IMSLP Forums

Posted: **Mon Nov 17, 2008 2:24 am**

I noticed that the above website is asking money for files that I posted on IMSLP with the express purpose that the material should be free. I don't think that is fair. It is clear that these people pilfer the files directly from IMSLP by downloading the new posts. Are these people violating the terms of use of IMSLP?

Posted: **Mon Nov 17, 2008 3:03 am**

Which is especially ironic:
viewtopic.php?t=889

Obviously whoever runs the site is a greedy bastard.

Posted: **Mon Nov 17, 2008 5:47 am**

Not to mention:

viewtopic.php?t=1413

Posted: **Mon Nov 17, 2008 6:06 am**

Apparently, this character has basically mirrored IMSLP and is now charging subscriptions. Not sure if he's weeded out the non-PD US titles, but that's only about 1500 of the total. I note that he advertises 22, 000 works - which is nearly identical to our own count.

I'm not sure why he thinks that a subscription is going to be a viable business model when all of the files he has can be downloaded at no charge here. Of course, public domain is public domain and he's free to do whatever he likes - with the obvious exception of new compositions and typesets.

Posted: **Mon Nov 17, 2008 7:55 am**

I get the feeling people would rather donate a small amount of (voluntary) money to IMSLP than pay for a subscription...

But he will be getting a fair amount of subscriptions without people even knowing about us because if you search for sheet music or free sheet music, sheetmusicarchive is on the first page and we are no where to be seen (this is a problem! how do we get it up?).

Posted: **Mon Nov 17, 2008 10:11 am**

Yagan Kiely wrote:But he will be getting a fair amount of subscriptions without people even knowing about us because if you search for sheet music or free sheet music, sheetmusicarchive is on the first page and we are no where to be seen (this is a problem! how do we get it up?).

It's a bit surprising, since according to Yahoo Site Explorer, there are far more links to imslp.org than to sheetmusicarchive.net (it even got kicked off Wikipedia for spamming...). We would really need a (white-hat!) SEO expert here...

Posted: **Mon Nov 17, 2008 5:48 pm**

Yagan Kiely wrote:But he will be getting a fair amount of subscriptions without people even knowing about us because if you search for sheet music or free sheet music, sheetmusicarchive is on the first page and we are no where to be seen (this is a problem! how do we get it up?)

A lot of it is the <meta> tag. This is where sites search for the content.
This is Sheetmusicarchive's:
<META name="description" content=", free sheet music plus music score download collection, digital piano library and directory guide arranged by composer. Download fur elise for free.">
<META name="keywords" content=",sheet music plus, sheet music online, music sheets, sheet music downloads, fur elise, partituren, moonlight sonata, sheetmusicplus.com,sheet music direct, free piano sheet music,violin sheet music,piano scores, free sheet music,free sheetmusic,sheet music,free ,sheet, music,pieces,downloads,music notes,scores,piano,sheet,music,free">
IMSLP has no keywords or description.

Posted: **Mon Nov 17, 2008 6:01 pm**

Thing is that this guy has scores from living composers (like myself, juji and Josef, to name a few from IMSLP), which is a dead clear violation of copyright laws.

I have contacted him, the website and GoDaddy and still waiting for a reply.

:-/

Posted: **Mon Nov 17, 2008 6:03 pm**

Posted: **Mon Nov 17, 2008 6:09 pm**

Any other suggestions?
This needs to happen quickly, too. Sheetmusicarchive cannot continue like this.

Posted: **Mon Nov 17, 2008 7:08 pm**

Nikolas is correct. SMA is violating his copyright and is fully liable for doing so. SMA also appears to be violating the terms of the CC license by charging for access to the works. I would recommend that Nikolas follow the IMSLP links to the Stanford site where the details of the Creative Commons Licenses are spelled out and pursue whatever action he needs to.

Posted: **Mon Nov 17, 2008 7:44 pm**

I contacted the hosting company (Godaddy), and was linked here: http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/legal_agr ... DMARK_COPY

I have filled an official complaint form to Godaddy and I have hopes that Godaddy will remove my scores, or access to my scores. I would like to speak to the guy, but this will happen after he removes my scores. After all I have his number!

See, it's SO annoying to be giving your scores away for free, I mean what kind of person would pirate FREEWARE scores and still he goes and does that!

Posted: **Mon Nov 17, 2008 8:05 pm**

perlnerd666 wrote:A lot of it is the <meta> tag. This is where sites search for the content.

Actually, search engines generally weigh the <meta> elements very little these days, or even ignore them entirely. This is due to the fact that in the past they were wildly abused for search engine spamming. Therefore, page ranking algorithms were developed based on parameters that are not so easy to manipulate.

I'm not really up to date on what is known about Google's current page ranking algorithm (which is kept secret and changes periodically), but I'm pretty sure that <meta> elements would influence the site's ranking only marginally at best.

Posted: **Tue Nov 18, 2008 3:10 pm**

Marginally is good too.

Posted: **Tue Nov 18, 2008 3:56 pm**

Also, in that case, we should try to put the words "free sheet music", etc. somewhere - especially the <title> tag, then.