[Foundation-l] Dream a little...

[P. Birken]

2006/10/15, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com>:

> How about recordings of out of copyright (i.e. classical)  music?  The
> only rights holder should be whomever recorded it and whomever they
> signed agreements with in order to be permitted to record it.  There
> are a number of small record labels such as [[Nimbus Records]] as well
> as the concert halls themselves which have large libraries of music.
> I think this would only be worthwhile as a funded endeavor if it could
> land us a truly massive archive which would enable us to illustrate a
> majority of our articles on long-dead composers.

Classical music recordings are what I would call the classical
copyright nightmare. It might be possible to get solo pieces under a
free licence, but orchestra pieces... I talked to a Conductor of the
local university orchestra about putting some of their recordings
under a free license. You have to get forty people (the recorders) to
put this under a free licence. The next part is that while the music
is free, orchestras usually rent the notes from some music publishing
company (because it's too expensive to buy a complete set of notes for
every piece). These companies in turn put demands on your use of their
notes, most often fees for commercial use, which would in a way apply
if you put this under the GNU-FDL or CC-by-SA.

Nevertheless, it sounds like a good idea to fund a piano player to
record the major Bach, Beethoven and Mozart piano pieces.

Cheers,

Philipp