If you buy my music, I will make more.

If you liked the Twelve Days project and you'd like to support me in making more music, the album is now available to purchase from Bandcamp. You can pay as little or as much you like, and you can download the music in a variety of formats (including FLAC and .ogg). The recordings themselves are still under a CC BY-SA license, so having downloaded the album you can put it on USB drives and give it to all your friends or even burn it to CD if you want to. You can also make derivative works, whether that's using the music as a soundtrack for video, using it in liturgy in some way or a mash-up with your favourite banjo track. As long as I'm attributed, you're free to do what you like with it.

If you buy my music, I will make more.

IMSLP under attack on bogus legal grounds

I'm a big fan of the International Music Score Library Project, also known as the Petrucci Music Library.

It seems the Music Publishers Association, a UK organisation with industry links to EMI, PRS and many of the other usual suspects, is being quite problematic for them.

A short extract from their forums:

The MPA, without notifying us, sent to our domain registrar GoDaddy a bogus DMCA takedown notice. GoDaddy took the entire IMSLP.ORG domain down. IMSLP has filed a DMCA counter notice with GoDaddy, however, the DMCA seems to require the registrar to wait no less than 10 days before restoring service. This means that IMSLP is inaccessible from IMSLP.ORG during this period of time. We will be working to restore service as soon as possible.

What is the MPA complaining about? Rachmaninoff's Bells, which is public domain both in Canada and the USA: http://petruccilibrary.org/wiki/The_Bells,_Op.35_%28Rachmaninoff,_Sergei%29
MPA's claim is entirely bogus.

Further legal clarification is available here on the IMSLP forums.

Basically I think this looks like bullying, plain and simple. It's scandalous that such a valuable resource should be taken offline because "traditional" music publishing companies have their knickers in a twist over something that isn't even illegal.

Workaround: You can still reach the site by using either petruccilibrary.org or petruccimusiclibrary.org. Note, however, that some links on the site that refer to IMSLP.ORG may be broken; you will have to manually replace IMSLP.ORG with one of the two above domain names manually in the URL bar.

Anyone who is interested in suing or helping to sue the MPA under DMCA section 512(f) (misrepresentations) please contact imslproject yahoo.ca. Note that the feldmahler imslp.org address is likewise offline.

London to Oxford on a Pashley

This year for my birthday I got a very shiny bicycle. This was in no small part due to someone else being positive about cycling in London without turning into a fluorescent Lycra-clad speed demon or getting squished; not only was she enthusiastic about cycling, but she recommended a shop where I might be able to find a bicycle that fit me properly.

Now this lovely lady is planning on cycling from London to Oxford on a Pashley Princess Sovereign to raise money for Help the Hospices.

I'm not joining her, though I might just try something similar another year when I've improved at this "cycling up hills" thing. She's nearly at her fundraising target so do help out if you're so inclined.