Publish, sell, buy and download sheet music and performance licenses!
   
 
 
 
 

Terms and Conditions

Version effective from July 16, 2012
   
 

Please note:

This English translation of the MusicaNeo Terms and Conditions is provided for the convenience of our non-German-speaking customers. Regardless of this, only the original German version is legally binding.

1. Preamble

Load.CD GmbH, Rothausstrasse 1, 8280 Kreuzlingen, Switzerland (in the following also “MusicaNeo”, “we” or “us”) provides with www.musicaneo.com (in the following also “MusicaNeo website” or “platform”) a platform for online publishing, licensing and the purchase of sheet music, especially. We charge no fees (such as a membership fee) for the personal pages, so the project relies on commission for download- or license-fees. Therefore, please understand that the personal pages may not be used as an advertising platform for sheet music you only want to sell elsewhere. The website www.musicaneo.org offers services to academic institutions and their users. Therefore separate Terms and Conditions apply.

2. Definitions

The following definitions are used, indicated by a capital letter.

  • 2.1. “Customer”: Each person using the MusicaNeo website and our services as available and/or described below, including the Personal Pages, whether registered or not. A Customer is referred to as “Uploader” or “Downloader”, depending on the respective activity.
  • 2.2. “Visitor”: An unregistered Customer.
  • 2.3. “Content”: Any works, such as, compositions, texts, images, sound, or any other material that (depending on the context) is uploaded, to be uploaded or made available for printing, partially for printout only.
  • 2.4. “Work”: A personal intellectual creation, whatever may be the mode or form of its expression (e.g. a digital file, printout or recording) including digital form, such as a musical composition with or without lyrics; a work of drawing or literature.
  • 2.5. “Personal Page”: A third-level-domain webpage a Customer can create with MusicaNeo and use for the upload of Content.
  • 2.6. “Protected Works”: Works that are protected by proprietary rights, including but not limited to copyrights and other intellectual property rights.
  • 2.7. “Unprotected Works”: Works that are not or no longer protected by any proprietary rights, especially not by copyright or other intellectual property rights (also known as public domain).
  • 2.8. “Digitized Copy”: A scan/digital photography of, including but not limited to, previously printed sheet music.
  • 2.9. “Download Fee”: A fee for the download of a file.
  • 2.10. “License Fee”: A fee for the right to use Protected Works in a manner specified in detail in the according licence agreement.
  • 2.11. "Chargeback": A request that the holder of a credit card or bank account files directly with his/her credit card company or bank to invalidate a payment.
  • 2.12.“Prepaid Account”: Personal account available for payments within MusicaNeo.

3. Field of Application

The Terms and Conditions set forth in this agreement govern all contractual relationship between us and our Customers. To save or print a copy of this agreement, please use your browser’s save or print command. These Terms and Conditions apply exclusively. Conflicting or from our Terms and Conditions differing conditions put forward by a Customer shall not be accepted, unless we have explicitly agreed to the individual case in writing.

4. Description of Services and Products

We offer the possibility to print Content against a fee, to upload Content to a Personal Page and to download third party Content from a Personal Page.

