Recently it was announced that The Muse Group (owner of the open source projects MusesCore and Audacity) has resumed its attempts to want to close the "musescore-downloader" repository which is an application to download sheet music from musescore.com for free without having to log in to the site and without connecting to a paid subscription of Musescore Pro.
And is that Muse Group asked the author to voluntarily remove the repositories musescore-downloader and musescore-dataset.
In the case of first repository, this contains an application that allows you to download any content from the musescore.com service for free via an internal API call. The repository needs to be closed because the musescore downloader illegally bypasses copyright protection systems (there are no claims against accessing public content from musescore.com).
While on the part of the second repository, musescore-dataset, it illegally distributes copies of licensed works from music publishers. In the case of musescore-dataset, the problems are more serious and can be considered a crime.
Upon such request, the author of the repositories just refused to remove the repositories y Muse Group faced a difficult dilemma. On the one hand, there is a threat of termination of the musescore.com service and on the other hand, there is the possibility of paralyzing a person's life.
The simplest solution would be to hire lawyers and submit an official DMCA request to GitHub to block repositories, but Muse Group decided not to resort to such actions, but to negotiate unofficially, After they discovered that Wenzheng Tang, the developer, left China for political reasons and in case of problems with the law, he will face cancellation of his residence permit and deportation, followed by persecution in his country for insulting the Chinese government.
On the other side, there is the probability of breaking the status quo that has been achieved with music publishers. Initially, all content was hosted on MuseScore by volunteers for free and with no access restriction, but then persecution of the community by copyright holders began and the creators of MuseScore put a lot of effort into staying afloat. and maintain the site.
The problem is that the rights to transcribe a piece of music into scores and arrangements belong to the copyright holder, regardless of who performed the transcription or arrangement.
At the expense of the continued operation of MuseScore.com, it licensed musical scores to popular works owned by companies such as Alfred, EMI and Sony, and limited access with the introduction of a paid subscription system. The Muse Group is required by law to enforce copyrights for licensed music, and a loophole for unlimited downloads of licensed content poses a threat to the service.
The confrontation with the author of musescore-downloader has been going on since February 2020, so the time for reflection is almost over and a decision will be made soon. Copyright holders can also take action against the infringer directly at any time.
The position of the author of musescore-downloader comes down to the fact that he used a publicly documented standard API in his program, the information of which was removed from the musescore.com site after the creation of the application.
Furthermore, the author of usescore-downloader considers it incorrect that access to publications prepared by enthusiasts and initially placed in open access for free was limited to paid subscribers only, while the Muse Group does not own the rights to the elaborated content. by users, as it is mentioned that users do not own the rights to the scores of other people's works, as the copyright holder is the musicians and music publishers.
Finally, if you are interested in knowing more about it about the case you can check the details In the following link.