Re: OT: Beauty of programming languages

[David Kastrup]

MING TSANG <address@hidden> writes:

> I'm 68 years old and an IBM mainframe programmer using COBOL. Now retired.
> I've been using Lilypond since v1.12. One of the reason I choose
> lilypond because it supports UTF-8 for lyrics. Now I am gladly using
> V2.18.2 and V2.19.26.
> I sing in a choir.  Time and time, we were given photocopy music sheet
> and they are hard to read.  I started transcribe the photocopy music
> sheet by using lilypond for my own use.  Few months thereafter, choir
> member ask for printed copy of lilypond generated pdf. I am greatly
> obliged.    
> Few months ago copyright subject come up. I bought a song book
> contains 10 STAB choir songs.  I transcribe one of them and use for
> whole choir. Is this legal?  

Depends on the composer's date of death and whether you are transcribing
editorial annotations as well or just sticking to the Urtext.  "we were
given photocopy music sheet" does not exactly sound a lot more legal
either, though I have indeed (from Hohner Verlag) received "original
sheet music" that was a really lousy quality loose sheet photocopy with
an "original music, do not photocopy" stamp mark placed on it.

For your own private use transcribing from your own legal bad-quality
copy tends to be considered fair use in a number of jurisdictions.

-- 
David Kastrup