O King Divine has ended, alleluia.

I would have thought that copyright was invented by publishers and authors who wanted to ensure that their work was paid for rather than stolen by any Joe Wiseacre with a printing press.

Nope. Government-granted monopolies and mercantilism. Read Jeffrey Tucker on the subject.

In general, what would be very valuable to me would be an open source xml file of the 1940 hymnal, and then after that the general organ repertoire. I have found xml files on hymnary.org, but usually they suck.

Exactly the sort of project that I think should exist, but the liturgical music community hasn't caught up to how to get this sort of thing done. Hence, my post. You basically just made my argument. (In 39 words.)

I'm of the opinion there is. But it's still vague in my mind. Am working on it...

captivating thread title

Click bait.

JT is completely right about Intellectual Property law. He just doesn't (or didn't) use the generally-accepted correct terminology- referring to things as "Open Source" when they were simply free.

I repeat, there isn't a clear parallel here, because of a huge difference in the market. There is a market for good software. There is not yet an adequate market for sacred music. There is a glut of brand name, lame-o music on the market. People trust it. Personally I always buy Tide and Woolite. Some people always buy OCP and GIA.

And yet, hymnary.org gives them away for free and you feel free to download them.

Adam:

It's their prerogative to give them away for free. However, they are not free for commercialization. Here is the notice on an xml for Aurelia. "Copyright 2008 Hymnary.org. You may use this score in personal and corporate worship settings. Commercial use and republication are prohibited without written consent."

Charles, I wouldn't put it quite like that. First of all the Colloquium and Winter Intensive and all the other educational events and fora are what make the market for sacred music that does exist.

My problem is that in order to overcome the resistance--and the resistance in this case is HUGE, for all sorts of reasons--requires a snowball effect. Open sourcing will never in a million years develop the required momentum, mostly because the problem is not on the supply-side, but with the consumer.

Oh, I think it is a bit insular. If one reads posts here, one would think the Catholic world is clamoring for chant and sacred polyphony. It ain't so. How many "Gather" books did GIA sell this last year? Granted, most of the people you name, I have never met. I just read the occasional, out-of-touch post from some, but many don't post at all. Out here in the trenches, it is not always so grand or glorious. That cry for sacred music is more often than not, a stifled scream.