Copyright law
As you might know, sheet music is protected by copyright law. Copyright law refers to rights holders. The term "rights holder" indicates who has the right to decide on the use of the sheet music. If you want to reproduce, distribute, translate, or modify a piece of music, you need permission from the rights holder in all cases.
Right holders
Typically, the rights holders of a piece of music are understood to be the lyricists or the composers of the music. If a music publisher manages the rights of the music on behalf of the authors, then the music publisher is the rights holder.
Copying for private use
Copying sheet music is allowed only to a very limited extent. You may only copy a small portion and exclusively for private use. Therefore, you may not copy parts and/or scores for use in a music association. Copying an entire page or a complete song text is also not permitted. For that, you need official permission from the rights holder.
Making public
Many bands and ensembles use various methods to digitally and/or physically copy sheet music or song texts. The Copyright law often refers to making public. For clarity, copying also falls under making public.
Activities that frequently occur and fall under making public:
- Making a physical copy to keep the original neat and free of annotations.
- Making a digital copy to read your music from a tablet during practice or rehearsal.
- Maintaining a digital sheet music archive, whether in a closed environment or not.
- Printing song texts on a screen or in a program booklet.
- Renting or lending music pieces to fellow bands; this is only allowed by libraries.
- Adjusting parts to a different transposition or key.
All these activities are probably familiar to you and happen regularly around you, but they are actually not allowed under copyright law.
Copyright infringement
If copyright is violated, the rights holder can ask the court for a prohibition (including a penalty) to destroy the illegal copies and to claim compensation. In addition to actual compensation, all costs involved in such a procedure are borne by the losing party. Whether you intentionally violate the copyrights or not, it is a crime that can even lead to imprisonment.
Legal solution
If you don't want it to come to that and you are looking for a legal way, check out the website of FEMU (Federation of Music Authors and Publishers). They can grant your music association permission in the form of a license for additional copying on behalf of the authors and publishers affiliated with them. As far as I know this solution is so far only available in The Netherlands.
A great Dutch initiative to generate extra income for composers because we don’t want composers to lose income due to copying and become less motivated to bring new music to the market, which would be a significant loss for our sector!
N.B. The information in this article is based on Dutch copyright law. There will be many similarities with such laws in other countries, but there may also be differences. I am not liable for any discrepancies or interpretations thereof.
About Dirkjan van Groningen: Professional percussionist, teacher, composer, and musical entrepreneur. Helps percussionists to function more effectively in bands and ensembles by providing valuable additional resources with his method books and sheet music!