Photocopying Duet Books

Factual Questions
1

When can photocopy pages from a duet book. I’m interested both in what is legal (California, USA) and in what is the common practice of ethical musicians.

The two reasons I want to photocopy songs are:

  1. Some of the songs have terrible page-turns and I would like to copy pages as a solution.

  2. I would like to photocopy songs to practice separately with my fellow player, and then meet and play the duets together from the original book.

The book explicitly says that all reproductions is forbidden.

So – In what cases may I legally photocopy music, and what is the common practice of ethical musicians. Do I need to by two books?

2

IANAL but - Making a copy of a copyrighted work that you already own for your own use is considered fair use and is totally legal. Technically, your fellow player should purchase a copy of the same book if he wishes to practice at home. I believe it would be common practice (pun intended) to copy a particular piece for him to work on but not copy the whole book for him.

3

My wife teaches music sometimes and has had students enter various programs. The performers are required to present two copies of the piece to be performed - one for the performer and one for the judges. Only original copies can be accepted. If a judge finds that you have a xerographic copy, even if it is for your use as a performer, you can be immediately disqualified.

4

What a bunch of jerks! I guess musicianship and performance skills aren’t important. You could be Van Cliburn, but if you’re playing from a photocopy, forget about it.

Don’t worry about. Some people’s (wink, wink) music collections are mostly photocopies.

5

I guess it isn’t important that the musicians are stealing. Theft is fine if it’s more convenient than paying for something, right?

Professional musicians have great respect for the rights of other musicians. The judges are trying to teach the musicians to be professional and respect those rights, and not just take things.

The books are copyrighted. That means that copies should not be made without the copyright holder’s permission. Ethical musicians would buy copies of the work. Why? Because some day they may write something themselve and they wouldn’t like it if someone made copies they weren’t entitled to.

6

Reality Chuck wrote:

“I guess it isn’t important that the musicians are stealing. Theft is fine if it’s more convenient than paying for something, right?”

Hold on a sec, RC. This may be “stealing” in your eyes and the eyes of these competitions, but I think a sound argument could be made that a constitutes a “fair use” of the copyrighted material. As such, it’s not stealing in the eyes of the law.

“Fair use” is not a some weasley loophole or a get-out-of-jail-free card. It’s legitimate, legal and, I would argue, utterly moral. Itellectual property rights have their limits and copyright holders should respect those limits by not using the term “stealing” where it does not apply.

7

Hey, how come my post didn’t register on the GQ Forum thread index page? I’m giving this a boosterino.

8

My husband and I have made copies of tableture before for two reasons. One being sometimes the chords or certain notes are not correct so they were fixed and new copies were made, and secondly if we are learning a new song in our band we make a copy for the other musicians to learn it. I hardly think that’s un-ethical or stealing.

9

This strikes me as unreasonable. Requiring students to buy the music they want to perform is fine, but making them buy a second copy for the judges? Extend this to having five judges, each wanting his own copy to refer to during the performance, and it gets ridiculous. And I fail to see the rationale for prohibiting the student from using a photocopy if it’s made for his personal use–such as performing in the program–from music that he bought.

10

Last night I spent an hour at Kinko’s photocopying a 2nd keyboard part to a musical I’m playing for. I’m only playing for the last 2 weeks of the run, this other musician is playing for the first week, but we both need to music to practice with. The guy at Kinko’s wouldn’t copy it for me 'cause of copyright laws, but I could do it on my own.

IMO, one copy of music is all a person should have to buy to perform a piece. If you want to make page turns easier, or make copies so a singer/musician can perform with you, go ahead. It’s your for your own conveniance you’re making copies, and are not stealing anything from the composer/publisher/arranger (this is IMO… I don’t know what the law is, but I imagine it’s pretty close to this).

11

Making a copy for your personal use (as in page-turning) is fair use. Making a second copy for you partner to practice from is NOT. It is a copyright violation, plain and simple, as it deprives the copyright’s holder of a royalty she would have had had your partner bought his own. However, as long as you don’t use the copies during performance, practice copies are usually overlooked.

The competition example is far different. None of these copies is for personal use; they are for performance use. Performing artists should always pay royalties. It is unethical, illegal, and downright slimy to do otherwise.

12

I don’t mean to pick on dreamer but her post just happens to be a good example of copyright violation. If you buy a piece of music and copy it for your bandmates, you are using the copies to avoid buying it. Fair use allows copies only for personal use (one copy at the studio, one at home; or to re-arrange for page-turning as mentioned by others). But distributing to others as a substitute for buying the music is definitely unethical and illegal.

As a musician (amateur) myself I would expect musicians to be especially sensitive to this issue. Imagine how you would react to reading the following email:

See things any differently now?

13

I stand corrected by Nametag and CookingWithGas as to what constitutes personal use.

Still strikes me as a bit much to require the performers to provide the music to the judges, but I can understand why the judges need it and I’m not sure I have a better idea.

14

Nametag

If you are merely citing copyright law, disregard this, but if your post is just YHO, then I have to disagree vehemently with:

If I buy, for example, a piano/vocal score for a song, and I play piano and someone else sings, there is no way someone should ethically or legally expect me to buy two copies of the music to practice with. Or, if I’m in a band, and I want to do a cover of a song so I buy the piano/vocal score to get the chords and correct lyrics, I should not have to let each guy in the band take the music home one at a time to learn it; photocopying is acceptable in this case. I understand about the artist’s rights, but as an end user I’ve got rights also.

