Help with copywrite Laws...

• Jan 9, 2018 - 23:04

I would like to make my own arrangement for the song Concerning Hobbits by Howard Shore... I would like to make the arrangement for profit and I wounder how about I am to do this (What websites, what copyright stuff etx.) thanks...


Comments

You need to find out who owns the copyright to the original, or which organisation represents them (usually the publisher) and contact them to ask permission. You may want to send them an extract of the arrangement so they can see if it is any good, otherwise they will probably ignore the request or reject it out of hand.

Remember, you don't need permission to make an arrangement as long as you keep it private. You do need permission to publish, perform or sell it. Making it publicly available online (even for free) counts as publishing.

In reply to by dannsh13

Happy Birthday!

It's OK to upload if the score is kept private. If it's unlisted that's OK too as long as you don't publish the link anywhere public.

If the score is public on MuseScore.com then that counts as publishing and requires permission from the copyright holder. Fortunately, MuseScore.com has already negotiated with many music publishers to get this permission on your behalf, so in many cases you can indeed upload arrangements and make them public on MuseScore.com without having to ask anybody first. Unfortunately, there isn't a list anywhere of which works are allowed and which ones aren't, so your best bet is to look on the website to see what other people have uploaded. If it's not allowed then it will have been taken down or made private so you can no longer see it.

In reply to by shoogle

If it's unlisted that's OK too as long as you don't publish the link anywhere public.

That doesn't prevent it from being made private by musescore.com though, happened to me quite a few times.

If it's not allowed then it will have been taken down or made private so you can no longer see it.

not taken down, but made private. And you can still see it (but only you)

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