There were no files.  I made up my own music file format.  I took some
hundred year old sheet music, and based on how I interpet it, I composed
my particular music files.  From my music files, I automatically
generate PDF sheet music, midi, ogg, and mp3.  The PDF sheet music is
not identical to the original sheet music.

The music itself is out of copyright.  But in the legal field, there are
cases that have established that copyright on public domain material can
apply to things like page numbers.

The classic example if the "Findlaw" company.  They index publicly
available court rulings.  The court rulings themselves cannot be
copyrighted, as they are public property.  But when a competitor copied
Findlaws product, they got smacked for copyright violation.  The court
found that the content was copyright-free, but the page numbers were
added by Findlaw, and constituted their "copyrighted" property.  This is
like someone copyrighting Strong's numbers, which are a sort of index to
the Bible.

My source for this information is Amicus Curia, a pro se lawyer and
paralegal operating in the state of Washington.  He has had running
battles with Findlaw, who periodically clobber their own legal software
to force you to buy upgrades.  Their product is the best in the field,
so all lawyers end up using it, fueling a monopoly in the field of legal
research.

In todays music industry, performers claim copyright when they record
themselves playing a piece of music, even if the music itself is out of
copyright.  I may not be a musician, but it took a certain amount of
skill to read the music, and enter it into the computer, and then make
the computer play it.  That is, it took skill and effort to create a
"performance".

As for "substantial" changes to the source; I separated tenor, soprano,
alta, and bass parts so they could all be listened to separately.  There
was no such separation in the original sheet music.  This sort of change
is at least on par with adding "page numbers" and an index.

You call that bullshit?  Ok.  I won't disagree.  But there is a whole
legal industry out there with their own peculiar ideas.

I'm a believer in freedom.  I don't want to restrict anyone from using
my newly formatted renditions of old, out of copyright music.  

I want to let people know that I renounce any copyright claims to the
material on the website.  So the options are:

1) public domain
2) creative commons license
3) BSD license

If I do not state this renunciation of copyright somehow, people,
especially legal people, may assume some sort of copyright exists.

What do you recommend?

Ted

On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 01:57:32AM -0600, Theo de Raadt wrote:
quoted text
>>>(The 2/3-term BSD license meant to do basically the same, but it used
>>>more words to do the same.  The old 4-term BSD license included some
>>>terms to make University of California benefit from advertising, if
>>>there was going to be any.)
>>
>>I have been generating midi, ogg, pdf, and mp3 files of some old,
>>out-of-copyright music.  I have been releasing them and the source that
>>generates them under the Creative Commons license.
>>
>>Do you recommend the 3 term BSD license for this particular use instead?
>>Or would the 2 term one be better?
>
>You can't do that.  You added nothing of value, so you don't deserve
>copyright, since your conversions do not count as being substantial.
>
>Conversions of files remain under their existing rights, which means,
>they are free, since the copyright expired.  Adding a copyright to
>them is a lie.

-- 
	   There's a party in your skull.  And you're invited!

Name:    Ted Walther
Phone:   604-435-5787
Email:   ted@enumera.com
Skype:   tederific
Address: 3422 Euclid Ave basement, Vancouver, BC V5R4G4 (Canada)