Would somebody tell me what is "original" music?

• Sep 28, 2023 - 11:39

And how can we find out if some music is original or not?

For example is this music original?
https://musescore.com/user/38498473/scores/12292612/s/rRVFjA

If not, how can I find out original composer to avoid copy right trouble?

Comments

• Sep 28, 2023 - 12:26

Your own composition, not an arrangement or plain transscriptipon of another piece.
And one you don't want to release to the Public Domain

That link is inaccessible BTW

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• Sep 29, 2023 - 09:26

If you cause a copyright infringement claim then Musescore.com will make your score private and add a message to let you know. You won't get into trouble. I know this from personal experience so it's a nice 'safety net' ‐ I don't want any legal issues from copyright holders!

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• Sep 29, 2023 - 15:11

XD, and I V vi IV.

Not a lawyer, not affiliated with musescore.com

> how can we ... how can I
In this case, it'd be useful to ask how musescore.com work instead.

  1. it uses "Original" tagging https://musescore.com/sheetmusic/original
  2. it is known to be working with "publishers" https://musescore.com/licensing
  3. access changes based on different internet access location ( licensing probably region based).
  4. it has been misidentifying works as copyright infringement and blocked public access, the opposite also exist. Some works are claimed to be victim solely coz of the title. To appeal see https://musescore.com/groups/improving-musescore-com , also see comments from previous appealers. It's been reported that works available to the public for years are pulled down out of the blue.
  5. access block due to copyright reason sometimes align with youtube.com (blocked wrongly on both)
  6. users have been expressing that these restrictions, whatever they are based on, do not value their opinions and been asking for a more transparent ownership determination process. As a matter of fact it does not need their approval.
  7. copyright issue involving lawsuit or fine penalty on users is unheard of.
  8. website that has a collection of thousands of classical and modern scores in non proprietary editable format, offers free sharing space with online playback, and unlimited download for original free scores, and does not watermark wherever it can, is also unheard of.

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• Sep 30, 2023 - 07:57

Thank you for useful and practical information. Fortunately, I don't need to get money on my music, but I don't want my music be used for wrong intention. I just want to make what I want to listen to and if somebody find it nice, even if it's only one person, that'll be my pleasure.

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• Oct 2, 2023 - 00:36

I'm not sure this list means all that much. The com site is full of arrangements of music the arranger doesn't own. When you take the theme from Star Wars and make your own arrangement, that's against copyright. MuseScore .com got in a bit of trouble a few years ago for this. So, sure they are working with publishers so they can stay out of trouble. That's why many things were pulled down. Another example is this: If I paint a picture of a horse, I can't do anything with it unless I have the owner's permission. Same with commercial music.
And yes, laws differ from to country to country. Just like everything else.
As an extra bit of news. Did you know that it is against copyright to photocopy published music? A college band member left a folder of copied music behind after a concert in a different city. Someone found it and took it to the publisher and that college was fined thousands of dollars per copy.

To answer the OP, I would say that Original Music is not an arrangement. Unless it's of "Mary Had A Little Lamb" or something like that. I would go further to say that it is something the composer came up with all on their own. Is that MuseScore's take on it? I don't know.

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• Oct 2, 2023 - 07:19

Since I was born, I have heard tons of music and phrases. Most of them, I didn't know those composer's name or even titles and I had forgotten when and where I had heard them. It seems like they have gone from the surface of my memory. But they may still be aliving in my subconcious realm and waiting the time of awakening, the time I will hear them again.

And I think those subconcious bits are the source of my music sence of beauty. So I don't know if totally unique music is possible or not, except totally random noises.

Therefore if I trace someboky's music unintentionally, I think it is unavoidable fault but not crime.

In the case, if somebody made an arrangement of some famous and popular music intentionally to use its fame and get profit from them, it will be a crime if it offends the copyright owner's profit. But if the arrangement is very excellent and splendid, it could be raise the value and publicity of the original. So the judgment would be in owner's hand.

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• Oct 2, 2023 - 17:17

If you haven't deliberately based your score on another composition then upload it as an original. If it turns out to be similar to a known composition then someone will point it out. If it's close to a copyrighted score then it may get taken down, (made private), but without causing you any trouble.

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• Oct 3, 2023 - 07:25

I've heard that if somebody fetch a nice code progression from a copyrighted music, it doesn't offend its copyright.

If somebody feels some progressions of music boring, it might mean he or she has listend such progressions frequently and fed up with them. If so it's depending upon one's experience. But also it seems, for some people, such old fashioned patern might always be comfortable.

Therefore I think there might be no universal standard of musical sence of beauty. There might be only fashions of the time, modes for certain groups of people and tastes for individuals depending upon their experiences and characters. Also fame and notability of the music would do a lot for most of the people as well.

So if there is some totally uniqe music, it might be difficult to get one's favor. Originality of music might be a pretty subtle thing like the difference of human personalities might be so.

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