Digitally Published Sheet Music

Sheet music licensed and published in various digital formats, subject to copyright restrictions and often protected by digital rights management technologies.

Sound and Vision

Examples

This entry includes all manner of published sheet music, including choral works, orchestral works, scores published in different forms such as PDF, PDF/A and XML.

Imminence

3/5
Action is recommended within three years, detailed assessment within one year.

Effort

2/5
It would require a small effort to preserve materials in this group, requiring the application of proven tools and techniques.

Hazards

Encryption; uncertainty over IPR or the presence of orphaned works; uncertain business model of publisher; lack of legal deposit mandate.

Data Types/File-Formats

Mitigations

Rights management conducive to preservation; held in a trusted repository; legislation in place such as legal deposit enabling copying.

Bit List History

Added to list: 2019

2024: No change.

2023: No change.

Last Review

2023 Review

In 2019, this entry was added as a subset of a previous 2017 entry, ‘Digital Music Production and Sharing,’ which was split to draw attention to the different challenges faced by the different forms. This entry focuses on digitally published sheet music, which often takes the form of PDF and PDF/A, and E-Book formats. The 2021 Jury made no changes to this entry classification or trend but did comment on the importance of legislation (such as legal deposit) to manage associated risks. The 2022 Taskforce noted no change to the trend (they agreed these risks remain on the same basis as before).

The 2023 Council agreed with the Endangered with the overall risks remaining on the same basis as before (‘No change’ to trend) though noted an increase in imminence of action.

2024 Interim Review

These risks remain on the same basis as before, with no significant trend towards even greater or reduced risk (‘No change’ to trend).

Additional Information

The commercial value of these materials should be a protection against their loss, and the history of the music industry indicates that sheet music continues to have value, so even if an individual organization fails or its DRM servers go offline, and some music becomes inaccessible, it is not lost. However, the difficulties of archiving DRM-locked files remain real.

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