Sheet Music on Websites

Subject: Sheet Music on Websites
From: GUEST,jennifer
Date: 10 May 03 - 02:49 PM

I'm sure this is discussed at great length somewhere so I'll be grateful if told where to go, but I can't figure out what keywords to search on. I was told recently that I can't scan sheet music and put it on the website because the five lines and four spaces system is copyrighted. Is this really a practical problem? Thanks in advance.

Subject: RE: Sheet Music on Websites
From: MMario
Date: 10 May 03 - 03:05 PM

you can't scan and post any sheet music that is under copyright. The system itself isn't the reason you can't post it.

Subject: RE: Sheet Music on Websites
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 10 May 03 - 05:40 PM

Jinnifer - Your source is 1000% correct - the five lines and four spaces system is copyrighted!!! and it was been for nearly 500 years.

This is the reason Beatovan and Boch, and even the child Motzart had to write with six lines and five spaces.

The copyright was secured by the same company the got the patent on the game of 9 Pins but it all worked for the better since that gave us the game of 10 Pins which we know as bowling today.

However, because of the five/four copyright we now have CD's and MP3's because we had to find away around the rediculous laws.

Sincerely,

Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Sheet Music on Websites
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 10 May 03 - 10:41 PM

Gargoyle,if you got any more manic, you'd hurt yourself.

No Jennifer, the music staff is not copyrighted. It has been around for centuries and is in the public domain.

For example, in the time of Queen Elizabeth I (late 1500's, early 1600's) William Byrd and some other chap were granted the monopoly on the printing of blank manuscript paper. And the format had been around a long time before that.

Subject: RE: Sheet Music on Websites
From: Helen
Date: 12 May 03 - 06:59 AM

Leeneia,

You don't have to make snide remarks to gargoyle. Simply statinfg yor opinion would have been sufficient.

Helen

Subject: RE: Sheet Music on Websites
From: GUEST
Date: 12 May 03 - 07:30 AM

Jennifer, as you will have gathered from the comments here, you don't need to be concerned with the notation system but may need to check on copyrights on individual pieces of work.

Sheet music has its dissadvantages for web sites and perhaps that is why it's not used as much as it could be. Graphic files of any reasonable quality are large files so you need to consider the ammount of space they take up and the time they may take to download.

People may also want to hear the music and there are several solutions to this. A MIDI file for example is something every current computer can work with and play. It's also easy to get software to display and print the tune. Alterantives include ABC for which a lot of free software exists.

Both of the examples I've given do have thier limitations but for a lot of purposes, they are far more practical.

Subject: RE: Sheet Music on Websites
From: GUEST,jennifer
Date: 12 May 03 - 12:18 PM

Thanks Guest, but it has to be sheet music or equivalent as that's what folks are asking for. I think they are listening to tunes and not quite able to pick them up by ear. I think I should be able to do it in GIF form and this will reduce the size problem. But this may be the least of my worries if someone is going to spin me a tale of copyrighted lines and spaces - I looked him in the eye in a disbelieving tone of voice too but he stuck by it!

Subject: RE: Sheet Music on Websites
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 12 May 03 - 12:34 PM

Jennifer, continue to disbelieve him!

What tunes are you thinking of? There is John Chamber's Tune Finder for example where you can get most folk dance music in a variety of formats both for viewing and listening to. There are also a couple of sources for songs.

Other than that, you could have to put the stuff up on your own.

Jon (previously and accidentaly unnamed guest above)

Subject: RE: Sheet Music on Websites
From: GUEST,jennifer
Date: 12 May 03 - 12:53 PM

The link looks interesting, thanks Jon. But the tunes I want are by John Tams...

Subject: RE: Sheet Music on Websites
From: Sorcha
Date: 12 May 03 - 12:59 PM

We need tune titles if we are to find them.

Subject: RE: Sheet Music on Websites
From: GUEST,jennifer
Date: 12 May 03 - 01:21 PM

Oh eek, I didn't mean for you to be looking out tunes for me, it just started out as an innocent query over whether it was possible to put them on websites! There are about forty songs and a (possibly)smaller number of tunes - anything by John Tams, basically. I'll pursue the rocky route of asking the author for now. Thanks for the help.

Jennifer

Subject: RE: Sheet Music on Websites
From: GUEST,Sorcha, again cookieless
Date: 12 May 03 - 01:23 PM

You might try this site....

Subject: RE: Sheet Music on Websites
From: GUEST,jennifer
Date: 12 May 03 - 01:34 PM

Er yes. Mine - guilty as charged. All it needs is the addition of some little buttons saying "click here for the music" and we'll be well away!

