legal question: splitting one-movement pieces to boost internet sales

[Christopher]

(wasn't sure where to put this)

I moaned in another thread (http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,1604.msg18810.html#msg18810) about the iniquity of box sets often having one or two interesting-looking tracks of unsung music alongside endless favourites.  The series "Historical Russian Archives" is a particular sinner: it has a lot of Unsings but put alongside Tchaikovsky PC1, Rachmaninov PC2 etc etc, so that you would have to fork out 30 to 40 pounds per box set (not to mention sacrifice shelf space) just to hear some unsing works, which was out of the question.

I have since found that these Unsung pieces are all available on Apple I-Tunes, though not under the Historical Russian Archives label.  BUT, and this is a major BUT, many of the piece, though clearly one-movement pieces, have been cut into 3 or 4 pieces and simply labelled "Part 1" "Part 2" etc. As a result, this dramatically increases the price from 0.79p per piece to 3 or 4 times that.  As there are 30 or 40 pieces that I am interested in, this could be an outlay of GBP120 or more.

My question: is it legal to arbitrarily to split a piece of music like that and sell it in parts?

[JimL]

Maybe there's a limit to the file size?

[TerraEpon]

Why wouldn't it be legal? As long as the site itself is, one assumes they have permission from the record label, or it's the label's doing in the first place.

And if the recordings are public domain (which sounds quite plausible being 'historical') then even more so there's nothing illegal going on.

Now ethical might be another matter....

[Jonathan]

I've also found this rather annoying and posted on Amazon about it (no-one has yet replied to my thread).  My argument was over a Schubert piano music CD and ran thus:

Why charge 79p (or whatever) for a whole movement of a sonata (lasting about 10 minutes) while on the same CD, there was a set of Landler, each one lasting from 18 seconds to 1 and a half minutes, each of which costs 79p? 

As for the legality of spilitting things up, I don't think it's illegal and it strikes me this is just a way of screwing more money out of us classical music listeners when the people who listen to popular music can get a song for 79p and it's the whole work (and only lasts about 3 - 4 minutes, on average).    

[Lionel Harrsion]

... people who listen to popular music can get a song for 79p and it's the whole work (and only lasts about 3 - 4 minutes, on average).   

On the other hand, I'd pay 79p not to have to listen to the vast majority of them. 

[TerraEpon]

Why charge 79p (or whatever) for a whole movement of a sonata (lasting about 10 minutes) while on the same CD, there was a set of Landler, each one lasting from 18 seconds to 1 and a half minutes, each of which costs 79p? 

Yeah the system is pretty rediculous and yet even most dedicated sites to classical DLing still have it.
Thankfully there's eClassical.com but that's still limited of course...

[jerfilm]

Well, I think I've ranted about this before, but why, oh why, do they continue to pretend that you can buy separate tracks from classical albums when they restrict at least one track from each work to "Album Only"?   What's the point?  Why do they waste their time splitting it up into tracks when no one is going to buy an incomplete work anyway.  I just don't get it.
\
Jerry

[Mark Thomas]

Marketing. They want you to buy the whole album.

[Balapoel]

I agree with Mark - it is all about marketing, to show you (near the title) that you'll save money buying the entire album.

But sometimes (rarely), the mechanics work for you. I remember the brief time DG's 21-disc Schubert's lieder (mp3s) were on sale for $6.97. I grabbed it in a second, a few days later, it went up into the $100s. Also, if you search thoroughly, you may find large files (say, 20-30 minutes) for $0.89. There are currently some reissues of Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, etc. symphony cycles for very cheap.

[TerraEpon]

There's also the general "rule" of '10 minutes is album only'. It's not that they specifically restrict one track, rather it just happens to have one track too long.

I honestly hate the 'album' mentality for DLs though, because especially for classical music there's not really a REASON for it outside the length CDs happen to be. A recording of Beethoven's 5th isn't particularly enhanced by having the 2nd along with it....or Haydn's 88th.

[jerfilm]

Well, I understand about the marketing aspect.  But what's the point of p*****g people off pretending that they can buy the first violin sonata without buying the second one, when in fact, you can't?   That's just what jerks my chain......

Jerry

Oh, and Happy Easter to all.....

[Ilja]

To the original posting, Apple's supplier conditions for iTunes state quite clearly that fragmenting musical works to raise revenue is not permitted (they talk about 'songs', but it clearly applies here as well). My bet would be to get in contact with the iTunes Store people themselves, they're often quite quick to reply - particularly on this issue, which has been a bone of contention for some time.

[Christopher]

To the original posting, Apple's supplier conditions for iTunes state quite clearly that fragmenting musical works to raise revenue is not permitted (they talk about 'songs', but it clearly applies here as well). My bet would be to get in contact with the iTunes Store people themselves, they're often quite quick to reply - particularly on this issue, which has been a bone of contention for some time.

Many thanks for that Ilja - so it seems that there may actually be a case here.  Would you be able to provide a link to wherever it says this?  (I would imaine it was the providers to Apple (probably Russian...) rather than Apple itself, which did the splitting.....)