An old friend and fellow teacher sent me this response to my post yesterday about copyright music and the public domain. It bears repeating. I like what he says about raising awareness in the studio of the value of good editions. Thank you, Tim.

LaDona, I just got in my GMail your copyright stuff a few minutes ago. Praises to you, I agree with you whole-heartedly, and I think what we need is a movement (a revolution?) to swing the pendulum back to the safe zone. I can’t imagine what it would be like to see the print specialists like Rideau become extinct!

… I guess part of the music curriculum of private studios should include a bit of awareness or sensitization training as to the value of erudite editions (Henle, Peters, Paderewski, entre autres). I’ve done some minor research (a while back) on copyright, Canada versus other countries, within the internet context, and what you have posted seems accurate to everything I have learned. What many do though is host a server in a different country to get around laws specific to a restrictive country. In general, Australia has more lax copyright laws (at least governing text, I don’t know about music).

… If you want a good source of copyright info, Canada’s top lawyer (in Ottawa) is Michael Geist. www.michaelgeist.ca

Related articles

• The Public Domain (ladonasmusicstudio.com)