DigitalKoans

Canadian Public Domain Music Score Site Forced to Remove All Scores

The International Music Score Library Project, which offered music scores that were in the public domain in Canada, has been forced to remove all scores because it can not afford to comply with the terms of a second cease and desist letter from Universal Edition. The publisher's letter indicated that some scores were still under copyright in Europe, where the term of protection is 20 years longer than in Canada, and that some unidentified works were still under Canadian copyright.

The IMSLP Website remains, but it now consists only of a lengthy open letter and discussion forums.

Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, commented in a posting on the case:

In this particular case, UE demanded that the site use IP addresses to filter out non-Canadian users, arguing that failing to do so infringes both European and Canadian copyright law. It is hard to see how this is true given that the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that sites such as IMSLP are entitled to presume that they are being used in a lawful manner and therefore would not rise to the level of authorizing infringement. The site was operating lawfully in Canada and there is no positive obligation in the law to block out non-Canadians.

As for a European infringement, if UE is correct, then the public domain becomes an offline concept, since posting works online would immediately result in the longest single copyright term applying on a global basis. That can't possibly be right. Canada has chosen a copyright term that complies with its international obligations and attempts to import longer terms - as is the case here - should not only be rejected but treated as copyright misuse.