How on earth .... ?

[Dave2002]

How on earth is one now supposed to be able even to scan (in the sense of look at quickly) music to determine whether it is of interest, either to buy the parts or scores now that sites are reminding us of dire consequences of downloading any music by composers who were fortunate to live well into the 20th Century, though the works of concern may in fact now be more than 100 years old?

I'm not against copyright per se, but how is one supposed to be able to peruse a score to determine whether it merits further study? In the past there were music shops, or even music libraries - and apart from the inconvenience of actually having to go to them to see the paper copies it was possible. Now many of these shops and libraries have disappeared, so although in theory there is a great merit in being able to see/download scores via the internet, doing so for 20th Century composers, or possibly even some earlier ones may render one on the wrong side of copyright lawyers.

[Dave2002]

Maybe others don't want to discuss this, but my intention was to highlight some problems with copyright and also the internet.
I'm not against copyright, which may return some financial benefits to people who create disseminated works, but due to the influence of some large corporations I feel this has got out of hand. In some jurisdictions copyright now extends to life plus 70 years, which means that if someone writes something at (say) 20, and then lives to be 95 that particular work is then copyrighted for 145 years from its initial creation.

Gaining access to material via the internet often makes the process much simpler than going to shops or libraries - it's much quicker, but the downside is that if the material is copyrighted there may be a quite substantial charge to access that material.
For users in institutions such as universities and government bodies, arrangements often exist which mean that either the charges are lower, or perhaps that simply those bodies bear the high cost of access.

The rise of the internet has provided many benefits, and one resource which I have used a quite a lot in the past is the IMSLP Petrucci library - http://imslp.org/ which provides access to works which are in the public domain. The site is based in Canada, and the site developers are aware that copyright laws are different in different part of the world. This is a great resource, and for studying works by Beethoven, Bach, Brahms etc. it is very useful. Sadly however it becomes less useful for 20th Century works.
While being glad that many composers had a long life, this has had the effect of putting some of their works out of reach for "casual" users. Currently the works of composers who were still alive in 1948 - even if some of those works date from much earlier - are still in copyright, and access to them may be blocked. Currently composers such as Bartok, Rachmaninov, Richard Strauss are out of copyright, while Britten, Stravinsky, Tippett, Dohnanyi and many other important 20th Century composers have works which are still very much in copyright.

In my case if I had a very desperate need to see a score I might be able to access it via the public library service, or even take a trip to the Performing Arts Library at Denbies, or I could pay "on spec" for copies to be sent to me. I do from time to time write short articles about musical pieces for which I receive no pay. It would not be unreasonable to spend a small amount - say up to £5, for limited time access to some scores, but larger sums would seem unjustified. I could also probably activate other legal ways of accessing material at low or no cost to me - though the average man in the street would not be able to do that.

My concern is that in this area commercial interests - often by large organisations and film companies trying to increase their profits - have changed copyright law in such a way that many works are not accessible at costs which many people could reasonably afford. This at a time when the technology (internet etc.) exists to make dissemination of works so much easier than it was a few decades ago. The "problem" may not go away either. Eventually there may be calls to extend copyright to life plus 100 years etc. with the drivers probably not being to help "starving composers" and their families, but to maintain the profits of large companies.

Obviously most people won't see, or be aware of this as a problem, and people who are seriously in the creative business - for example putting on concerts, plays etc. for which there may be some financial reward will include the costs of legal access to copyrighted material in their operations, but for others with a very limited desire/need to access copyrighted texts the current situation presents considerable barriers.