  • 4.1. Uploading Files to the Personal Page
    We provide registered Customers, who want to offer licences or digital Content to other Customers, Personal Pages on which they can make this Content available. As the Uploader, you can earn money by setting fees for making Content available or for granting licenses. We receive a commission from you on all fees earned on effective sales. A guide will lead you through the upload process, especially asking for the rights on the uploaded Content. At the end of this, you can choose whether other Customers shall have access to these files for free or whether they have to pay a Download fee. Also, if you hold all necessary rights, you have the possibility to offer licenses for public performances, either free of charge or against license fees. Licenses are available for Protected Works only. License Fees can be set based on exploitation (For example performance licenses: Payment either performance-based (pay per performance, must be performed within one year)) or flat priced (flat payment per year, unlimited amount of performances within this period). For details of fees see section 8. below.
    Please note that files you upload are processed by us, so that changes may occur, especially regarding resolution of images or attributes of PDF-files (e.g. printing will always be allowed).
  • 4.1.1. Additional publication of uploaded files on the website www.musicaneo.org You can ask for inclusion of your content to the database on the website www.musicaneo.org (online music archive, restricted access for registered, authorized users) and publish and offer for download and print-out by declaring your intention for inclusion for the individual file. It is not possible to set a Download Fee for that, so you will receive no remuneration for this.
  • 4.2. Downloading Files from Personal Pages
    Depending on the offers made by the owner of the Personal Page, you can download Content and/or buy licenses, either free of charge or against a fee.
  • 4.3. Content offered for direct printout only
    Paid print-only Content is not available for download but for direct-print only. Content can be viewed online as long as it is on offer in our catalogue. You may not download the print-only Content for storage on your own or any other computer. You also have no right to redistribute the content in any form or file format for commercial or any other purposes, or alter, edit or tamper with the file of print-only Content or print-out, other than alterations available through the “Sibelius | Cloud Publishing technology” or explicitly authorized by us.
  • 4.4. Address Verification
    After uploading a file to your Personal Page for the first time, you have to pass through an address verification check once. We will send you a letter by the mail to the address you entered after the first completed upload process, containing a code you have to enter on the MusicaNeo website, before the file is made available for download for other customers. This verification is done for two reasons: First, we want to prevent illegal Content posted on the Personal Pages. Second, we comply with Swiss anti-money laundering rules (see https://www.finma.ch/e/ ).
    Please note that you have to enter the real address where you live. A PO Box is not sufficient.
  • 4.5. Visitors
    As Visitor, you can download any files that are offered for free, but may not upload any Content yourself. To buy files or licenses on MusicaNeo or to upload Content, you have to register first.
  • 4.6. Identity of Customers
    Although we perform a postal address verification check with each Uploader, we do not guarantee that correct contact data were given and stored for any Customer’s account. Therefore, each Customer should ensure him-/herself of the identity of a contract partner.
  • 4.7. Registration
    To register with MusicaNeo, you must be contractually capable under your national law. If you are not, please ask your legal representative to open an account for you. Multiple registration using different names and/or addresses is prohibited. We reserve the right to refuse a registration or exclude a Customer in its sole discretion. Should any of the information given during the registration process change after submitting, you are required to update that information as soon as possible. You agree that Load.CD GmbH is allowed to keep a history of all information you enter including all changes and additions made after registering. For more information please see our Privacy Policy.

