I have made many arrangements around 50 for my self, I was thinking in making my own blog. But i am not sure about legal stuff, I mean is it legal to make transcriptions and say they are for educational purposes even if they are given to many people ? Please someone help me, otherwise I am thinking on becoming and Ichigo uploader/arranger so I will not be alone if some kind of legal claim/demand comes over me.

If someone knows is this kind of arrangements are under the "Fair Use" law please tell me, if someone knows about a case similar to this please tell me too.

And thanks for all your answers : )

I mean is it legal to make transcriptions and say they are for educational purposes even if they are given to many people ?
Yeah it's legal. The number of people is inconsequential. It's just the declared and demonstrated purpose (educational) that matters.


Please someone help me, otherwise I am thinking on becoming and Ichigo uploader/arranger so I will not be alone if some kind of legal claim/demand comes over me.
Definitely please become a contributor and fulfill transcription requests. However, Ichiigo's doesn't have a legal defense team, so don't expect them to help you if you're site is targeted for some reason.

With that said... If you're worried enough about the legal issues, then just upload your contributions directly to Ichigo's, rather than hosting an independent site/blog of your own. You'll get full credit as the transcriber/arranger, and since Ichigo's is the distributor, they're the only one who has to worry about the legal side, rather than you having to worry.

Fair Use is relative and doesn't protect you from copyright infringement, rather it's a positive fact in your defense against a copyright infringement claim. The actual definition of if you have plagiarized a work or not is done via a survey vote over 17 U.S.C. §107 (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html). Ichigos is covered under fair use, as we claim the resulting sheet music is a byproduct of the educational process of transcribing music by ear; further emphasized as we provide a non-profit service via a decentralized community. What you defined above is in the gray zone of fair use, as it may be educational for you, it may not be targeted as educational purposes for the masses as they cannot contribute towards the byproduct (snuffing the purpose of the education exclusion clause in the fair use definition).

That said, there's nothing stating that a copyright holder could come up and state that we have infringed on their rights, and the involved party will receive a subpoena, albeit the fact that they're under fair use.


I would take the time to review the Wiki article on Fair Use. It's quite accurate in defining it and what could happen with it should subjugation occur.

Yeah, sarlc, I should have mentioned that too.

So as an addendum to my previous post, yes it's legal, but it's not a guarantee, as it doesn't block claimants from filing cases against you. The educational purpose is more like protective evidence to help yourself if you do get targeted for some reason. You just have to pass the "sniff test" of fair use, as outlined in the law. So just reemphasize: Yes, fair use is legal, but if you get challenged on it, then the findings must agree with your claim that it is indeed "fair use".


Just upload to Ichigo's and worry less about the legalese. =D

Frankly, I'd like to see more uploads here, rather than so many people hosting their own sites/pages/blogs, which are not as reliable in my opinion, as far as uptime. *looks at Anime on Strings and Sperion as two such examples* When you actually read the law, you might be scared off, but it only sounds more intimidating than it actually plays out in reality. Especially when it comes to sites like this one. =)