IMSLP:Creative Commons and Performance Restricted licenses
Free public domain sheet music from IMSLP / Petrucci Music Library
IMSLP also allows the submission of works which are not public domain, but have the permission of the creator of the work for distribution on IMSLP, licensed under one of the Creative Commons licenses or its Performance Restricted counterpart. Please do not select public domain when submitting a copyrighted (new) work, because "public domain" is not a valid license in the EU. Instead, choose the license closest to the public domain from the Creative Commons family of licenses (i.e. CC by).
Note: As of May 18, 2007, IMSLP will only accept a Creative Commons license or its Performance Restricted counterpart when submitting a copyrighted piece of music; the old "Personal" license category is deprecated.
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Introduction
The Creative Commons (CC) is a family of licenses, ranging from what is basically a license implementation of the public domain plus attribution (CC by) to a much more restrictive license (CC by-nc-nd), and also includes everything in between. Note that all of the Creative Commons licenses include Attribution, and hence Attribution is implied on IMSLP when using a Creative Commons license.
You can also use the license selector to select a Creative Commons license for use on IMSLP. The IMSLP add file page will always have the most recent version of the Creative Commons licenses in the selection box, but the version of the license for already submitted works will not be changed.
The Creative Commons family of licenses also have internationalized ("ported") versions, catering to different jurisdictions. On IMSLP, the vanilla ("unported") version is used by default; the use of a "ported" version is permissible, but somewhat discouraged in the interest of simplicity. However, if there is a good reason that forces you to use a "ported" version, please start a thread in the "Moderator Request" section of the forums.
Summary of the Six Creative Commons Licenses
Disclaimer: Please note that the IMSLP makes no guarantee whatsoever that the information appearing in this section is legally accurate and assumes no liability or legal responsibility therefor. It is recommended that contributors wanting to use one of these licenses peruse the legal code before using the license.
The six creative commons licenses are based on a permissive model with restrictions. This means that the licenses start out assuming that everything is permitted, and adds restrictions depending on which specific license is chosen. The following are the definitions of the restrictions:
- Attribution (by) -- The user of the work must attribute the work to the creator of the work.
- Share Alike (sa) -- The user of the work must license derivative works under the same, similar or a compatible license.
- Non-commercial (nc) -- The user of the work may not use the work for commercial purposes.
- No Derivatives (nd) -- The user of the work may not create derivations of either the work or performances of the work, but verbatim performances are allowed. Please refer to the legal code for a complete definition of the term "Adaptation" (i.e. derivative).
The six Creative Commons licenses are basically a mix and match of the 4 basic restrictions:
- Attribution (by) [legal code] -- Attribution
- Attribution Share Alike (by-sa) [legal code] -- Attribution + Share Alike
- Attribution Non-commercial (by-nc) [legal code] -- Attribution + Non-commercial
- Attribution No Derivatives (by-nd) [legal code] -- Attribution + No Derivatives
- Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike (by-nc-sa) [legal code] -- Attribution + Non-commercial + Share Alike
- Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd) [legal code] -- Attribution + Non-commercial + No Derivatives
Please note that specific restrictions maybe waived in writing if desired.
Performance Restricted counterparts to the Creative Commons licenses
Remarks
Please note that submission under one of these licenses is greatly discouraged if submission under a normal Creative Commons license is possible. This license family should really only be used when there is a situation which makes submission under a Creative Commons license impossible or impractical (for example, when there is a problem with a collecting society). The restriction of no public performance in any form (whether completely free or not) implies a significant restriction of rights of the user, making the work "free" only in the most limited sense (monetary), and should be avoided if possible.
Of course, submission under one of these licenses is much better than a completely commercial license, so do not hesitate to submit works under one of these licenses if submission under a Creative Commons license is impossible. You are encouraged to relicense the work under a Creative Commons license later on should situation allow.
The Licenses
As the name implies, this family of license does not any sort of public performance/broadcasting/recording. Currently, the following licenses exist:
- Performance Restricted Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives 1.0 (pr-by-nc-nd) -- by-nc-nd + No Public Performance
Submitters are encouraged to request additional performance restricted licenses based on other CC licenses if desired. Such requests can be made by starting a thread in the "Moderator Request" section of the forums. Additional performance restricted licenses will be added in due time, but requesting them will greatly speed up the addition of that particular license (probably will be added within a few days of the request).
Also, visit the FAQs
Links
- Main site of the Creative Commons family of licenses
- List of Creative Commons licenses
- Creative Commons FAQs - A very extensive list of FAQs maintained on the Creative Commons wiki.
- Creative Commons 3.0 release notes - includes a detailed explanation of the differences between "ported" and "unported" versions of the Creative Commons licenses, among other things.
- IMSLP category consisting of the stub pages of the Creative Commons licenses