5. Content and Activity

  • 5.1. Content Posted
    We may reject, refuse to post or delete any Content for any or no reason, including Content that in our sole judgment violates these Terms and Conditions or that may be offensive, illegal or violates the rights of any person or entity, or harms or threatens the safety of any person or entity. We undertake no monitoring of offers made on Personal Pages. If at any time we choose, in our sole discretion, to monitor services on Personal Pages, we nonetheless assume no responsibility for the Content, no obligation to modify or remove any inappropriate Content, and no responsibility for the conduct of the Customer submitting any such Content.
  • 5.2. License on Content Posted granted to us
    By posting any Content on your Personal Page, you hereby grant to Load.CD GmbH and its affiliated companies a limited license to publicly display and distribute such Content or parts of it in any form and any media for advertising purposes, and to a preview function for other Customers. The license you grant to Load.CD GmbH and its affiliated companies is irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable and worldwide.
    License includes but is not limited to the rights for reproduction, distribution and transmission, as well as the rights for public access, the rights for communication of broadcasts and for the communication by means of audio and video recording.
    As the Uploader, you may remove files from your Personal Page at any time. You agree that Load.CD GmbH may keep, but is not obligated to do so, a back-up archive of Content that was deleted by you from your Personal Page and make it available to other Customers who have purchased or licensed that Content from you.
  • 5.3. Content Prohibited
    The following are examples of the kind of Content that is illegal or prohibited to post on or through MusicaNeo’s services. We reserve the right to investigate and take appropriate legal action against anyone who, in our sole discretion, violates this provision. Offending Content may be removed by us from our services and violators may be denied access to its website. Prohibited is particularly:
  • 5.3.1. Copies of Works protected by copyright law, unless the Customer owns the rights necessary;
  • 5.3.2. Content, that promotes defamation, discrimination, racism, intolerance on religion, hatred or physical or mental harm of any kind against any group or individual; harasses or advocates harassment of another person or group
  • 5.3.3. links to websites with content that is not appropriate for minors, especially pornographic sites or gambling services;
  • 5.3.4. information that, if published, creates or could possibly create a privacy or security risk to any person or group;
  • 5.3.5. Content that promotes any criminal activity especially instructional information about illegal activities, particularly construction manuals for weapons, instructions for hacking, circumventing protective measures or for spreading computer viruses;
  • 5.3.6. Content to solicit passwords or information for commercial or unlawful from other Customers;
  • 5.3.7. commercial activities and/or sales without prior written consent from us, especially advertising; or
  • 5.3.8. Content that violates the privacy rights, publicity rights, copyrights, trademark rights or contractual rights of other persons, or that is otherwise unlawful.
  • 5.4. Activity Prohibited
    The following are examples of the kind of activity that is prohibited on the MusicaNeo website. We reserve the right to investigate and take appropriate legal action against anyone who, in our sole discretion, violates this provision, including, without limitation, reporting Customers to law enforcement authorities. Prohibited activity includes, but is not limited to:
  • 5.4.1. criminal activity including fraud, gambling, harassment, stalking, spamming, skimming, sending of viruses, troyans or other harmful files as well as copyright, trademark or patent infringement;
  • 5.4.2. advertising to or the solicitation of other Customers to buy or sell any products or services by other means than MusicaNeo’s services;
  • 5.4.3. circumventing or modifying, attempting to circumvent or modify, encouraging or assisting any other person in circumventing or modifying any security technology or software that is part of our services;
  • 5.4.4. Making use of files or programs, especially viruses, bots, worms, key loggers that monitor, interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of our computer software or hardware or otherwise permit the unauthorized access to a computer or a computer network;
  • 5.4.5. covering or obscuring the banner advertisements on the Customer’s Personal Pages ;
  • 5.4.6. any automated use of our services beyond the services provided by us, especially automated commenting or sending of messages;
  • 5.4.7. interfering with, disrupting or creating an undue burden on our services or the networks or services connected to the MusicaNeo website;
  • 5.4.8. impersonating another person or entity;
  • 5.4.9. using the account, username or password of another Customer or disclosing the Customer’s password to any third party or permitting any third party to access the Customer’s account;
  • 5.4.10. selling or otherwise transferring profiles;
  • 5.4.11. using information from the MusicaNeo website in order to harass, abuse or harm another person or entity or to attempt to do so; or
  • 5.4.12. using our services in a manner inconsistent with any and all applicable laws and regulations.
  • 5.5. Personal Page
    In addition to the rules stated above, on your Personal Page, the following rules apply:
  • 5.5.1. Hyperlinks
    If you want to set a hyperlink on your Personal Page, you have to make sure that the hyperlink does not lead to any Content prohibited (see section 5.3.). Hyperlinks should not be of advertising character, but be informational only. If a hyperlink leads to a page or platform that offers the possibility to download/buy works of yours/your clients, you have to offer the same works likewise on your Personal Page.
  • 5.5.2. No commercial advertisement
    You may not place any unauthorized commercial advertisement on your Personal Page, nor may you ask for or accept payment from a third party in exchange for performing any commercial activity.
  • 5.5.3. Personal Pages are no advertising platform for content offered somewhere else.
    Please do not use the Personal Page as an advertising platform for sheet music/files you want to sell with other platforms or publishers. We reserve the right to remove any Content that, in our sole discretion, is posted for the purpose to promote business with other entities than Load.CD GmbH.
  • 5.5.4. Active Site
    We reserve the right to remove your Personal Page as such or any Content on it, if the page, in our sole discretion, is passive, inactive or empty.
  • 5.5.5. Full works
    In case of sheet music, you may not upload partial works, but only the full works. This does not apply for unfinished works.

