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28 October 2020

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  • List of compositions by Fanny Mendelssohn (history · last edit · rewrite) from Hellwig-Unruh, Renate: "Fanny Hensel geb. Mendelssohn Bartholdy: thematisches Verzeichnis der Kompositionen", Adliswil : Kunzelmann, 2000. (The listing and numbering is taken entirely from this copyright work). Smerus (talk) 13:27, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • I there a copyright issue? See Talk:List of compositions by Fanny Mendelssohn#Copyright issues? Anyhow, restoring the tag that says "Please do not remove or change this Copyvio message until the issue is settled", because afaik the issue isn't settled yet. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:24, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Note that, for instance, also RISM uses the numbers of Hellwig-Unruh's catalogue (there indicated with the abbreviation "HelH") in conjunction with names of Fanny Mendelssohn's compositions, see e.g. list concluding the RISM 462016300 page. I suppose RISM couldn't do that if it were a copyright infringement... --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:00, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • The notice was up there, and here, for over seven days without being challenged. And therefore it was appropriate to delete. (WP:DCV). I don't know, and apparently neither do you, what RISM's copyright arrangements are, but that has nothing to do with WP. If you can show that there is copyright permission for WP, you are welcome to reinstate. --Smerus (talk) 09:57, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • ... which is admitting you never proved there is a copyright infringement in the first place. I suspect it is better not to delete on the basis of some all-in-all rather vague aspersions. I think this needs more input. Pinging,
        • @Fram: whom I believe has some experience with copyrighted material, and might shed a light on how to handle this one;
        • @Voceditenore: who is a copyright clerk, and I suppose also familiar with copyrighted and non-copyrighted lists and catalogues of works by classical composers.
      Also, note that most catalogues listed at Catalogues of classical compositions are still under copyright (if not the original catalogue then at least its most recent edition), which has never prevented Wikipedia from creating lists of compositions such as Köchel catalogue, using K6 numbers (from a version of that catalogue that is still under copyright), and List of cantatas by Christoph Graupner (based on the numbering & listing from a catalogue which was first copyrighted in 2005). So, posting an invitation to participate in this discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music#Lists of compositions based on copyrighted catalogues? as this may fundamentally disturb how this has been approached on Wikipedia thus far. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:19, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      Wikipedia:Copyright in lists may be of interest. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:06, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      Indeed, that essay does not seem to indicate any copyright problem whatsoever for listing compositions according to a published catalogue of a composer's compositions. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:17, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      As it says on the page, "Copyright does not protect facts", which makes this pretty open and shut that there's no copyright issues here. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 13:40, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Answering the ping above. My own judgement is that a list containing mere facts, i.e. name of composition and date is not copyrightable. There is no creativity in the ordering. It is simply chronological. I would have removed the copyright blanking tag had it still been there. Having said that, it is not appropriate to remove that tag and restore the blanked material unless you are either a copyright clerk or an administrator, no matter how much time has passed. It's moot now, but in future please do not do that and please do not edit war over it. I'm going to consult another admin who is very experienced in copyright issues, Justlettersandnumbers, for a possible second opinion, just in case. For now, the list can remain as it is. Voceditenore (talk) 14:37, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
VdT, it seemed to me that the point here is that it is not just the listing of compositons which is given (which might be "mere facts"), but the numbering created by a musicologist, which would seem to me to be copyright if the list and numbering are both given (as here) wholesale. The WP essay Wikipedia:Copyright in lists cited above states "Copyright in a list may exist in the content of the list or in the way that the content was selected and arranged. Copyright does not protect facts, but it does protect opinion. If a source is based on "value judgments", it may be protected by copyright, even if it looks very similar to fact. And even if the source is fact, copyright may still protect its selection and arrangement if these are creative." In this case, a scholar has dedicated effort into ascertaining an order and chronology for the list items; information which is not "mere fact" but which has been obtained through individual research. RISM and other sources use individual numbers created by Hellwig-Unruh = but they do not reprint her entire list. Francis Schonken's men tion of RISM as a validating example therefore seems to me inappropriate. --Smerus (talk) 15:28, 26 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
While you may have a point, this runs into the the issue of, how SHOULD Wikipedia, then, catalog these myriad of composition lists that are still in copyright? Should K6 just be ignored? How would that make sense to not even include? Should the many many catalogs done that are still from a copyrighted source just....be stricken? Lesure numbers for Debussy are as standard as K is for Mozart or S is for Liszt, should they just not be there? What of individual composition pages? Honestly I think a case could easily be made for fair use, if nothing else, even if somehow the lists (just a series of numbers, note) is considered actually copyrighted. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 05:55, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I must say it's a fine line here in terms of the copyrightability the Opus numbers and the determination of the date of the compositions. That's why I'm seeking a second opinion. The problem with "Fair use" is that only a very small proportion of a list can used, as is the case with quoted copyright text. Voceditenore (talk) 15:26, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Surely you are right about fair use. Where we quote e.g Köchel number(s) (or indeed Hellwig-Unruh number(s)) in an article about a particular piece, or group of pieces, or attached to individual pieces when writing the life of a composer, that is clearly "fair use" and doesn't I think present any problem. It is the same when RISM uses them in this way. But to, in effect, reprint a complete list of pieces and such numbers without permission (which, pace Francis Schonken, RISM doesn't do), seems to me a step too far. As you say "The problem with "Fair use" is that only a very small proportion of a list can used". --Smerus (talk) 16:42, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to Voceditenore for the ping; I'm sorry to have been slow to respond, but wanted to give some time and thought to this before doing so. Basically, I think that VdT is right – it's probably OK, and it's certainly a fine line.

