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strathspey@strathspey.org:44586

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Anselm Lingnau

Anselm Lingnau

Re: Computer programme "Dancemaster" - forwarded query

March 8, 2006, 8:04 p.m. (Message 44586, in reply to message 44574)

Alexandre Rafalovitch wrote:

> P.s. Is it even legal to generate Pilling's diagrams? I thought he
> copyrighted the whole thing.

In their dreams!

You can't copyright a notation any more than you can copyright a language or 
mathematical formula, as these come under the heading of »ideas«, which are 
not copyrightable. What you can (probably) copyright is individual diagrams 
of particular dances, which are considered »expression«.

I remember hearing that F. L. Pilling's successors (the body now in charge of 
the WGB) complained to Dunedin Dancers of Edinburgh about their including 
Pilling-style diagrams in their dance books »without permission«. They only 
shut up after being pointedly asked whether *they* had bothered to ask 
permission from the authors of all the dances in the Pilling book.

In any case, Pilling-style diagrams are the norm for pre-published ball 
programmes here in Germany (for better or worse). Don't ask where all the 
diagrams come from; there are newly-drawn ones but people also pinch ones 
from the book. However, I'm about to order at least five new copies of the 
book on behalf of members of my dance group, expressly because they want to 
get more familiar with the notation so as to understand these programmes 
better. Thus, going after people pinching a few diagrams from the Pilling 
book would probably be the single worst thing the Pilling people could do as 
far as sales of their book in Germany are concerned.

(Incidentally, text-based minicribs are making some inroads here because they 
are so much easier to generate than Pilling-style programmes. I hate 
them :^))

Anselm
-- 
Anselm Lingnau, Frankfurt, Germany ..................... xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Most physicists could, if necessary, make it through a PhD program in French
literature, but few professors of French literature could make it through a
PhD program in physics.                   -- Paul Graham, »What You Can't Say«

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