Yesh, one just about took it for granted that everything you wanted was there. Seems like they have lost a battle with Universal Edition. If so, that does not spell good for the future of free sheetmusic.

Here's the Cease and Desist letter (PDF).

I was just beginning to use IMSLP more often, so I will miss it.

Having read that letter, it seems like a knee-jerk reaction to take down the entire site. All they are being summoned to do is to remove copyrighted material from Universal Edition, and prevent same from being uploaded in the future.

I got the impression that he was already overwhelmed with trying to keep up the site, and that this came at a bad time.

So....how difficult would it be to go back to what you guys did before, linking the scores on Piano Society?

I know, I get the feeling there's something else he's not saying. Why not just remove the allegedly copyright-violating files? For crying out loud, there weren't that many!

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!:evil:

(i'm pissed off)

PJF

This is for sure a sad thing
Hope the whole project gets revived at some point
Robert,any chance the Piano Society can take over the project?
Also, any such danger awaiting the Piano Society?

I'm not sure PS can take it over as it is probably as time consuming as this is or even more. But I could perhaps host it in Sweden where it will be untouchable for the 1923 rule. The EU rule will apply which will mean 1937 for composers and publications.

And regarding all the links that now points to just their front text side, I will not do any change for some time to see of they come up with a solution.

I hope we all learn a lesson from this: err on the side of caution!

I'm still speechless about this. I still can't believe it. That website was the ultimate sheet music resource! It pisses me off that they would shut down the whole site over a few files. That music company must be really greedy if they couldn't just take off the files in question. Argh!!!

From what I understand, they not only called for the removal of those certain files, but also for him to put filtering on the site to prevent people from uploading further copyrighted stuff, and I think that's what he was stressing about.

If you click on the IMSLP link on our homepage you can keep up to date with what's happening; today he says that IMSLP will probably be back in a couple of months; we shall see.

IMSLP has it's own forum and Universal Edition has entered into the discussion there, very interesting...

http://imslpforums.org/viewtopic.php?t=664

I find the IMSLP forum discussion mind-numbingly boring. It's painfully obvious who screwed up. Hint: not UE.