Subject: RE: Sheet Music on Websites
From: Sorcha
Date: 12 May 03 - 02:50 PM

Sorry, forgot you were looking for dots........my brain is not working too well today, but at least I have my cookie back again.

Subject: RE: Sheet Music on Websites
From: Ed.
Date: 12 May 03 - 04:00 PM

Jennifer,

As others have said, the idea that the five lines and four spaces system is copyrighted is nonsense.

However, what you are currently doing on your site (reproducing copyrighted lyrics) is technically illegal. Providing scores for his original songs would be as well.

You mention that you'll try and ask John Tams himself for permission. The fact is that he probably doesn't own the rights, so may not be able to give that permission. If you look at your records/CDs you'll find details of the song publishers. They are the people who you'll need to ask if you want to stay entirely within the law.

On your site, you mention that John is writing a songbook. The publishers of that might take a dim view if the equivalent of something that they want to sell is available online for free.

Apologies if the above depresses you. In the real world most web sites just get on with it and take things down if someone complains. There are lots of lyrics and tunes here (at Mudcat) that are infringing copyright and are technically illegal. No one's too bothered generally, but if someone complains (as has happened here in the past) they get taken down.

I'd just go for it, if I were you...

Ed

PS: Your lyric page would be better if it were alphabetical rather than chronological

Subject: RE: Sheet Music on Websites
From: GUEST,jennifer
Date: 12 May 03 - 04:30 PM

Hi Ed

Not too depressed, thanks for pointing those things out. As you say, if someone complained I'd take them down. I may go through and put copyright the publishers as a compromise.

As for the songbook, John was very much behind me putting the lyrics on the site, and the songbook (if and when it appears) will include other information too, pictures etc so I was hoping the lyrics being on the site would complement the book and fill in the gap til then. After all, the lyrics are also available to anyone who buys an album or listens at enough concerts. It's hard enough running the site without trying to double guess his judgement in marketing matters!

Alphabetical vs chronological, maybe. But I was reckoning it's fairly easy to scan through and find a song you're looking for, not so easy to pick out the historical progression of the songwriter. Which interested me.

As you say, I'll just go for it!

cheers
Jennifer

Subject: RE: Sheet Music on Websites
From: GUEST, GEST
Date: 12 May 03 - 04:57 PM

Hi, Jennifer ~ Perhaps this site with lyrics, MIDI files, tabs, and a limited number of scores can help you. :-)

GEST Songs Of Newfoundland And Labrador

Subject: RE: Sheet Music on Websites
From: Mark Clark
Date: 12 May 03 - 10:32 PM

Jennifer, Don't forget, we can turn MIDI sound files into scores. If you have MIDI files of the songs, do a search on ABC or check through the PermaThreads. You'll find there are many ways to make ABC files. They may need some fixing up since the MIDI file won't have all the information you'll want to display. Still, it can save you some work.

Once you have ABC files, you might want to set your Web site so that it generates the scores on the fly using server-side scripting. Generate the scores as PDF files and they won't be large. That way you don't have to use a lot of storage serving images and you won't use as much bandwidth when people click on the score item. Serving scores by generating them from ABC files also means you won't be serving someone else's copyrighted score.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Sheet Music on Websites
From: GUEST
Date: 13 May 03 - 12:16 AM

JENNIFER - When you find the tunes and lyrics to ANY song post them to MAX's site here at the Mudcat Cafe.

Max, Joe, Susan and Dick, can latter sort out the copyright from the Traditional.

Subject: RE: Sheet Music on Websites
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 13 May 03 - 06:39 AM

Jennifer, if you want to consider the ABC on the fly option, you will need to know what your ISP provides other than support for plain HTML. Unless you wanted to do a huge ammount of programming (and far beyond my own abitity) you would be looking to run the excellent free utilities such as amcb2ps and ghostscript. They are availabe to run on Windows and Unix/Linux and as source code so your ISPs operating system shouldn't be a problem but I think you would need to be sure you are free to run programs under CGI. The task of running these programs to create sound or graphics is quite easy and there are various ways. I use some PHP code, John Chambers uses Perl, Mark Clark could probably knock a C program up to run under CGI in a matter of minutes, etc.

The downside is that you are asking the server to perform more processing to create the graphics or MIDI you want. The upside, apart from abc files being small text files is that you can offer a lot quite easily. It's quite easy for example to offer any song you have as abc, MIDI AND pdf or other graphic. You could even offer the song in a variety of keys - all from the one small abc file - that's something I love about this approach, you may seem to have a few formats and choices but if an error is found, you only have the one simple file to correct.