Use of RagPiano.com Material

Due to a number of considerations including copyright issues, plagiarism concerns, midibot raids, and unauthorized duplication, I have set some standards for fair use of material from this site with the help of legal counsel. This is the thing I hate the worst, but it is a necessary protection for all parties concerned, and will hopefully seem relatively painless.

MP3/MIDI Files and Cover Images

The potential user must ask for, and will likely be granted permission to use a select number of MP3 audio MIDI data file recordings from the RagPiano.com Site with the following expectations. A maximum of six pieces in any combination may be used at any one time, along with cover images and a paraphrase of the music description, if desired. Acknowledgement, as simple as a "Performed By" line (never "Sequenced By") should be included along with a link back to the site. Since the RagPiano.com site depends in part on revenues generated by traffic to and sales of material from the site, which covers the costs of domain, hosting, royalty licenses, acquisitions, et. al., this simple acknowledgement makes it easier for me to continue to do more research and post more music, so the link is important to facilitate this. The use of more than six files may not whet the taste of an internet user to visit the site to the degree that a few choice samples will. MP3 and MIDI files must be hosted locally as occasionally references to them on the RagPiano.com site are changed in order to minimize traffic from automated MP3/MIDI distribution sites that mine for MP3/MIDI files and create extra traffic costs.

Pieces MUST be copyrighted 1922 or before as they are curently in the public domain and no royalties are required. If a piece composed after 1922 is requested, the person hosting is responsible, after making a request from me, to obtain the necessary license for hosting the piece through Harry Fox or any other clearing agency. The expiration for 1923 copyights is currently 2018. The exception would be any piece composed and copyrighted by Bill Edwards, for which implicit permission must be asked and given. These guidelines help to protect site managers at both ends from misunderstandings or legal problems from third parties.

Allowed Site Content

Portions of the RagPiano.com site may be directly quoted on other internet web sites, eBay or auction site descriptions, or for ventures like CD liner notes with the following parameters in mind. Each quote may be 299 words or less, and must acknowledge the original source. Even a paraphrase or concatenation that contains material largely exclusive to the RagPiano.com site needs to be properly cited, as many of the web articles have been entered into legal copyright with the Library of Congress, and they in turn expect the copyright holder to enforce their own copyrights as protection for all parties. Any quotes that are minimized and taken out of context of a larger topic will be initially disavowed, then dealt with in a manner that will hopefully result in proper usage of that quote.

Discouraged Use

There are some shorter sections of the site for which direct quotations are discouraged since they constitue, even in brevity, a whole section. This would include complete individual descriptions for any of the posted MP3 pieces, any composer biography taken as a whole, and similar completed sections such as a link description from the links page. Use of these in some part may be requested directly from me, but a wholesale unacknowledge quote of what is described in this paragraph is decidedly discouraged as plagiarism, and if used in the wrong context will be dealt with in a dignified but decisive manner.

The use of recordings for distribution through AAC, OGG, MP3, WAV, other audio formats or MIDI files or CDs of any kind is discouraged and prohibited by copyright and patent law. While somebody may make a single CD of their favorite MP3 files converted to audio with their favorite selections, know that this will be of lesser quality than the original studio recordings and/or MP3 or converted MIDI files which undergo translation loss when converted to web format. Therefore they do not fully represent my original performances. For this and other legal reasons, distribution of any such CD beyond a single copy will be considered a bootleg and therefore copyright and patent infringement in the same manner that copying my audio CDs for this purpose would be considered as such. I would hope that respect for the artist on many levels, which includes all of the research, writing, compilation, learning, recording, and finally presentation of each number, some requiring thirty to fifty hours of overall work per piece, would be extended in this regard.

And the Rest...

These matters are the ones I hate to deal with. However, I have had some use which created legal issues and even some manner of depletion for me, including bootleg CDs, and a complete translation of my site into another language some years ago minus one important element - my name. So the protections are in place for all concerned. Please know that I very rarely deny any request, so don't let the dogs at the gate (the above paragraphs) scare you off from asking, because I do love to share. However, I also feel my considerable efforts deserve some respect, and I will extend the same back to all who ask for use. Thank you.