We frequently see posts out there in blog-land wondering about the copyright implications of Noteflight, and on the legal implications of doing this or that. For instance, a recent post on Noteflight on the blog Reasonable Deviations asked:

This web app raises some interesting questions regarding copyright infringement. If I write a sheet of a song which was composed by someone else, am I violating any copyright law? If I share that music sheet with other Noteflight users, am I doing anything illegal? Will Noteflight be held liable for promoting the distribution of copyrighted material?

I figure it never hurts to clarify this stuff. It is a complicated business and we’ve spent a lot of time at Noteflight thinking about it. We’ve even paid lawyers to help us understand it (and it takes a lot to get us to spend that kind of money).

First of all, even though it’s not light reading, we encourage you to examine Noteflight’s terms of use. Yes, it’s legalese, but in there you should find the exact answers to your questions. We spell out exactly what rights users and copyright holders have, and how sharing something on Noteflight affects that, or doesn’t.

Now to examine those specific questions, though:

Noteflight doesn’t change the nature of copyright law. Noteflight is just a tool, like a photocopier (remember those?).  It all depends on what you use the tool for.  If you put someone else’s copyrighted music on Noteflight and share it with others without the permission of the copyright holder, you are infringing their copyright.  We expect all of our users to respect copyright law, and by agreeing to our terms of use you are promising to do so.

Noteflight isn’t liable for promoting the distribution of copyrighted material. Under Title II of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (if you liked our terms of use, you’ll love reading the text of the DMCA), Noteflight is not liable because we promptly respond to requests from copyright holders to block access to infringing material, and make this option available in a legally compliant manner on our site.

When you share your own music on Noteflight, you are extending some rights to other users — but not giving up your copyright. Again the devil is in the details, but our terms of use explain how and when sharing a score implies that you are giving other users rights.  In no case do you ever give up your copyright (assuming you had it in the first place).  If you share something for viewing only, you are giving other people the right to download that score.  And if you share something for editing, you are giving the other people the right to create derivative works under a Creative Commons license.

Feel free to post comments here or email support and we’ll do our best to respond with further clarification. In any case, it felt like a good moment to try to summarize the main copyright and intellectual property points.