6. Customer’s Representations and Warranties, Release from Third Party Claims

It is your sole responsibility to examine whether you hold all necessary rights to upload the Content you want to upload. You agree to comply with all applicable laws, especially copyright laws, and the rules for Content and Activity mentioned above, (section 5). If you yourself are not the owner of the rights on the uploaded content, you warrant that you have obtained all necessary rights, licenses, consent and suchlike by the respective rights’ holders.

You agree to indemnify, defend and hold Load.CD GmbH, its subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, agents and employees harmless from any and all damages and costs, including, but not limited to, legal and attorneys' fees, claims of copyright infringement and claims for compensation by collecting societies.

You agree to immediately, accurately and completely provide us with all information that may be useful or necessary for the inquiry of and defence against claims by third parties.

7. Payment Methods

As a registered Customer, you will receive a Prepaid Account. We pay no interests on the Prepaid Account. To this account you can credit a minimum of $10.00 USD and a maximum of $1’000.00 USD total, either via direct crediting (maximum of direct credit is $500.00 USD) or by earning fees. Any payments or withdrawals done with the Prepaid Account are deducted from a given direct credit first, and if there is no such credit, will be deducted from any fees earned. If you use the Prepaid Account for payments within the MusicaNeo website you have to pay no handling fee for this.

Alternatively, you can make payments directly via credit card (Visa, Mastercard) using the PayPal interface or via your PayPal account, without using your Prepaid Account. Using this payment method, you will be charged a handling fee of 0.50 USD per transaction.

8. Licenses, Download Fees, Donations, Commission, Taxes

  • 8.1. No registration or upload fees
    For the registration and the upload of files we charge no fees.
  • 8.2. Setting download fees
    In case of Unprotected Works, as the Uploader you can choose to either offer other customers a free download or to set a Download Fee. In the case you want to set a Download Fee for Digitized Copies, you have to be authorized by the publishing house, if the source was not published more than 50 years ago. As the Uploader of Protected Works you can choose to set a Download Fee or offer a free download as well. The minimum Download Fee is $1.00 USD.
  • 8.3. Setting license fees
    Independently from any Download Fees as the Uploader of Protected Works you can choose to grant a license for public performances, either royalty-free or against a license fee. The payment for Licenses can be set either performance-based (pay per performance) and/or flat priced (one flat payment per year). The minimum License Fee is $1.00 USD.
  • 8.4. Collecting Download and License Fees
    If a Customer has decided to download a file or buy a licence against a fee and accepted an offer made by you as the Uploader on your Personal Page, you authorize us to collect the fees on your behalf. You agree that any amount you earn via the MusicaNeo website, fees deducted, will be credited to your Prepaid Account.
  • 8.5. MusicaNeo Commission
    We charge a commission of 1/3 (one third) from any fee we collect for you. Where applicable, Swiss VAT is included in this commission. The commission is due as soon as the fee is paid by the Customer. We will notify you via e-mail and on your information/news page about any payment.
  • 8.6. Chargebacks or other invalidations
    Payments you receive in your Prepaid Account may be reversed at a later time under certain circumstances. This is especially the case if such a payment is subject to a credit card Chargeback or any other form of invalidation of the financial resource, by which the respective payment was covered or if the payment was not initiated and authorised by the lawful owner of the PayPal account. This can even occur after your Contracting Partner received access to the file paid.
    In this case, you as the Uploader are obligated to return the payment to us. If you have sufficient credit, we will remove the funds from your Prepaid Account and return the payment to the Downloader. If the funds on your Prepaid Account do not cover the payment, you agree to pay the differing amount to us. We will charge a handling fee of $10.00 USD to you as an Uploader, but on the other hand will cancel the retained commission for this transaction.
  • 8.7. Donations
    We may provide you the possibility to receive donations via your Personal Page. For this, we do not charge a commission, in case you provide your own PayPal-Account for receiving donations. If you have no PayPal-Account, you may receive the donations in your Prepaid-Account. In this case we will retain the commission of 1/3 (one third) from donations credited to your Prepaid Account.
  • 8.8. Taxes
    As an Uploader it is your sole responsibility to pay any taxes that might be due on your profit, such as value added tax or income tax. This also applies to any donations you might receive.
  • 8.9. Invoices, Customer Addresses
    For an invoice on print-only Content offered not at the Personal Page of an Uploader, but purchased directly from us, please contact us to request an invoice by e-mail in PDF format.
    We will send you as an Uploader an encashment statement for payments received and an invoice (PDF-format) covering retained commissions on a monthly basis via e-mail. On request, we will send invoices by regular mail, charging a handling fee of $5.00 USD per sending of invoice.
    As Downloader, please note: Concerning collected fees for Content offered on the Personal Page of the Uploader, we only act as a collecting agency for the respective Uploader. Therefore, if you as the Downloader need an invoice covering the fees, you have to request it not from us, but from the respective Uploader. As the Uploader, you agree to send each Downloader an invoice covering the download/license fees, on request. For these purposes, we might provide the billing addresses mutually to the Uploader and Downloader concerned. Both parties must agree to use the thus obtained address only for issues arising in connection with the entered contract and the invoicing. Any use for commercial/advertisement purposes or providing the address to third parties is prohibited.

