How To Contribute to This Site
The database takes the form of this wiki which is a collaborative site to which anyone can contribute and share:
Edit any page by pressing Edit at the top or the bottom of the page
Create a link to another page with CamelCase (joined capitalized) words (like WikiSandBox) or with ["quoted words in brackets"]
Below is a walk-through example showing the kind of information we need people to contribute.
Walk-through Example
Go to recordings index page:
Suppose we look at the recording "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, 1900.10.03":
If we then click through to the work we are at:
Creators are listed at Stuart and boyd. Now suppose we click through on Stuart we are then at:
We notice that we don't have any birth/death dates. Okay what can we do with a quick google:
2nd link looks promising:
Aha:
'Florodora', a musical comedy in two acts, was composed by Leslie Stuart, with lyrics by Ernest Boyd-Jones and Paul Reubens, book by Owen Hall and additional songs by Paul Reubens. It opened at the Lyric Theatre, London, on 11th November 1899. There were many revivals over the following two decades.
So we can go and edit relevant artist and work pages with this info. Futhermore a google for Leslie Stuart leads us to:
which gives:
STUART, Leslie [BARRETT, Thomas Augustine] (aka Lester Thomas) (b Southport, 15 March 1864; d Richmond, Surrey, 27 March 1928). British songwriter who made himself a musical comedy mark as the composer of Florodora.
The 'good news' is that Stuart died in 1928 which is more than 70 years ago so his authorial copyright has expired (see http://www.freeculture.org.uk/copyright/ for more information the duration of copyright). With this information in hand we are well on our way to establishing this particular recording as public domain.