MScore font license

• May 22, 2016 - 20:35

Hi men.

I'm a teacher in the public Italian school and a hobbist self-taught "developer" of some sort, and I'm putting together a C++ class that should use GDI+ graphics to show musical symbols and characters on screen in the context of some simple micro-games with educational purposes. What I have done by now is based on the MScore TrueType font, which my class loads as a Windows resource embedded in the executable .exe file. The class, even in its current state, works rather smoothly for my needs, but I wonder if the license actually allows the free use of the font in my little programs. I would like to point out that I'm not going to earn any money, as I'm not going to sell my micro-games in any way -- I just would like to distribute them free of any charge as a download from my personal site. Let's say that it's a philanthropic project! :)

P.S. I'm not as experienced as needed to give a proper interpretation of the legal jargon used in any EULA file. Please, help me to understand with simple words!

Comments

• May 23, 2016 - 17:38

Non credo possa valere in questo caso, e conoscendo come vanno le cose in Italia (dove, come sai, i grandi criminali dirigono impunemente lo Stato e chi passa col rosso viene massacrato) non è che me la senta tanto di rischiare... vorrei una risposta chiara e documentata/documentabile. :(

Comunque, capisco che la tua è una battuta. Anche a me piace scherzare. :)

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• May 23, 2016 - 07:38

mscore is derived from Emmentaler, which is part of LilyPind, so maybe check there for ist license?

The main font used in MuseScore scores for musical symbols (formerly known as Emmentaler )

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• May 23, 2016 - 17:43

Many thanks for your good will, Jojo, but your reply doesn't help that much -- I spent one hour and a half looking for reliable and easily stated information about MuseScore fonts (Emmentaler and Bravura included) but I didn't succeed in finding anything valuable.

Ah, to be exact I found a page about Bravura where they state that it can be safely used for my task. Sadly, the only download that I found regards a .otf file, and I couldn't persuade GDI+ to accept that format -- looks like I need a .ttf version, and I didnt' succeed in finding it anywhere.

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• May 23, 2016 - 20:02

@Aldo, try to take a look: https://sites.google.com/site/tisimst/Home/custom-font-how-to "Disclaimer All fonts can be downloaded here, used commercially, given ..."
"Support for, and creation of, These fonts is provided by Leigh Verlag (Abraham Lee) and takes considerable time and effort, so please consider purchasing the fonts found here or making a donation. Please contact Abraham for more information and help."
HTH

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• May 23, 2016 - 23:30

Here it says the mscore font is "is maintained/customized by the MuseScore community." It is built from the Emmentaler font:
https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/tree/master/fonts

The license of the Emmentaler font can be read here:
ftp://ftp.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/tex/macros/luatex/latex/lilyglyphs/fonts/L…

"The OFL allows the licensed fonts to be used, studied, modified and
redistributed freely as long as they are not sold by themselves."

I think it's good that you ask the Musescore Team. Would be good if someone could definitely say your are free to use the font. As I read it you are.

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• May 24, 2016 - 20:04

I must admit that I always feel frightened by the legal jargon. In my opinion it has been created for the clear purpose of giving trouble to common people. Anyway, yes, looks like SIL allows the use I have in mind for the font but-- is MScore released under such SIL license?

I think I'm going to hazard and use the MScore fonts in my little programs. If no-one says a clear "no" on this page (strictly related to the MuseScore community and developers), one could argue that everyone's saying "yes".

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