BoingBoing reader John says:
Dr. Sawkins, a musicologist, has won a copyright battle in Britain over a 300 year old piece of music, "Music for the Sun King" by Michel-Richard de Lalande. I understand that particular editions of literature, for example, are often copyrighted: the layout, the footnotes, etc, are all original. But the actual editorial choices- what to include, how to conflate contradictory texts- I had assumed were not copyrightable. By the logic of this argument, a good editorial choice made in one edition of a piece of music can be seen as infringing on the same choice made in another edition.
BoingBoing reader Jon-o Addleman counter-argues:
The question isn't really whether editors can be granted copyright for their work or not. It's really a matter of how much new material is needed. In this case, new viola parts were composed to replace missing ones, among other things, but it's far from clear whether this has crossed the line between 'reproduction' and 'a new derivative work'. This is not an easily-answered question, as this thread on the harpsichord mailing list shows.