I've always found copyright in lists particularly tricky; anything I know about it I learnt from the (highly expert) author of WP:Copyright in lists, and so am inclined to give that page more weight than an ordinary essay. As I understand it, a list of facts is not copyrightable unless it is either selective, or is ordered in a way that could not easily be reproduced by anybody on the basis of freely-available data. So I believe that a "list of countries by GDP" would not be copyrightable, but a list of "our ten best tourist destinations" or a "list of countries by sustainability" might be – the first because it is a subjective selection, the second because it is based on some proprietary evaluation and ordering of sustainability.

In this case, a chronological list of works seems to fall into the first, non-copyrightable, case. But, since we're here, I have to ask: is Hellwig-Unruh's ordering of works within each year based on a precise date of composition, or is it to some extent arbitrary? (I don't have access to that source). A glance at the Grove entry on Hensel suggests that it is not definitively chronological ("396 Pf piece, E♭, 1843 or earlier" follows "395 Sonata, g, Fall 1843", for example). If there's any doubt at all that it is ordered precisely by date, I'd suggest, out of an excess of caution:

  • alphabetically re-order entries within each year, and
  • put the H-U number after the entry rather than before

By establishing our own ordering of the works – even if not strictly necessary – we avoid any possible accusation of plagiarism. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:02, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well...the thing is this issue goes far beyond the list for just Fanny Mendelssohn, it's an issue for quite a percentage of composer composition lists. But that's an interesting solution; however, the ideal for these lists is to have a table anyway, in which case....how does one avoid it? Would it be 'make sure the default isn't by catalog order' perhaps? That said, it'd be /extremely confusing/ for anyone to come across this (or a similar) list only to have it out of catalog order. Sure alphabetical within each year might avoid copyright (which still seems a bit dubious to me despite the above, given they were still only guessing based on known data rather rather than any sort of opinion about it), but since it's supposed to be 'chronological' that would be misleading. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 05:56, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
For clarity, I think I sorted any copyright-related remaining issues with Hellwig-Unruh's catalogue by referencing Wikipedia's *summary* of it (currently at List of compositions by Fanny Mendelssohn#Chronological) to reliable *secondary* sources about it. For clarity:
  • Writing a summary of a primary source (this one has 452 pages) in Wikipedia can be unproblematic (compare MOS:PLOT), but since this one has been turned into a problem, and I don't have access to the actual primary source anyhow, the summary is entirely based on how reliable *secondary* sources summarize that primary source.
  • I agree with Voceditenore that "fair use" is probably not the approach we're looking for in this case: IMHO, this is rather about WP:LIMITED: there are only a limited number of ways how it can be expressed that a certain composition has a certain number in a catalogue that is used in multiple reliable secondary sources. Some call it "H-U" numbers, others (i.e. RISM) call it "HelH" numbers, I've even seen "H." being used as abbreviation of the catalogue (in IMSLP), but the number itself and its representation of a composition can only be summarized by naming both the number and the composition, there's no other way of doing that. It is not possible to summarize the Star Wars saga without naming the chief characters: we don't do that as "Luke" "Han" and "Princess" (out of fear that their full names are copyrighted), but as "Luke Skywalker", "Han Solo" and "Princess Leia" – similarly when summarizing the catalogue we don't write "219", but "219 Sehnsucht" to identify an entry in the catalogue.
  • The amount of "dedicated effort" approach is a strawman. A poet can write a Haiku in half a minute (completely copyrighted); compared to that, hordes of scientists and craftsmen, and a lot of dedicated effort, including expensive techniques, were needed to establish that Dull Gret was painted in 1563. You can't summarize all that research, however it is published in copyrighted publications, without naming both "Dull Gret" and "1563", and such fact is not copyrightable.
I'd add some more detail, if needed, but don't want to write a wall of text, so I'll see whether I was clear enough before adding more. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:45, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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