IMSLP offered not only many scores which are still under European copyright of a publisher, but also numerous scores which have never been published before. Obviously somebody had access to the manuscripts and re-typed the whole piece for publishing via IMSLP. Sure – the European copyright also protects these scores. But keeping the fact in mind that copyright practically makes these scores unavailable to all, we are pretty close to censorship, which again is clearly against most constitutional rights in Europe as the censored content is not violating any law. And what about the many titles available on IMSLP which did not harm anyones copyrights?

Another interesting detail: while taking out of catalog poorly selling titles as any publisher UE is one of few publishers worldwide strictly refusing to sell authorised photocopies. This IS active censorship…

You can’t help but wonder what would have happened if the great masters of the past – Da Vinci, Mozart, Vivaldi, etc… had been faced with this sort of copyrights; would they have been as popular, or remembered as the classics, or just pushed aside and remembered only by the publishers and distant relatives that are still trying to make a buck off what someone else did.

I am not against copyrights, but when you hear from children and grandchildren of well known authors and compusers saying that they feel that their livelyhood should also be supported for what their parent/grand parent acheived, then it’s just “greed”.

And then to say that local copyrights should be honoured over others, is just plan stupid.

Just my two cents