Help needed with my first contributions

[Wheat Williams]

Greetings. I've never contributed any of my own copyist work to CPDL before.

I am working up my own engravings of choral scores of Brahms' Ein deutches Requiem and DuBois Seven Last Words of Christ, in Sibelius format. I would like to contribute them in Sibelius 7, PDF and MusicXML format. My work thusfar will be copies of 19th-century published editions for choir, soloists, and piano reduction; they will not be new arrangements.

I'm about ready to release Movement 4 of Ein deutsches Requiem.

What I would prefer to do is to host everything on my own web site, with my own copyright notice, and only provide links for downloading through cpdl.org. I'm not sure how to set that up.

Could somebody walk me through the process?

[choralia]

Thank you for willing to contribute to CPDL!

A step-by-step guide regarding the score contribution process is available at:

http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Help ... sion_guide

In your specific case, as you intend to host files on your own website, you'll have to enter the full URL to your website (including http://) when filling the "Add work" form. I would recommend not to link directly to the files (so-called "deep linking") otherwise users will not be able to read your copyright notice, and links may get broken if one day you move your files to a different URL. You'd better use "shallow linking", i.e., link to the home page of your website or anyway to a page where users can display your copyright notice and then select the file(s) to download. You should maintain such a page at a stable URL so as to prevent that links get broken.

Please do not hesitate to contact us should you need further clarifications. CPDL looks forward to adding your scores to the catalog!

Max

[Wheat Williams]

Thank you Max, for the advice about linking. I think I can take it from here. I can study and follow the directions. Once I have new entries on cpdl.org, I may post questions on the discussion for the page and ask people to help me format my entries on that page.

However, if this is not too off-topic, I could use some suggestions as to how my copyright notice on my own web site (and possibly on the scores themselves) should be worded. In this day and age it has more to do with expressing my wishes than absolute legal certainty, I know. Can you point me to some pages of editors/arrangers who have posted copyright notices for something similar to this:

* I want to make electronic copies freely available through linking to cpdl.org, so that legal language needs to be clear.
* I want to retain a personal copyright on my newly edited edition of a public-domain work should I decide to sell printed copies in the future (to cover my costs and maintain quality control).
* I want to ask people who use my scores to make PayPal donations either to me or to a certain non-profit orchestra that I donate my time to as a volunteer.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[choralia]

Rather than inventing your own license policy, I would suggest you to consider the Creative Commons (CC) standard policies:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

If you find one that is perfect for you, just choose it. Otherwise, you can choose the one that is nearest to your needs, and create your own policy by modifying the CC standard license definition. Anyway, I would recommend you to choose one of the CC policies already adopted here at CPDL, and that you can specify when filling the "add work" form:

Creative Commons Attribution
Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike
Creative Commons Attribution No Derivatives
Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial
Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike
Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives

Please be aware that certain personal copyright policies may not be compatible with the CPDL's main goals:

The primary goals of CPDL are:

To make vocal sheet music available for free.
To create a website for public domain music that includes only legally downloadable scores (we operate under United States law).
To allow development of a viable collaborative model for sheet music distribution.
To publish scores that are not otherwise commercially viable.
To create a website that catalogs a large number of other free sheet music websites.
To encourage (through the CPDL Bulletin Boards) sharing between lovers of vocal music.

So, if your personal copyright policy will not be consistent with the above goals, it wouldn't be possible for us to accept your scores.

Max

[tomcarter732]

Mr. Williams,

Did you ever complete your project working on the DuBois '7 Last Words' in Sibelius format? I'm in need of such files right now, and if you completed them, I was hoping you might be willing to share them?

Peace,
Tom Carter

[carlos]

Hi Tom,

Mr. Williams published his translation of this work on his blog, but there's no information there about an edition. His email is on that page, you might try to reach him directly:

http://wheatwilliams.com/wordpress/2012 ... of-christ/

Regards,