[Magdalen] All Clear

[James Oppenheimer-Crawford]

As I said, most people assume that if music is free, it's probably junk,
and so they do not even download it, let alone take a serious look at it.
In my experience, once someone looks at my stuff, they often want to use
it. But of course one cannot change people's minds. It's just an
unfortunate fact of life. I don't see how a copyright notice would make any
difference.

James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved,
except in memory. LLAP**”  -- *Leonard Nimoy

On Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 5:43 PM, Roger Stokes <roger.stokes65 at btinternet.com
> wrote:

> On 17/11/2016 21:04, James Oppenheimer-Crawford wrote:
>
>> Well, as a composer, I would say, "By all means DO try to sell her stuff."
>>
>> It's a really cut throat business. I am in the position of writing in
>> styles that are not popular, and so I hesitate to put a price on my work.
>> I say that by God's generous grace, I have no need for extra income. So I
>> let out my work without charge. Charging just adds a layer of hassle, and
>> how much return would I get anyway?
>> However, whenever people find music that is free, they tend to assume it's
>> junk. There's a lot of junk out there too, as I find often on a couple of
>> pages I frequent, so I guess the assumption is understandable.
>>
>> My medium is notation, not the actual performance.  I'm not getting any
>> traction, but I have discovered that I have been performed in Texas and
>> New
>> Zealand, and that gives a lot of encouragement.
>>
>
> James,
>
> I agree that not all music which is free is junk. Some years ago a bride
> asked for a particular hymn she had found on the C/E website page about
> preparing for your wedding. It was not covered by our normal copyright
> licence arrangement so I contacted the lyricist for permission to use it.
> She emailed me back giving permission for use on that and any subsequent
> occasion so the order of service included who it was by and "used with
> permission". From memory it was new words to a well-known tune rather than
> a new tune, which can cause massive problems for a congregation. In your
> situation putting it out there with the copyright proviso that permission
> must be sought and acknowledged in the programme would seem appropriate.
>
> Roger
>