MuseScore.com Community Guidelines vs Copyrighted material

Anonymous

• Jun 25, 2016 - 17:23

Hi MuseScorers!

Someone contacted me earlier today to know if performing an arrangement I made of a copyrighted song can be performed without copyright infringement?

Is there a document available that would clear things better than what I have just read in the MuseScore Community Guidelines?;

<<< Respect copyright Just as you own the copyright for music you create, others own the copyright for music they create. You may transcribe other people’s copyrighted music using MuseScore, but you do not necessarily own the copyright for the resulting sheet music. You may still upload it to MuseScore.com, but please use appropriate privacy settings so that you are not sharing this music any more widely than the law allows. Note that the copyrights on most “classical” compositions have expired, so posting your transcriptions of Bach, Beethoven, and so forth is fine. >>>

In others words, is it okay to publish arrangements of copyrighted music on MuseScore? I guess NOT.

Should I simply take them all out?!?

Thanks,

Roger

Comments

Anonymous

• Jun 26, 2016 - 05:11

I already got my answer. Copyrighted material can be published only with permission from copyright owner(s). (I took all my arrangements out already).

Thanks,

MikeN

• Jun 26, 2016 - 19:34

Pity, but yes, it seems clear. There are oodles of infringing pieces in the ms repository that are pretty amateurish doodling around (not saying I could do better), which I expect would be ignored by copyright owners. Your pieces are of a high enough quality that you could actually trigger a cease-and-desist letter.

Concerning live performance of arrangements, there was a thread on this a while back in case it is of interest:

https://musescore.org/en/node/28946

Anonymous

• Jun 27, 2016 - 05:07

Thanks MikeN for your comment (and the link).

I do not believe to be the first nor the last to misunderstand what can or cannot be made freely available on a MuseScore account.

When I joined MuseScore, I said to myself; "Well, everybody does it so I assume I can do it too". So, you post your first arrangement, start getting lot of hits, making new music friends. Cool! Then the next "logical" thing to do is keep posting new scores while you get more familiar with the software... you slowly fell in a "once you pop, you can't stop" mood, it's fun and cool but it is wrong.

I decided to put all copyrighted arrangements down. I simply asked myself -- Do I want people to respect my own copyrights? yes! so, should I do the same? yes!

bingo! case closed.

Regards,

Roger