copyright infrigment

Hello.

I love googling my name, cause I come up with the most absurd stuff some times. Like this: Nikolas Sideris sheet music plus more at sheetmusicarchive.net

Someone (namely John Mamoun, dentist in New Jersey

John Mamoun, DMD, FAGD

100 Craig Road Suite 106

Manalapan, NJ

07726

Phone: (732) 431-2888

Took my scores, from IMSLP, or my own website (where they can be found for free), added them to his own website WITHOUT my permission, and then he is charging a (small, I have to admit) subscription fee in order for anyone to download the scores, which are otherwise freely accesible over the net, as you very well know (since whenever I post music, I also post the scores).

I'm a big fan of open source and the free distribution of education and I'm disgust by Johns' attempt. It's well into the night in New Jersey, but I plan on bombing the guy with e-mails, as well as phone him if needed, or send my lawyer to him (which would cost me money, so I reserve as a last effort), until he removes my scores.

PROBLEM: I'm NOT the only one. Someone named Josef, from IMSLP, has the same problem as me, and he's contacted the sheetmusicarchive.net in order to have his scores removed (only they haven't replied in 2 days, even if it was weekend).

So check to see if YOUR name is in the list. Maybe someone is making money, with your scores! ( Sheet Music Archive : free sheet music plus sheet music downloads, music scores, music notes, printable digital sheet music direct downloads. Partituren for piano, violin and orchestra. )

And certainly DO NOT subscripe to these people. You can get all those scores from the composers themselves, the composers gain nothing, and the public domain scores ARE PD and can be found in IMSLP.org

Very lame.

Doesn't seem anyone is using my scores since searching for my name(s) don't turn up anything relevant...

That really sucks. I hope he removes those scores of you again.

I found my score there, the only one I've uploaded on IMSLP. I think he does get most of his scores from IMSLP, and that's *very* lame. I'll let IMSLP know as well. I sent him an e-mail and will also call him if he doesn't reply.

Anyway, he's such a loser he calls himself "The King of the Sheet Music Archive" and thinks it's cool. What a tat.

No scores of my own found. But someone with my same (but very unusual full name) has a MySpace page that could do me some great harm if someone confused him with me. Thankfully this dude lives on the other side of the country!

I feel bad for you, Nikolas - and any others who've been violated by this crook.

I'll do my part to make this charlatan know this scraggy doesn't jive with serious musicians and I hope, if we band together we can get this fool to fold.

*runs off to email in Nikolas' defense*

[edit]

Here's another phone # from their site: US Phone +1 201 486 2974

You could always contact their ISP and tell them that they are hosting a site that is infringing on copyrighted material. The ISP can pull the entire site down and investigate.

The Sheet Music Archive website and all SMA .pdf files are copyright 2000-2008 by Sheet Music Archive; all rights reserved. For personal non-commercial use only. Unauthorized distribution or sale of .pdf files is prohibited; violators subject to involuntary removal of unspecified bodily appendages and nailing of threatening pieces of paper to doors at location of domicile. Server is located in the United States.

...

PDF files made by the SMA are copyrighted by SheetMusicArchive.net' date=' and may not be sold, re-distributed, or used to derive other PDF files, without express written authorization. [/quote']

It's funny, cause it almost seems like he thinks he actually has the rights to offer this content!

Which is all more weirder than ever!

I have contacted goDaddy who seems to be hosting the site and asked them to investage, as well as take the whole site down if needed.

But I'm really eager to give the guy a call. ;)

GoDaddy should be pretty responsive, they're who I use to host my site. (They're also a local company to me! Like... 5 miles away :))

I hope that get resolved. And I hope he/she doesn't come with the excuse of "Oh, I thought you died many years ago".

lol.

To anyone interested:

I was contacted by GoDaddy and was linked to the following page, which I used to make a "formal" copyright dispute to the owner: Legal Agreement

Awesome, that's pretty straightforward. Got get 'im, Nikolas!

Unfortunately godaddy are NOT hosting the website, only the name has to do with them.

so I'm not hunting www.hostmysite.com , which I hope is the hosting they used.

Otherwise you think I should call? What's the difference if he doesn't reply to e-mails? Maybe I should actually hire a lawyer and send him instead?

Call first, I would say. Let him know a lawyer is on the cards if he doesn't respond.

If you can verify your copyright is in place and that loss occurred as a result of his action, then pay a lawyer. Otherwise, it's a waste of money. My wife is an attorney and cannot stress enough the importance of filing for copyright with the government to ensure your rights are protected.

The jerk and his website can actually file against you for bringing a case against him and costing him money if you have not done your part to protect yourself. The court has been known to go either way on it. If you put your work out there in the public domain, then it can be difficult to actually back up your legal case. This is the worse case, of course, but you should be aware that it could happen.

Just some words of caution. KNOW THY ENEMY and what they are capable of... you never know if it can come back to bite you in the arse!

The jerk and his website can actually file against you for bringing a case against him and costing him money if you have not done your part to protect yourself. The court has been known to go either way on it. If you put your work out there in the public domain, then it can be difficult to actually back up your legal case. This is the worse case, of course, but you should be aware that it could happen.

Not sure about this, if you have time to discuss.

Legally I DON'T HAVE TO protect myself. Copyright is automatic and does not need registration.

Putting a work in the Internet, does not mean that I place it in public domain. Otherwise any CD, which can be made into an mp3, wouldn't have a case.

