The Artful Jurist

The people who write songs for the musical theater are thrilled when someone likes their work enough to want to buy copies of the sheet music.

Did you catch the key word in that first line?  The word is "buy."  People who write music for a living earn that living by selling the music -- which includes the musical notation we generally call sheet music.

However, chalk up another glitch in this digital age.  Composers are finding more and more cases of unauthorized people putting copies of their sheet music online for free distribution.  That, my friends, is a violation of copyright law, and the music writers are steamed about this form of Internet piracy that's doing them out of the proceeds they're entitled to receive for their labors.

This was the topic of one of the panel discussions at this past weekend's national conference of the Dramatists Guild of America, held here in the D.C. area.  Theatrical music writers Georgia Stitt and Craig Carnelia, who are also members of a special committee created to deal with the piracy sitatuation, talked about the issue before a highly interested group of people who sat in the audience.  The problem is exacerbated by a public that seems to perceive the Internet as a free buffet.  Almost anything they come across online is just a click away from downloading and printing.  And, if there's free sheet music available at the flick of an index finger, how many are going to spend money to get the same thing?  The result -- the songwriters are losing a substantial portion of their income.

Among the things the panel and its audience discussed as possible solutions were: (1) greater education to make the public aware that unauthorized online sharing of sheet music amounts to theft, and (2) advancing technology to guard against internet piracy.

I disagree at least somewhat with those who say further education of the public is the real answer here, because I believe there might be a general perception that Internet theft of a few pages of sheet music (an item that often retails for less than five bucks) is roughly akin to swiping a few grapes off the produce aisle in a supermarket -- a relatively tolerable petty theft in the minds of many.  (You know how that defense goes:  "Hey, c'mon!  Lighten up!  It's just a grape!  It's not like I was stealing a turkey!")

So that leaves me with the "advanced technology" option, which I believe is going to be the ultimate answer -- although I've currently no idea how that answer will eventually manifest itself.