To: "'VOCALIST'" <vocalist>
Subject: RE: Copying music for auditions
Date sent: Wed, 12 Jan 2000 14:21:53 -0500
Send reply to: VOCALIST <vocalist>

I'm glad to see so much respect about copyright. Our choir is very careful
about this same thing. Whenever we have problems with either music delivery
or whatever, someone contacts the publisher and gets permission to have a
copy made until the originals are received. In the case of no publisher and
no cooperation, having made all your overtures, to no avail, I would
certainly have no problem making a copy!

Ruth Anderman-Lanza


-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Barrett [mailto:richardtenor-at-earthlink.net]
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2000 12:45 AM
To: VOCALIST
Subject: Re: Copying music for auditions

This issue raises an interesting question - what is one supposed to do when
music is out of print? I've run into this one a couple of times - one ended
happily, one did not. For the first one, I was trying to track down an
anthology of 20th century American art song in the high key, and all anybody
seemed to have was the low key. Turned out that both editions had been out
of print for a few years, it's just that the publisher printed a lot more of
the low key, expecting to sell more of those. I was faced with no other
option to get the music in question than to write the publisher for
permission to photocopy my voice teacher's book (or, as one sheet music
dealer suggested, buying the low key so I could say I had bought a copy, and
*then* photocopy my teacher's book) - and then at the last minute J.W.
Pepper came up with one copy of the high key.

The other one: I had read about and had heard a recording of Hamilton
Harty's "Ode to a nightingale," and tried to track down the music, only to
find out that a) not only was the music out of print but b) the publisher
was out of business. Interlibrary loan turned up one copy, but of course it
had to go back after a month. I wrote the university in Ireland that
maintains the Harty collection to ask them for a copy, but they said they
could do nothing without written permission from the publisher. Since the
publisher doesn't exist anymore, what's the solution to this?

And, anyway, I hate making photocopies. The Xerox machine is the worst thing
to have ever happened to sheet music, period - it's the sole reason for
music prices having been driven up as much as they have. People make
photocopies, thinking that they're getting a copy they don't have to pay as
much for, but what they're really doing is making everybody else pay for it.
Since the publisher doesn't wind up selling as many, the prices goes up
and/or the piece eventually goes out of print. In addition, composers don't
earn as many royalties and have a harder time making a living, so there's
less incentive for people to compose and try to publish their work. And,
unfortunately, there's no real solution at this point. The behavior (of
photocopying music rather than buying it) has already been taught and
justified to the majority of the music-using populace (at least, it was at
my university).

Thoughts?

- Richard