Quote Originally Posted by Oopsy View Post
Yups! If you need to find a score just look for something in the public domain.

You can also make your own music...

but if you base it off something that exist.. remember Under pressure and Ice ice baby is still totally a violation of copyrights.
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And Ed Sheeran? He's just a cover artist taking the music of others and plugging his lyrics in.
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But.... Then again... If you have permissions from the writer.
https://musescore.com/sheetmusic?sort=relevance&license=to_use_commercially
Uh, hang on.
You're confusing copyrights here - there's what Vanilla did, where he violated performance copyright - and what we aren't violating when performing covers, which is song copyright.

One of them is the "don't copy that floppy" high seas type "sue gramgram for millions of dollars" copyright.

The other entitles an artist to collect royalties on any cover of their song. That's the 'composer' copyright - and it's closer to what people of think of as 'public domain'.
Except not.

Wikipedia has a blurb on cover versions.
ASCAP and the like have generally ceased roping in street performance and recreational performance with concerts, after the Girl Scout debacle - and Warner/Chanell being found out to be liars, costing them a cheery $14 mil in birthday money.


That said - all of that has zero, zilch, nada to do wth Performance in game, and SE's ToS. As far as can be seen - it's over protective and doesn't acknowledge copyright law beyond listing anything copyright as 'no go.'
It's not the law, it's just their rules.

Outside the game, though... you compose a song, you sell albums (or songs online), you own the copyright on the performance, and any distributor has mechanical right to reproduce (because the store has to make copies and download it to your fans).
If other artists like it, they can perform your song themselves. If they make money off it - they owe you royalties.
If someone takes your Mp3, puts it on pirate bay, they're chilling with Vanilla Ice in terms of breaking the law.

Reverbnation started a nice series on copyright law for musicians thats worth checking out - save the cost of consulting a lawyer just to get a clearer idea of what the law is.