Did you know that there is a project, a sort of Wikipedia, for sheet music in the public domain? The International Music Score Library Project, also called the Petrucci Music Library, currently owned and run by the company Project Petrucci LLC, was created in 2006 to provide free music scores through the internet. Its goal is to collect all scores in the public domain.
When a work is in the public domain, it is not protected by copyright and is free to be distributed. In Canada, copyright is valid for the duration of the creator’s life (or the last surviving contributor’s life) plus fifty years. Contributors can refer to editors or arrangers who make significant edits to the piece. However, reprinted editions of works in the public domain do not qualify for copyright. If the author is unknown, then the work is copyrighted the time it is published plus fifty years. Modern works not in the public domain can also get a Creative Commons license. This would allow the creator to share their work with the public, with varying conditions depending on the license.
IMSLP offers over 140000 works by over 17000 composers. The database is searchable but also organized by composers, nationality, time period, and instrumentation/genre. From the ancient period to the modern era, from cello suites to vuvuzelas, all sorts of music scores are available only a few clicks away.
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