At the moment there is no loss of $, but there will be in the sort future.

My legal case is simple (check with your wife and tell me if you can): The works are mine, and they have been submitted to the university of London (which is a pretty strong case to prove that the scores ARE mine, which the guy is not disputing either way). I hold copyrights, so legally speaking I hold the rights to NOT give permission to him for hosting my works. Especially since it's for profit and without prior checking with me.

I actually think it's pretty straight forward, but I'm no lawyer.

If you hold copyrights on these works, then there's no issue. I must have missed it in the OP. Speaking more generally, though, just because you write it doesn't mean it's inherently protected. You can always file for a cease and desist of the activity and have the scores removed from his site without copyright protection, but unless you have your music UNDER COPYRIGHT, you may find it almost impossible to recover damages (actual money). That's what I understand from what I've learned from her. That's why it becomes a cost to you if you don't copyright your work, because legal fees being what they are, you could end up spending more just to get the guy to stop putting your work up than you would to actually just copyright it yourself.

Which is exactly why I don't post any of my scores that I might intend to sell or distribute later. Assure that your work is registered under copyright with some government body if you want that right to be protected. Each party has the responsibility. That's all I'm saying.

Good luck, Nik! Stick it to him if you can, and let us know how it goes. I just hope you get good advice and let us know what you find out from your attorney. We only know what applicable laws apply to the states. Here, people have to file a form to acquire copyright on their works. It may be different in Europe. I wouldn't know, and neither would my wife.

As I understand it you posted them on IMSLP right? Well, then you would either have to release them into the public domain or release them under the Creative Commons License where the other party can use them however they want but must attribute it to the creator. If that's true, there's nothing you can do about it. They were legally obtained as public domain works and could be used by him however he wants regardless of when it was created. And since his site "isn't for personal use" or whatever, he actually is legally covered.

Ironic that I'm hearing about this site. I used to go there all the time before IMSLP took over the "free scores online" market.

Category:Sideris, Nikolas - IMSLP

Here's the IMSLP page. It's NOT Public Domain, I never consented to that!

Keep in mind that I asked juji to chance the CC license, and it was changed prior to the big closing down of IMSLP, but now it's again totally vague... :-/

EDIT:

Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike 3.0

* to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work

* to Remix — to adapt the work

*

Under the following conditions:

*

Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

Attribute this work:

Information

What does "Attribute this work" mean?

The page you came from contained embedded licensing metadata, including how the creator wishes to be attributed for re-use. You can use the HTML here to cite the work. Doing so will also include metadata on your page so that others can find the original work as well.

*

Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

*

Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.

* For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. The best way to do this is with a link to this web page.

* Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.

* Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author's moral rights.

So he should be able to distribute, as long as there is no profit (eg. the subscription fee).

Yeah, you should get him on the profit part.

So he should be able to distribute, as long as there is no profit (eg. the subscription fee).

Wrong. There should be no profit from the distribution of the work. The "subscription fee" is not a fee attributed as a "sale" of work on the site. It is a subscription to the site that provides free content. So, yes, he makes money, and no, you have no bone to pick because he used your content to draw a subscriber base to his site so he could collect that money. The content is free, so long as you subscribe. That's a world of difference to paying X amount to download the sheet music of Nik's masterwork.

The work is attributed to you, yes? You're given credit as the creator of the work. You uploaded your work in the database. From there, those who have access to that database have rights to distribution of the work in the database so long as they credit you at the time and place of distribution and don't directly collect money from the distribution (i.e. $0.05 per page or something). You (presumably) profit from the exposure you receive. He profits from creating that exposure for you with his website.

This is very similar to someone's information being entered into a database for something like an insurance quote or request for information on schools like University of Phoenix. Once that information hits the database, anyone who purchases that information and uses it within the constraints of the licensing agreement is free to call you endlessly until you request to be removed from THEIR list. You're still in the database, so anyone else with access to that database has equal rights under the agreement.

You put your music scores/sheet music into this database. You need to contact the source providing this information to guys like the one you've been in contact with. You need to tell them to remove your materials from their database. That is your best course of action in this circumstance, at least from what you're telling us here.

AA, you are almost correct. It's just that he could be, very well, making $4000 per month (with 1000 subscriptions). It only goes to say what % comes from my scores. In the end my scores are a small part of what the subscriber pays for, no matter how small. It could be $0.00000001, and still be called profit (number ridiculously low, but no idea about actual numbers).

I will speak to a couple of attorneys and see what can be done about this.

At least he only holds 5 of my scores and not the rest...

I just looked, and when I pulled up one of your titles, there was a message saying it had been pulled because you were submitting it to a publisher. Maybe he's relented.

I don't think it matters at all whether they ask people to pay for your scores or just have a general subscription fee. Calling it "subscribing to a site that has free content" would be like saying newspapers are free as long as you don't pay for them individually, but just get a subscription. The point is, it is still a commercial business, and Nikolas' pieces are used in this business in order to gain money.

Plus, I was fairly sure that in the US too, works of art are automatically protected by copyright without requiring any registration. Registration of some sort just makes it easier to prove you own the copyright. At least, that's the case in most places I know of (including Europe, generally). This is a peculiarity of "works of art".

Also:

Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.

But on that website they write:

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.

And further on:

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.

I.e. they "transform" the work, but under the Share Alike license that doesn't allow them to now distribute Nikolas' pieces under any different license than he did. But obviously they are doing so.