9. Withdrawal of Money

  • 9.1. General
    For a withdrawal, you may choose between a payoff to your PayPal-account, to any other bank account or a physical check through the mail. Generally, we send checks only to verified addresses and will not send checks to P.O.-boxes. If you would like us to send a check to an address that does not meet these criteria, you must contact our customer service and provide the documentation that we request.
    If the funds in your Prepaid Account contain money that has been credited directly as well as money earned by collecting fees, the part regarding collected fees is paid out, first.
  • 9.2. Forced payoff
    If the limit of $1’000.00 USD on your Prepaid Account is exceeded, we will pay off any amount exceeding $500.00 USD to you. If you or we terminate your membership with MusicaNeo, the total balance left on the Prepaid Account will be paid off, minus payout fees charged by us (see 9.5 below), if applicable.
  • 9.3. Requested withdrawal
    The minimum amount to be requested for withdrawal is $10.00 USD plus payout fees charged by Load.CD GmbH (see 9.5 below), if applicable.
  • 9.4. Payoff regarding funds that have been credited directly
    If you request a withdrawal regarding an amount that was credited directly to the Prepaid Account, we may require additional information to verify your identity like a scan of your passport for anti-money laundering reasons and other legal obligations, and to minimise a risk of fraud. This also applies in the case of forced payoff, see section 9.2 .
  • 9.5. Payoff Fees
    If you request a withdrawal regarding an amount you earned by collecting fees, we charge no fees for a payoff to a PayPal-account (although you might be charged fees by PayPal). If you request a withdrawal regarding an amount that was directly credited to the Prepaid Account, we charge an extra fee of $5.00 USD (added to the following fees, where applicable).
    In the case of a payoff to a banking account other than PayPal, we will charge a handling fee of $20.00 USD for each payment. Banking fees, especially for transactions to other countries than Switzerland, are with the account holder. In the case of a payoff via check, we will charge you a handling fee of $30.00 for each payment. If you fail to cash a check during its validity, we will return the funds to your balance, minus an additional fee of $30.00 USD.
    This applies respectively in the case of forced payoff, see section 9.2.
  • 9.6. Limits and delays
    We may limit you to withdrawing no more than $500.00 USD per month. In addition, we may delay withdrawals due to anti-money laundering compliance and other legal obligations, while we screen for risk or for Chargeback protection.

