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So maybe you should reserve your judgment on some other teacher and their students. You don't know where they come from.

The law is illogical in a lot of cases. I'll tell you something that you will probably laugh at. In one particular country, if you go onto somebody else's property (=trespassing), and if you peek in their bedroom, and if you find them engaged in "unnatural" sex, THEY get prosecuted if you go to the police, not you.

So all this copyright talk that's discussed here is not really because people think its the right thing to do (as John "explained" via some arguments that I don't fully understand). This discussion exists because nobody wants to get caught and pay huge fines. Now, if you copy one page, who is going to know, seriously?

If you still don't want to copy that one page, couldn't you borrow a book from a music library or something? Its useful to be a student in a university. I get to borrow all the books I need. I buy books too but only the ones I'm sure I'll use for a long time.

This might be helpful...

http://www.mtna.org/Resources/CopyrightInformation/CopyrightFAQs/tabid/316/Default.aspx

"Originally Posted By: Canonie
Advice needed
But I do have one dilemma - I haven't made a copy yet, but this particular case makes me want to.

Student desperately wants to learn a piece that is too hard, we wait 6 months and now she has a better chance. I have bought a book with the piece in for $50, but since this piece is hard i would quite like the chance to look at it between lessons. I have read it through a few times but there is a section that needs a little practice from me. We are scheduled to start the piece this week (as long as she's done the prep home work laugh ) and the temptation for me is to lend her the book but keep a photocopy for me for the duration of learning, and when she is finished with piece she can return book and I won't need copy any more. Or I can sell the family the book to keep, and i use copy for duration as above."

It sounds like a nice thing to suggest to the family as a present for the student, on some special occasion.

Our city library offers books of scores. If your student's doesn't have this one, there are inter-library loans, if you have the time to be a bit patient. I just got an e-mail that a biography of Scriabin came in to my nearby branch library. There are few in print; this one would have cost $120.

I think one of the main reasons libraries were established is that they anticipated the needs of students like yours.

It seems more likely to me that the holders of copyrights might be somewhat more indulgent in the case of a young student who photocopies a score from a library (many are out-of-print anyway, and the library doesn't want you marking up their books for a work copy), and much less for a teacher--- old enough to know better--- who is a gross violator and the setter of a bad example.

Have your student take a look at the online sites like IMSLP. Being a teacher is about giving them tools, including the tool of ethical conduct--- and resourcefulness.

I'm tempted to write a check for your student myself.

This is it in a nutshell.

Appeals to poverty just don't wash. We're not talking about Javert hunting down Valjean here. As a number of sensible people have noted, there are many legitimate ways to hold down the cost of music, including buying used works and working through IMSLP.

But buying a $50 book for working on 1 page of it for a couple of weeks? Come on now, common sense has to kick in at some point in time!

Thanks. An excerpt from that webpage:



What about the questions (and the corresponding answers) marked in bold above? Doesn't it say that you are allowed to copy less than 10% of the work for educational purposes? So you should feel free to copy that one page (or a couple of pages) to use it to prepare for your lesson with that student.

I don't think so. Although the entire volume is copyrighted, so are the individual works contained within. If she copies an entire work, she violates the copyright law.

She wanted to work on a few pages, from what I understand, not the entire piece (it would be great to have the entire piece of course, but that clearly seems to be a violation. I'm not talking about ethical issues here, we all have various opinions on that, I'm talking solely about what the law says). If those few pages constitute less than 10% of the entire work (piece), I guess its legitimate to copy those pages? That is what I could understand from the quotes I got from that webpage.

A teacher who requires a student to buy a $50 book in order to work on one page of it is indeed lacking in common sense. The one-page snippet may come under fair use, and thus not be much of an issue. But the answer in general is not to break copyright law because you feel like it. This is situational ethics of a bad sort, in my view.

You need to reread her post. She wants to work on an entire selection contained within a compilation.

Actually, strings teachers run into this problem every year. The string pieces are one or two pages, so the "10%" rule won't even cover the photocopying of three lines of music. And the strings books are notoriously expensive.

I guess I don't get it. Strings teachers don't just "run into this problem." It's their choice to make students use one line of work A and two lines of work B instead of using the entire work A or the entire work B.

Perhaps there is something wrong with a teacher whose choices force a student into:

a) spending through the nose on music, most of which will not be used, or

b) violating copyright law.

