RIP-OFF
This user (https://musescore.com/user/4710986) has been passing off Prokofiev's Etude as his own composition. I have commented on the piece 2 times. He deleted both comments. HOWEVER, on the third try, I found out that he had blocked me. Nowhere in the score does he state that it's Prokofiev's Etude, not even in the description. The people who commented seems to be hooked on the fact that it's HIS composition and not Prokofiev's. What are your thoughts on this, guys?
Comments
My thoughts? It's absolutely despicable.
But there have been several discussions of this type of thing in the Improving MuseScore.com group (https://musescore.com/groups/improving-musescore-com/discussions), and there don't seem to be any plans to put an anti-plagiarism mechanism in place, except for copyright claimants.
In reply to My thoughts? It's absolutely by Isaac Weiss
Prokofiev died in 1953, so his works are not in the public domain in all countries and won't be for another 37 years (another 7 years in those with a Life+70 rule). It seems likely that a legitimate copyright-infringement claim could be filed against anyone who copies or publishes his work without permission from his estate or publishers.
This might be something Thomas might want to check into in more detail.
In reply to Prokofiev died in 1953, so by Recorder485
It might be that a copyright claim could be filed, but not by an unaffiliated third party.
In reply to It might be that a copyright by Isaac Weiss
I don't think there is anything to stop a third party from filing a claim. The admins are only *obliged* to remove content if the claim comes from the copyright holder (and is valid), but that doesn't necessarily mean the content can't be removed if a third party identifies the violation.
In reply to It might be that a copyright by Isaac Weiss
@ Zack--You are essentially correct; a claimant for damages or judicial relief must be an interested party to the dispute or he has no legal standing to file the claim (with the possible exception of a 'public interest' claim but those generally have to be approved by a court in advance in a separate proceeding...and that whole area of law is complex enough to buy lots of Beemers for lots of lawyers).
But that basic rule applies only to claims filed before a court of competent jurisdiction. It does not apply to private complaints filed with the administrators of internet sites--such as Google, YouTube, or MuseScore--which make uploaded files (that may or might have inherent intellectual property rights attached to them) publicly available. Private corporations can, for most purposes, set their own rules...and most do.
As far as I can determine, there is no legal impediment to MuseScore deciding to take down a particular posted score as a preventive measure if the admins were to decide it might become a legal liability to the corporation in the future. Making a computer file publicly available on the internet is generally considered to constitute 'publishing', and publishing a copyright-protected work without the owner's permission can be costly if the owner finds out and files a legal claim.
Heaven help the internet site that publishes something that DisneyCorp owns.... ;o)
The terms and guidelines for MuseScore.com currently only mention the protection of legal rights (i.e. copyright), but I would support adding a statement to support the protection of moral rights too. Something along these lines:
Legal rights:
You must only upload and make publicly accessible content for which you have the legal right to do so.
Moral rights:
Even if you have the necessary legal permissions to use and/or distribute another person's content you must give them credit for the work they did, though you may claim credit for any work you have done in arranging, transcribing, or otherwise modifying the content in question. This applies regardless of the copyright status of the content, and regardless of any rights waived by the original author(s). Where the original author is unknown (and you have made a reasonable attempt to identify them) you must specify the author as "Anonymous" or other similar attribution, and you may also do this if you do know the identity of the author and they have explicitly requested to not be identified as the author. If a work was originally published under a pseudonym then you may choose to attribute the pseudonym instead of the author's real name. Content that does not comply with this policy will be removed.
I have taken a look at this user's score, and compared it to the score published in IMSLP that Zack linked in his comment on the user's page. Two things are worthy of note:
1. IMSLP states: It is very unlikely that this work is public domain in the EU, or in any country where the copyright term is life-plus-70 years. However, it is in the public domain in Canada (where IMSLP is hosted) and other countries where the term is life-plus-50 years (such as China, Japan, Korea and many others worldwide). As this work was first published before 1923 or failed to meet notice or renewal requirements to secure statutory copyright with no "restoration" under the GATT amendments, it is very likely to be public domain in the USA as well.
2. The 'transcription' (if we were to be so generous as to call it that) is a not an accurate one (in fact, it is a very poor one). The user apparently does not know or appreciate the difference between, for example, an A-sharp and a B-flat (see m. 59), and there are numerous other differences between the score published on IMSLP and the user's MuseScore upload. In fact, we don't even know if that particular IMSLP score is the source for the user in question (although it's likely that it is). That said, if the original work were to be considered to be in the public domain, a transcription with intellectually important differences between it and the 'original' could possibly claim its own independent copyright for the transcription or arrangement. Publishing companies do this sort of thing all the time, and it is completely legitimate, so long as the original composer is credited as the creator of the work, and the arranger or editor is credited as such.
That is obviously not the case here, however. The user has not credited Prokofiev anywhere, and has put his own name in the spot normally used for the composer's name. Bad.