Music Copyright
It is my intention to get my music performed by as many people who want to perform it as possible, while retaining some financial incentive on my end to keep making it. It is also my experience that ensembles are unpredictable, both in their size/makeup, and in the whereabouts of sheet music. I’ve found that an artificial scarcity of parts enforced by copyright regulations can lead to situations suboptimal to ensemble function, including:
- Making and distributing copies rather than original parts (which can be detrimental due to copy quality and to the risk of litigation)
- Disallowing performers from writing on parts
- Playing on old, ratty copies of music that are so smeared as to become illegible
- Avoiding performing a piece because a part is misplaced
- Having to purchase multiple copies of a piece to cover all necessary parts.
Many of these issues can be alleviated by purchasing additional individual parts, and so I have made them (affordably, I think) available on this site.
However, ensembles may find themselves short on time and/or money, and if they have already purchased a full performance set of my music, I believe they should be able to play it!
Therefore, for all ensemble music written by Alex Sramek and sold through mostlydifferent.com, the following applies:
The purchase of a “Score and Parts” set for any ensemble work grants the purchaser permission to make copies of any PARTS in the set, as necessary, for purposes of performance in that ensemble. These rights persist for as long as the ensemble retains possession of the score and parts set, and are transferred to whomever may later come into possession of the score and parts set.
The expectation is that, for every set of score and parts sold, there will be, at any given time, one ensemble capable of performing that piece.
For your convenience, and to replace any parts you may have lost and not made backup copies of, extra parts are also available for purchase from mostlydifferent.com, which usually have benefits such as nicer paper quality, booklet format, 9×12 Concert size, and zero time at the copy machine for you. I think they are reasonably priced and can save you a lot of hassle, but ultimately I leave the choice of how to fill your ensemble’s needs up to you. Individual scores and individual parts are also available for those so inclined, though permission to copy the parts is only granted if they are added to an existing set.
I consider this to be a fair interpretation of the intent of copyright, and hope this will encourage a relationship of mutual trust. I’m delighted you’re playing my music, and want to make the experience as pleasant as possible.