Daniel E. Moctezuma posted about this to lilypond-user here: http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2012-08/msg00305.html

Ian Hulin provided analysis and posted to bug-lilypond here: http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-lilypond/2012-08/msg00070.html

Quoting Ian's post:

Bug squad,

Please open a tracker issue for this, title something like "Ottava spanners behaviour need option to suppress repeat of spanner text at line breaks"

Main issues: 1. New property needed to allow users to configure this behaviour. 2. We need better consistency of documented syntax between ottava spanners' properties and those for text spanners. 3. Check with Gould and other engraving authorities what the correct engraving default for an ottava passage is when there is a line break. 4. OP has stated it worked as currently in V2.14.2, maybe before => this is an enhancement request. 5. Files affected - at least lily/ottava-engraver.cc, scm/define-context-properties.scm and scm/define-music-callbacks.scm + ottava.ly regression test and ottava-text.ly documentation snippet.

\version "2.17.0" \relative c' { \override TextSpanner #'(bound-details left text) = "rit." \override TextSpanner #'(bound-details left-broken text) = ##f \ottava #1 \set Staff.ottavation = #"octave" \override OttavaBracket #'(bound-details left-broken text) = #f c''4 d2. \startTextSpan\break | e2. f8. g16\stopTextSpan | }

See attached image for V2.17.0 output.

Cheers,

Ian Hulin