Ensuring free access to contribued scores
I've uploaded a few scores, which end up musescore.com given the current structure of the MuseScore 'ecosystem'.
When I make these scores, I want to ensure that anyone with a MuseScore.org account can access/download them without having to pay MuseScore.com a subscription fee first.
Does anyone know the upload rules to ensure this happens e.g. should I not provide any copyright information at all, or select a specific license type during the upload?
I specifically don't want to upload anything to musescore.com that requires a subscription payment to download in any format (.pdf, MuseScore, .mid etc.). I'd rather put them elsewhere where they are freely available (note: none of my contributions have any copyright restrictions on them: they are all over 100 years old).
I have a few Bach organ works ready to go, but I really want to ensure that they are freely available to .org subscribers without subscription payment to the .com site.
Thanks guys
Lofo
Comments
Works in the Public Domain are freely downloadable if not blocked by the uploader.
See: https://help.musescore.com/hc/en-us/articles/210386805-Choose-a-license
In reply to Works in the Public Domain… by Shoichi
Thanks Shoichi. In my case, I don't 'own' copywrite (the transcriptions and original works are out of copyright everywhere, so no-one is a copyright holder). This cuts out "All rights reserved" (obviously) and "Public Domain" because I am not the copyright holder - there is no copyright if I read correctly.
That leaves "Creative Commons". Under "Share Alike" I take that to mean I allow anyone to distribute derivative works under the license I created the work under ie. "out of copyright". I'll need to test whether this selection allows anyone to freely download from musescore.com without a paid account but it seems closest to what I'm trying to do. It's all rather arcane, and I'm detecting there's the copyright listings in the link you provided, and how musescore.com actually behaves - hence the need to test. It would be easier if the .com site also added the behaviour of the site when someone tries to download the work (e.g. anyone can download or 'only paid members can download'), but I guess this isn't in their commercial interests, nor mine trying to provide the work freely to anyone who wants it (without paying a subscription to musescore.com).
In reply to Thanks Shoichi. by Lofo
If no-one ownes the copyright, it is in the Public Domain. You have 4 scores on musescore.com, https://musescore.com/user/27190633 3 with a labels PD, one with a label Original Work (but also by Bach, so that seems wrong, should be PD too).
So all 4 should be free to download to everyone, unless you explicitly disabled that
In reply to Thanks Shoichi. by Lofo
@Lofo ...As a non-pro subscriber
Try to download:
https://musescore.com/james_brigham/the_easy_winners
See? Public domain. O.K.
Try to download:
https://musescore.com/user/2912581/scores/950701
See? You hit the pay wall as non-pro subscriber.
In reply to @Lofo ...As a non-pro… by Jm6stringer
Thanks @Jm6stringer: I think I've worked it out. PD for 'old' music where copyright is not believed to exist, and check the settings for 'anyone can view' etc.
In reply to Thanks @Jm6stringer: I think… by Lofo
Not exactly, and the big fat blue 「PD」 label is totally misleading.
「PD」 on MuseScore means: “This score was derived off a score in the Public Domain.”
Note the “derived” here. Even copyrightable arrangements of PD scores will have the PD label on musescore.com which is known to mislead users.
It’s the licence setting which is really relevant here (although the PD flag also should be correct, of course).
In reply to Not exactly, and the big fat… by mirabilos
It all gets a bit arcane rather quickly this licensing business, but I guess the concept itself is inherently complex with all the different versions of licensing that reflect ownership, attribution and ability of people to make their own versions under the copyright conditions.
In reply to Thanks Shoichi. by Lofo
“Public Domain” is exactly identical to “nobody owns the copyright”.
I suggest to self-publish in addition to publishing at MuseScore.com; as an example, I link to my own
.mscxversion in the description (right-hand side) of https://musescore.com/mirabilos/bwv245-68-choral and the directory that file is in has the other exports (MusicXML, MIDI, MP3, PDF) as well; I’m planning to implement a rudimentary score player/downloader/info displayer and will update the links once this is done. On your own server / homepage / webspace, you control the availability and downloading.In reply to “Public Domain” is exactly… by mirabilos
Thanks mirabilos and others for info on this topic.
I'm guessing to change the copyright of the one score that is not PD, if I want to keep it on .com I will need to delete and re-upload, as I couldn't find a way to edit an existing upload. Mirabilos, I noted that I could put it in a user section as you did, but then it didn't seem to appear in a search on the BWV numbers - although I might be wrong on this with the search criteria.
In reply to Thanks mirabilos and others… by Lofo
You can, on musescore.com, via the ... menu of the score
In reply to You can, on musescore.com,… by Jojo-Schmitz
Thanks JoJo-Schmitz - I think I've addressed the issue, went into the edit menu of the score in my user list of contributed scores, then made an attribution to an existing score on MuseScore.com (another version of Widerstehe doch der Sünde). Of course it wasn't an 'original' - God forbid I could write something like this!