Hi Pat,

I always enjoy reading what you write. I have a great deal of admiration for the clarity that you bring when issues are confusing and confronting. I hope you don't mind my adding my "two cents worth" to your below statement.

Originally Posted By: Pat
On the other hand, those who have presumed approval and just posted have never been reprimanded as far as I can see.

Since the User Forum began around three years ago, there have been a number of arrangements of copyrighted songs posted. By far, the large majority of those posts have been removed, without fuss, by moderators. Whether or not posters are reprimanded, I don't know. Such posts have been here one day and gone the next. Maybe PG Music send an email to these posters because I've noticed that it's rare for a poster to infringe copyright a second time.

In addition, my observations are that posting arrangements of songs in the public domain has never been an issue since the poster fulfills PG Music's requirements that "You must have all of the rights to the songs." No laws are broken when working with public domain material and the arranger holds all relevant copyright rights.

It's also worth noting that when a song is originally copyrighted as "words and music by composers A and B (even C, D, etc.)", then each of those composers are credited with writing both words and music; whether one composer was the main lyricist and another was the main melodist is irrelevant. Simply removing or changing lyrics does not make any difference in relation to copyright infringement in these instances. If a song is originally copyrighted as "words by A and music by B", then different copyright rules apply. Sometimes, with the passage of time, a "words by A and music by B" copyright morphs into "words and music by A and B". My understanding is that in such instances, the original copyright applies and any rewording does nothing to modify that original copyright. (Maybe that's just Australia, though.)

It's true that every once in a while a song can slip past the forum moderators. I suspect that this is because either (a) the song is less well known and the moderator is not aware that the post infringes copyright on one or more levels, or (b) the number of new posts between the moderator's visits makes it difficult to check every detail of every post.

I can only speak for myself. I have a huge respect for all that Peter Gannon has done in relation to PG Music, the BIAB suite of software programs, and this amazing on-line community of forums that he graciously provides and maintains. I would never want to do anything to jeopardize PG Music. Peter looks after me way too well. That's also why I like to help others understand the product in the various forums. It's my way of saying "Thank you, Peter and PG Music."

Kind regards,
Noel

P.S. I've also 'met' some excellent people on these forums and I enjoy their friendship a great deal smile


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