Is the practice music out there really so crappy that strings teachers are forced to search for the occasional pearl among the rocks? Or are they just oblivious to the financial burden they impose?

You know, if strings teachers really are forced in some pedagogical sense, then there is a tremendous profit opportunity out there for someone familiar with these pedagogical issues to write the etude book that everyone will use!

P.S. I guess I'm most familiar with the horn practice rep. Everyone acquires Oscar Franz etudes and concert etudes, Gallay etudes and duets, and Kopprasch etudes. All standard fare for a rising horn player.

I think you misunderstood. In this case, the teacher wants the student to study an entire piece. The book costs $50 (it probably contains other nice pieces that the student can study at some point). The question asked here was if she needed to buy another book for herself because she wanted to prepare for her lesson. She seems to want to work on specific sections of the piece to prepare for her lesson and wanted to know if she could just copy a few pages of the piece to be able to work on it in time for the lesson (while the new book would be in the possession of the student). John, did I understand this right so far? I know the initial post might have implied a question regarding copying the entire piece, which we've all established is an infringement. What I'm saying here is that, she could just copy the few pages that she really needs to work on (as she implied she had identified sections that needed more work). As long as that's less than 10% of the entire piece, it should be fine.

John, if you look at the part above marked in red, you will see why I think she should just copy out that section.

The part marked in black bold is what makes people think its illogical to spend $50 on a book if it contains just a few useful pages. Couldn't you either find a used book or another book that's more useful in its entirety? (Especially if you want the student to buy it). Else, if the book will be useful to the student in its entirety (as you've only said that it wouldn't be useful to you), sell it to the student by all means. However, copy out only a small section of that piece, that you need to work on. Do not copy the entire piece.

I interpreted that as meaning a section of the book, ie, one piece, but your interpretation makes a lot of sense as well - and is probably what she meant.

In any event, didn't the guidelines say not to copy more than 10%, so she needs to be really careful, if she wants to be scrupulous about following the law.

Actually, I was responding to AZN here, not to the original question.

Even so, I don't think AZN was talking about assigning students one or two lines of work A and a few lines of work B. AZN, I think, was saying that works A and B are usually 1-2 pages long each, and they appear in compilations that are usually very expensive. So they are stuck with having to buy these expensive books to be able to use just 2-3 pages of it to study that particular piece.

keystring,

What is your point? That because string teachers choose music in a particular way, and because there are no cheap editions that compile the things that they want in one volume, then they and their students should feel that they are above copyright law? That would indeed be situational ethics of the sort I would dislike.

edit: I seem to have responded to a comment by keystring that she just removed.

I'm sorry not to reply earlier to clarify: The book has 14 pieces, the piece we will use has 8 pages, 10% of which I have in the meantime decided to copy for study purposes. My local library doesn't support much sheet music at all, the university library is for students and staff only I believe.

Just to give a bit more of the story. When student was first interested I said that they could search for and buy the music (shop or online) and to take care to get correct opus number etc. I usually buy the music for students but was in no hurry with this one, if I bought her a copy she'd want to start asap. They reported not being able to find it. I taught her about IMSLP and set her homework task to find and print score, she said it wasn't there.

Time passed, then I thought ok now it is time to buy this Carrot of a piece so I took it on myself, found it in a compilation for the grade and bought it. Usually at this point the student's family reimburses me and I give them the book, no problems. btw the $50 is not a problem for them (emotionally I mean) because I am strict and informative from the first lessons with this issue and always insist on books. And $50 dollars for a "dying-to-play" piece is not a problem for me either.

When this student joined me last year I warned her and parents that she was playing way too well to be my student, but they ignored my advice and booked in. The challenges of beginning to teach more difficult rep is for another thread.

And now for the thoroughly embarrassing conclusion.... it's on IMSLP Perhaps it wasn't last year, perhaps like many students they don't figure out how to navigate the site at first.
But my computer crashed as i tried to download yesty... but it's there for my reference. Mind you, I find the editing and layout etc to be excellent in the book I've bought, and for a family that is not struggling I wouldn't deny them use of the best edition just to save some $. It's her music and her life, I think they would agree with me because it's an attitude I teach by example and words.

I appreciate all the thoughtful discussion. In truth, I photocopy music nearly every week, but I have permission from the copyright holder