This site is completely legal! The editions of music presented
on this site were published over 75 years ago, so their copyright
has passed and they are in public domain, or they are
available under various open licenses. We can therefore copy
them and distribute them freely. So, both the music and the
original editions of the music presented here are in the public
domain; however, please be aware that the computer file reproductions
embodied in the Sheet Music Archive are copyright 2000-2008. Copies of them
may be printed out for personal and performance use, but they may not
be used for commercial purposes without permission from the SMA, nor may
they be distributed without permission from the SMA. You may use
them for any and all audition performances at any time, as well as for
freely performed concerts; we ask you purchase some sort of subscription
for commercial live performance.
And, naturally, we would not be able to include the
music of more recent composers, such as John Adams or John Cage,
whose music is still in copyright, as are the various editions of
their music.
The majority of scores featured in this archive are from
pre-1923 music editions such as C.F. Peters, Brietkopf and
Hartel, Bach-Gesselschaft, various American editions, and some
pre-1973 Russian music editions. These are all old enough to be
out of copyright in essentially all countries. We can therefore
distribute them on-line without royalty, and users can legally
download them. When applicable, we provide more exact licensing
details for certain pieces that may be subject to restriction
in certain zones such as the European Union, Canada or Russia.
The sheet music files are in Adobe .pdf document format. To
view them, download the latest version of the free Adobe Acrobat
Reader from http://www.adobe.com.
This music is in the public domain, so you may print out as many
as you need for personal use. Please notice, however, that these
files are copyrighted, all rights are reserved on them, and
unauthorized distribution or sale of these files is prohibited.
Enjoy!
Note on file sizes: Adobe .pdf files can be quite large. The
sheet music available here sizes at roughly 75k per page, give or
take some. Most files here are less than 1.2 megabytes, but for
larger files, it may help to obtain a program for resuming
interrupted downloads, such as GetRight, at http://www.getright.com.
Recently, we have made great progress in compressing the .pdf
files. In fact, the original archive, as it existed at the end of
July, 2000 was a giant 1.3 gigabytes in size. Now, the entire
collection consists of over 50 gigabytes... a bit more giant.
Also, please note that while the vast majority of files in the
archive were prepared in-house, and therefore subject to SMA's
copyright restrictions, a few files, where indicated, were
prepared by people not affiliated with SMA. These "3rd
party" files are subject to the copyright restriction of
their respective creators; we do not control them in this sense.
When the Sheet Music Archive scans sheet music,
it creates not only new (and copyrighted) computer
files, but also alters the graphic information of
the original sheet music. The scanning process alters
the graphical information, angulation, details of the
sheet music such as to create a new kind of graphic.
The SMA claims copyright right on this new graphic.
If you print out the sheet music, you are printing out
this new graphic. Now, the Sheet Music Archive
authorizes the public to use this new graphics in the
sense of making unlimited printouts of the graphics,
and gives the public the right to distribute the
printouts. However, the SMA, as the copyright holder
of this new graphics, reserves the right to re-scan
the graphics into other pdf files. The SMA does not
grant this right to the public. So you cannot re-scan printouts
and make your own pdfs out of them.
However, you can certainly feel free to obtain
original copies of the original editions used by the
SMA, subject to your local copyright laws, and scan
these books/editions and create your own PDF files. This
condition only applies as legally permissible in your
legal jurisdiction.
The Sheet Music Archive respects the privacy of its users and does not collect personal information about them without their knowledge and permission. The SMA is also committed towards keeping e-mail communications between itself and its users confidential. Non-specific, automated information such as cookie information may be collected in order to compile statistical data about traffic to the site. Click here to view our full privacy policy text.