Copyright protection
Hi,
For a while I have been posting songs on your web page. Most of these are my rearrangements of often well known songs. When posting I then select 'Public' and give the name of the song on which my rearrangement is based. So I acknowledge it. In my rearrangements I make my own interpretation of the song, often by listening to the original and making changes which I think improve it, like adding different instruments and adding extra riffs, phrases etc. However I usually do not significantly (maybe some timing change and/or an extra note here and there) change the melody line - otherwise the song would be unrecognisable.
Now for some of these songs, most recently 'Get Back' - The Beatles, or 'Unchained Melody - Righteous Brothers', I will receive a message from you that the song has infringed some copyright, and has been converted from 'Public' to 'Private'. I don't have a problem with this, but this does not happen for many of the rearrangements that I post, and they remain ' Public'. Am I just lucky? If I change the title of my song - to say 'Get Back -orchestral', but still say it is based on their original, would this help? Any suggestions?
Henry
Comments
Arrangements of copyrighted works are still copyrighted by the original copyright holder, unless you have that copyright holder's written consent.
With some publishers musescore.com has agreements in place in regards to this, but not with others, those may request a score to be taken down and are in 100% agreement with copyright laws in doing so.
Changing the title doesn't change this at all (neither does saying what your score is based upn), except maybe you maybe not get caught as quickly.
However, this is really nothing to discuss here on musescore.org, the score sharing website is musescore.com
Thanks for your comment. Very useful. I will go to Musescore.com.