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The Inevitable Legal Notices.

Sure; I might have an occasional daydream about Sony or BMG buying the righ
ts to all this music for a hundred grand, but I'm not holding my breath. It has
crossed my mind that some of it may actually be marketable to the television in
dustry, but I'm no marketer, and I really don't want to invest the time. So her
e it is folks: the legal stuff.
I am the sole creator of this material; it is 100% homemade. All of the mu
sic on it was composed, sequenced, mixed, and recorded by me in my own home, so
I own both the creation and the performance copyrights. The license which I fre
ely grant to you is as follows:
All of the files in this archive are freeware FOR INDIVIDUAL USE AND EDUCAT
IONAL PURPOSES. You may listen to this music, make and distribute copies of thi
s archive, or any of the files in it, so long as they are distributed at or belo
w actual cost, and this copyright notice accompanies them. Sale of this music b
y anyone other than myself is expressly prohibited: NO profit allowed under this
license. Significant infractions may result in prosecution of the perpetrators
. Do not try to claim that you created this music, as I am well able to prove m
y authorship.
You certainly may read the MIDI files to learn how things were done; that's
why I included them. If the things I've learned by experimentation show when y
ou look at the nuts and bolts, and I actually help you learn how to write MIDI f
iles, I am truly blessed.
In short, if you're an individual acting as a free citizen and not for prof
it, you can do anything you want to do with this music that's not destructive of
anyone's understanding of what the original version was. You may post it on yo
ur own web page if you so desire, so long as you tell them all that it's mine.
If you pass it on to others, pass it on the way that you received it. The reaso
n for these provisions is to keep these files the way that I wrote them, so if y
ou want to rewrite and create derivative works, PLEASE! either talk it over with
me, or change the music so much that it no longer resembles my work, and even I
don't recognize it.
All of the above is just basic good manners. I do accept musical tributes, in t
he sense that imitation is flattery, so good-natured quotation of melodic fragme
nts, similar to my own quotation of "Sailor's Hornpipe" in my tune, "Ogden" heri
n, will be overlooked, should they occur, but seriously, folks, I'm no "major co
mposer," and I don't expect any such thing to occur.
If you are acting under the terms of your gainful employment in dealing wit
h this music in any way, as the employee or representative of a broadcaster, orc
hestra, professional band, publisher, agent, recording company, motion picture s
tudio, or any other commercial entity, and would like to use any of this music,
you need to contact me, eddard@saw.net to discuss licensing.
If you're a practicing musician, a working musician, if you have an amateur
band or part-time professional one which would like to try any of this music, i
t's okay to play it, even play it for your audiences, PROVIDED: 1.) You do not o
ffer recordings of any of this music for sale without first obtaining a written
license from me, and 2.) The audiences before which any of this is performed are
small. This clause specifically exempts audiences of 2500 people and under; we
won't quibble about plus or minus a hundred, but we just might quibble about pl
us or minus 2500, should I happen to hear that one of my tunes was played in suc
h and such venue for an audience of 5000. If you do play for audiences this lar
ge and are into playing anything I wrote, it's easy enough to either leave my mu
sic silent inside your head, or in your (instrument) case when you play for bigg
er audiences, unless we get to where your popularity depends on my composition,
in which case, I'm part of the band, aren't I? Don't worry, its probably imposs
ible, but if things should ever work out this way, let's be friends, not enemies
.

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