dodging piracy with e-books?

[Nikolas]

This is something of a grey area for me...

I mean:

1. If there ISN'T a legit source for the score, you HAVE to get it somewhere in order to play it, right?
2. Lyrics: You can get the lyrics of a song 'anytime'. You write them down and suddently you are breaking the law? Give me a break...

Now if you were downloading mp3s, then that would be a different story really, but the above two are pretty much an effort to perform a work of music, which otherwise can't happen and there isn't another way to do it.

[Calin Leafshade]

Well what if I transcribed a piece of music by ear? Is that copyright infringement?

It must be unless your copyright claim is on the arrangement of notes on the page rather than the song itself.

[Nikolas]

Legally it is, but apparently so is singing in the bath or something...

(not quite sure actually. I think that arrangments fall into a special section and private usage includes singing in the bath...)

[Calin Leafshade]

So therefore transcribing lyrics by ear is also copyright infringement.

What if I dont write them down but just remember them? Is that copyright infringement?

See how quickly copyright law descends into absurdity...

I certainly respect the spirit of copyright law but the letter of the law just becomes ridiculous if followed verbatim.

[InCreator]

Every person who enters music school, learns to play by classical scores. Mozart, Beethoven... but also Beatles, etc.
Is that a copyright infringement also?

And sampling, wider topic here... would every musician follow law with finger, or would - say - Donna Summer run from one courthouse to another, there wouldn't be WHOLE GENRES of music, like house or hip-hop...

I find copyrighting music unethical in major scale, as it's a bit too important part of human civilization/culture to bend over tiny capitalist interests, however, copying whole CD-s and whatnot doesn't sound very sane also...

[Nikolas]

Every person who enters music school, learns to play by classical scores. Mozart, Beethoven... but also Beatles, etc.
Is that a copyright infringement also?

And sampling, wider topic here... would every musician follow law with finger, or would - say - Donna Summer run from one courthouse to another, there wouldn't be WHOLE GENRES of music, like house or hip-hop...

I find copyrighting music unethical in major scale, as it's a bit too important part of human civilization/culture to bend over tiny capitalist interests, however, copying whole CD-s and whatnot doesn't sound very sane also...

Jeezz...

Beethoven and Mozart, no it's not copyright infrigment. The Beatles apparently it is... ?!!? Not sure what you're after here.

Sampling: Yes and no. As far as I can tell the law allows the use of TINY parts of a melody, but if you think about it the original creators of the samples shouldn't they be getting a cut of the huge $$$$ coming in?

The rest part I'm not sure what to say here.

Calin: I agree completely! And I do recall a few lyric websites that went down exactly for that reason! Silly! Bullshit! (Or, btw, the actual fact of the law that if you buy a CD, you CAN'T make it into an mp3 for use in your ipod (if you want to stay legal)). I actually was following this closely and had emailed a few companies about this. Both of them told me to do as I please, but not share...

[Radiant]

(Or, btw, the actual fact of the law that if you buy a CD, you CAN'T make it into an mp3 for use in your ipod (if you want to stay legal)).

This depends heavily on which country you're living in, of course.

[Greg Squire]

I recently bought an ebook fro Apress and I noticed that they put my email address in the margins of the book (probably an automated program that did that).  It said something like "This ebook has been licensed to Greg Squire at ____@___.com".  If you emailed the PDF to that that person as your only distribution option then that's guaranteed to be a live address, which people are less willing to spread around.   Also I've seen PDF's that can prevent printing (perhaps they could also limit printing to 1 or 2 times).  And of course you can password protect them too (perhaps the password could be the user's email address).  Anyway that's some ideas for you.

Anyway I know there no way to fully prevent piracy, but there are some precautions you can implement to prevent casual piracy.  You just don't want to make them too obtrusive and annoy your paying customers.  If your customers feel they are being treated like thieves, then they just might go elsewhere.