{"id":10427,"date":"2016-09-25T03:36:27","date_gmt":"2016-09-25T07:36:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/harpcolumnmusic.com\/?p=10427"},"modified":"2016-09-25T09:39:09","modified_gmt":"2016-09-25T13:39:09","slug":"is-it-legal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harpcolumn.com\/music\/is-it-legal\/","title":{"rendered":"Is it Legal?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my previous post, I described the process of scanning music<\/a> to get it onto your iPad. Inevitably, one of the first questions I was asked on Facebook was, “Is that legal?” The answer is, this is a contentious issue, and there are no easy answers. Further complicating the issue is the fact that intellectual property (a.k.a. “copyright”)\u00a0laws differ depending on your country. Since I’m from the U.S.,\u00a0this blog is from the perspective of the laws that apply to me.<\/p>\n

Is scanning legal?<\/h3>\n

As I described earlier<\/a>, I scanned much of my personal library to transfer to my iPad before moving overseas. And much\u00a0of the\u00a0standard classical music\u00a0in my library is unquestionably in the public domain<\/a>. Handel Concerto? Hasselmans “La Source?” Scan\u00a0away. In fact, you can already find versions of public domain harp standards ready to download on sites such as IMSLP<\/a> or the Brigham Young Harp Archives<\/a>, saving you the trouble of doing any work at all.<\/p>\n

The gray area comes with music that is not<\/em> in the public domain. And much of the standard\u00a0harp repertoire (most of the compositions by Grandjany or Salzedo for instance) falls into this category as well. If you try to find a definitive answer to the legalities of scanning\u2014or copying, because that’s all\u00a0a scan really is\u2014music you own that is not in the public domain, for your own personal use, you’ll encounter many opinions about why this is or is not OK. According to most music publishers’ interpretations of the copyright law, it is probably not OK.\u00a0There are several resources you can check out including the Music Publishers Association Copyright FAQ,<\/a> and the Retail Print Music Dealers Association Copyright Info<\/a>\u00a0page, that\u00a0attempt\u00a0to summarize the nuts and bolts of the 13+ chapter US Copyright Law<\/a> into laymen’s terms. And both of these organizations spell out in no uncertain wording\u00a0that copying without permission “for any reason” is not OK.<\/p>\n

But you’ll also notice that neither of these sources really answers our specific question: “Can I put music I’ve already purchased onto\u00a0my iPad so I don’t have to carry 10 heavy notebooks around with me to every job?” Essentially, musicians have already been doing this for years with photocopied gig books (come on, we ALL DO IT!!!). The\u00a0reality is that the print music industry\u00a0simply does not\u00a0address\u00a0this very common scenario.<\/p>\n

Allow\u00a0me to digress for one moment. Raising further questions is the fact\u00a0that much\u00a0of the\u00a0music you might want to put on your iPad is not available in digital form to begin with, leaving no other\u00a0option but to scan. It’s kind of like if you have a\u00a0cassette tape of the Grateful Dead from 1982 (guilty), but you no longer have a cassette player. (OK, it’s not exactly like that, but I’m struggling for an analogy here.)\u00a0Or maybe you have a cassette player at home, but you want to listen in your car, which most certainly no longer has a\u00a0cassette player. (Better analogy.)\u00a0You need to get that tape onto your phone, right? The recorded music\u00a0industry has at least recognized the modern issues consumers face by making every album since the beginning of time available in digital format and allowing consumers to put purchased files\u00a0on multiple devices. That\u00a0cassette tape was probably bootlegged to begin with anyway, so at least now you’ve actually come clean and made good on it, right? If I could pay for the convenience of purchasing a PDF of a piece\u00a0I already owned to save myself the hassle of scanning it (because it is, really, a pretty big hassle), I would do it! Wouldn’t you? So, in my humble opinion, publishers really need to get with the program here, quite literally. Until they\u00a0make music available in a format\u00a0that\u00a0consumers are demanding in a\u00a021st-century world, they are practically begging us to keep scanning, and frankly, they are leaving money on the table.<\/p>\n

So where does this\u00a0leave us? Is it legal? Are we trying to rationalize our way around the copyright law? A good\u00a0place to start is by asking yourself one extremely important question: Are you copying to avoid\u00a0purchase? If so,\u00a0you are unquestionably\u00a0breaking the law. If not, well, let your conscience be your guide.<\/p>\n

What about file sharing?<\/h3>\n

So by one means or another you’ve gotten some\u00a0music into your Dropbox and onto your iPad. Now let’s address #4 on my list <\/a>of\u00a0ways to import music:\u00a0Ask a friend to send you music they’ve already scanned or purchased.<\/p>\n

Come on, you have to know this is not cool, right!!! Do we even have to go here? (facepalm!)<\/em><\/h4>\n

I’ll try not to get all preachy on you, but as anyone in the very\u00a0tiny harp music industry\u00a0will tell you, our market is REALLY small! Almost any\u00a0piece of music you’re likely to buy was probably written, arranged, or published by someone like your teacher, or your teacher’s teacher, or a friend, or maybe even you. (OK, well you wouldn’t buy music from yourself, but you get my point.) If you share files to avoid purchase (obviously there’s no problem with\u00a0sending your friend a\u00a0public domain file), you are absolutely hurting and sabotaging your friends and colleagues, and our collective potential for generating new harp music becomes much smaller than it already is. There, I’ve said it.<\/p>\n

One of the first questions artists always ask when we talk with them about selling their music on Harp Column Music is, “How are you going to prevent people from sending my PDF to all their friends?” The short answer? We can’t. We’ve included\u00a0some mechanisms to make it a little harder, like our admittedly-slightly-annoying password protection system. But we didn’t exactly fall off the turnip truck yesterday. We know that any 12-year-old with a smartphone could easily circumvent this\u00a0system. But at least having a password\u00a0in place will cause file sharers to\u00a0think twice about what they’re doing.<\/p>\n

So is it legal?<\/h3>\n

I’ve now\u00a0given you one more in a long line of pretty vague answers you can find on your own if you scour this topic\u00a0on the internet like I’ve been doing for the past three days. I hope I’ve saved you the trouble! To the person who asked me “is this legal?” I can only repeat my first statement: there are no easy answers.<\/p>\n

Do you have thoughts to add to this conversation? Please post in our comments section! We want to hear from you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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