| scores uploaded from Biblioteca Digital Hispánica ⟨User:Carolus⟩ |
[#882] |
Hi Carolus, we've had quite a few scores uploaded recently from the Biblioteca Digital Hispánica and I see that some of these have a watermark in the footer of every page that states "© Biblioteca Nacional de España." I know that with scores from BSB we require users to remove their bogus copyright notice. Should we do anything about those from BDH? Thanks.
| Posted at 03:08, 2 July 2012 by Cypressdome (administrator) |
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If you can remove these easily, yes. We do not recognize or acknowledge their absurd claim to copyright for these. Sometimes, things like this are embedded at the original file level (TIFF or JPG), which makes removal a much more tedious process. If you think there are a lot of very interesting and valuable items in their collection, we might create a template which states our position on their copyright claim. Let me know as such a statement will have to be reviewed by Fedlmahler, who (as you may know) is now an actual attorney.
| Posted at 21:25, 2 July 2012 by Carolus (administrator) |
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I can remove them easily enough by simply removing the watermark using Acrobat Pro but I doubt that's an option for many users. The site has about 7,000 scores available online and only 66 have been transferred to IMSLP so far.
| Posted at 22:32, 2 July 2012 by Cypressdome (administrator) |
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That seems to be the way to go. You might want to warn anyone else adding things from there. Thanks
| Posted at 22:34, 2 July 2012 by Carolus (administrator) |
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So, do we forbid them from uploading them at all unless they can remove the copyright notice or simply encourage them to remove them if they can? I'll go through the scores currently uploaded and remove the watermarks in those.
| Posted at 22:42, 2 July 2012 by Cypressdome (administrator) |
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I think we should forbid them as it could conceivably create trouble for uploaders in the EU. Neither Canada or the US recognize such claims, but some EU countries have laws which pre-date their joining the EU which allowed libraries and archives to claim a reproduction right of some kind. A similar law regarding reprints was struck down in Germany, but apparently they are still on the books elsewhere. The Milan conservatory library threatened to sue one of our contributors a couple of years ago, which had him quite scared. If someone had the funds to drag it all the way through the court system it would likely be struck down because it's basically making a copyright claim on public domain material.
| Posted at 22:51, 2 July 2012 by Carolus (administrator) |
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Thanks Carolus. I'll inform Fynnjamin and Generoso (the two most recent uploaders of BDH scores) and link back to this discussion.
| Posted at 22:56, 2 July 2012 by Cypressdome (administrator) |
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Right, yes good plan - sorry for uploading so many before removing the watermark! Wish I knew how to do it myself. Taking the rest of July off from IMSLP anyway.
| Posted at 23:12, 2 July 2012 by Fynnjamin |
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Interestingly, and frustratingly, there appear to be some in which the watermark was created with a third-party software and as a result neither Acrobat Pro nor Pitstop Professional can remove them (easily). Will persevere.
| Posted at 00:41, 3 July 2012 by Cypressdome (administrator) |
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All that could be corrected by Acrobat have been. Those Acrobat couldn't were either grayscale with a watermark created by A-PDF Watermark 3.7.1 or were ones in which the watermark no longer existed as a layer separate from the image of the score. In the latter case I'll have to check the original files at BDH as the uploader may have altered the original PDF file. Haven't decided how to address the former case. The one option I have right now would be to extract out the pages as tif files and wipe out the notice. A good rule of thumb for BDH files is that if the original is truly in black and white then Acrobat Pro can probably remove the watermark.
| Posted at 02:34, 3 July 2012 by Cypressdome (administrator) |
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