15

The relevant law is U.S. Code Title 17, Chapter 1. Of greatest interest are sections 106 and 107.

Yes, they can damn well expect EACH PERFORMING ARTIST to buy a copy. No, photocopying is not acceptable if your intent is to perform the music. Fair use is “for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research”; performance is one of the exclusive rights given to the copyright owner, and one of the main reasons that scores are copyrightable.

16

I realize that possessing a photocopy when it is forbidden is illegal and all that. But consider this:

Professional, law-abiding orchestras will routinely mail photocopies of upcoming music to the players (whether or not this is legal is not my point), so they can practice at home. Once the first rehearsal rolls around, everyone plays off the originals.

Now, being performers dedicated to their craft and to music, I think it would be wrong to not keep that rehearsal photocopy. A conscientious performer is always thirsty for repertoire. If that’s considered theft, well then every performer I know is a thief hundreds of times over. Sorry.

One shouldn’t want to cross over into the realm of crime much further than that, though. For example, selling that rehearsal copy to someone is definitely poor judgement. And certainly don’t keep the actual original. Also, this is without exception music written by people who are long dead. Yeah, I know, their publishers or estates are getting ripped off, yada, yada, yada.

What I’m talking about is, admittedly, a very specific situation that won’t apply to most people, and may not even help the OP. I’m not saying I think it’s OK to make thousands of photocopies of some crap Celine Dion song, thereby depriving her of untold millions. I’m just telling it like it is in my world.

17

Acutally, a lot of publishers will include in the same package a score for the soloist and one for the accompanist. In that case, you have purchased two copies. Legally and ethically, they can and do expect you to buy two copies, unless you’re trading one copy back and forth.

18

To summarize my understanding what has been said so far:

A “legally” post from Nametag said that photocopying to avoid nasty page-turns is “fair-use”, but that each performer must have an original copy.

Would this imply that we couldn’t perform using the same copy sitting on the same music stand with no photocopies at all, as we only have one copy for two players? That would come as a surprise to me, though I guess it depends on exactly what it is I buy when I buy a duet book. Do I buy the right to use that printed copy of the music, or do I buy the right for one player to play that song at any give time (even though its a duet book).

Does it make a difference if we’re making no money from our performance? Does it make a difference if we’re playing “for fun” and not performing in public? Does the fact that its a duet book change anything; Perhaps I bought the right to play a duet thus two musicians playing together is licensed?

In terms of common practice of ethical musicians:

  1. Many people are not ethical and will photocopy anything for any reason, but I don’t care. That wasn’t the Original Question.

  2. No one has a problem legally or ethically with photocopying for page turns.

  3. It is common practice to photocopy for practicing, to avoid mailing originals. This is not done when there are fewer originals than musicians, as in my posed case.

  4. It was pointed out that concertos usually come with a separate copy for the accompanist and the soloist, and therefore there are already two legal copies. I own a lot of music like this, but I’m asking about a duet book that didn’t come like that. It has some songs arranged with a line for part 1 over a line for part 2, which can easily be played sharing a stand, but cannot be practiced separately without a photocopy or a second book. It has other songs where the parts are on separate pages, which cannot be played together from a single book. A photocopy or a second book is necessary.

Thank you everybody for answering and continuing to answer my questions.

19

Legally, it doesn’t matter whether you’re doing it for public performance, private use, for money, or for fun.

If the end result is to end up with two separate copies that two people can use separately in the same way as two purchased copies could be used, then it is probably not fair use.

If you are both reading off the same copy or taking turns taking the music home to practise individually, there has been no “unauthorized copying,” and therefore no copyright violation. The key is in the copying.

If you are talking about an ensemble in which each performer will be reading off a separate copy, either during the performance or just in rehearsal, then you must purchase a copy for each performer. It is probably fair use for a performer to make a photocopy to mark up or to avoid damage to the original, but it is probably not fair use if the photocopy is being used to INCREASE the number of copies in use. It is probably not fair use for stand partners who are sharing music during the to make copies so that both can take music home without buying another copy.

In other words, if the orchestra has 12 first violins and 12 first violin parts have been legitimately purchased, then it is probably okay for each first violinist to make one copy of his or her sheet music to carry around and mark up, but if the orchestra decides that more violins are needed, and, say, for the sake of example, doubles the size of the section to 24, then those 12 photocopies cannot be used to pass out to the 12 new first violinists. Twelve new copies must be purchased (or legitimately acquired in some way – note that if your orchestra is renting music, then the rental contract will have provisions covering all these instances, some which will allow you to make photocopies yourself for certain purposes).

In the case of your duet, my guess is that making a copy for your partner to practise off of would not be considered fair use. Reading off the same music at the same time is okay. Taking turns passing the score back and forth to practise is okay. Neither of these is any problem, because you haven’t made any copies.

But, if you are using the copy in a way that is essentially replacing the purchase of another legitimate copy–in other words, you are both at your separate homes at the same time practising the music, one off the purchased copy and one off the photocopy–then it’s probably not fair use.

20

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be required to provide one legitimate copy for the judges. In fact, in all my years of entering music contests (long since over), I never had to actually purchase two copies. In most organised contests for school-age students, the acceptable musical pieces are set far in advance, and many of them remain on the list for many years. They are often very common pieces used to teach students and most musical instructors have at least one, if not multiple, legitimate copies. Whenever I entered, I had to buy one copy for myself, but the second copy was usually supplied by my private teacher. It doesn’t matter where the copy comes from, as long as it’s not a photocopy.