10. Downloading and Risk of Loss, Availability of Files

We encourage you to download files you paid for promptly and to make back-up copies of them, respectively, in case of print-only Content, print out the copy immediately with no delay after purchase. If you are unable to complete a download, respectively could not successfully print the copy of print-only Content, please contact our customer service. You bear all risk of loss after purchase and for any loss of files you have downloaded, including any loss due to a computer or hard drive crash. For print-only Content, you bear yourself all risk of an unsuccessful print-out if the reason for this is connected to your system, such as a not or not correctly connected printer, empty toner/ink cartridge, faulty paper feed or paper jam, a system crash during or after the print job or such like.

11. Liability

Load.CD GmbH shall not be held liable for slight negligence. Furthermore, Load.CD GmbH shall not be liable for oblique, indirect or secondary damages, consequential damages after defect, loss of profit, deprived savings, loss of earnings as well as loss of data, as far as legally permissible. In other cases, our liability is limited to damages typical for the contract.

We shall not be liable for any legal infringements committed by our Customers. If you as a third party detect any infringements, we ask you to denote the particular infringement and report it to us using the contact form. We may ask you for evidence for the infringement.

We will then pursue this information and eliminate a given illegal condition. If legally obligated, we will then disclose the Customer-related information to the third party for potential prosecution.

We cannot guarantee that a Customer really is the person he/she claims to be. Likewise, we cannot guarantee that Customers will not infringe or violate any laws or regulations.

We do not examine, whether or not the Content provided by its Customers is public domain and/or the Customer is entitled to grant a license.

The services provided by us at the MusicaNeo website may be unavailable or only limitedly available at any time, due to maintenance work or for other reasons, this situation does not entitle the Customer to make any claims against us.

We do not supervise whether a Downloader acts according to the license granted by the Uploader. The Uploader him-/herself shall be responsible for possible litigation.

12. Customer Complaint

If you as Downloader wish to report a complaint (e.g. a file does not contain the specified content or the content presentation does not meet your expectations of quality), we ask you to first contact the Uploader. If the situation cannot be solved, you can involve us via the contact form . We will then strive for settlement of the matter.

In the case of complaints concerning print-only Content, please inform us directly via the contact form.

13. Termination

We may terminate your membership, delete your profile and any content or information that you have uploaded and/or posted on the site or your or other Customer’s Personal Pages and/or prohibit you from using it for any reason, or no reason, at any time in its sole discretion, with or without notice.

Termination of your membership does not exclude you from any responsibility established by law or by these Terms and Conditions. Not limited to, but in particular, the provisions in Section 6, Customer’s Representations and Warranties, Release from Third Party Claims, shall survive any termination.

14. Miscellaneous

  • 14.1. Data Protection
    Use of a Customer’s personal information is governed by Load.CD GmbH’s privacy policy, which may be found here.
  • 14.2. Special Admonitions for International Use
    Should services of Load.CD GmbH (Switzerland) at the MusicaNeo website be accessed by a Customer outside of Switzerland, it shall be that Customer’s responsibility to ensure compliance with any local laws to the extent that they do or may apply.
  • 14.3. Applicable Law
    Swiss law governs exclusively the business relationship between us and the Customer and any dispute of any sort that might arise between the Customer and us out of or in connection with these Terms and Conditions, including their validity, breach or termination of contract.
  • 14.4. Place of Jurisdiction
    The place of Jurisdiction for all disputes arising from or in connection with the contract shall be Kreuzlingen, Switzerland. We shall also be entitled to file a claim at the court of the Customer’s place of residence.
  • 14.5. Updates and Changes to the Terms and Conditions
    We reserve the right to change our Terms and Conditions unilaterally for good reason or if the changes are of advantage solely for you. In case of non-essential clauses, good reason is given if the changes are required for technical matters, new functions or the like. In case of essential clauses, good reason is given if the change is required by law, change of jurisdiction or an obvious mistake. About any such unilateral change we will inform you in advance with a notice period of at least three weeks. If you do not contradict the changes within this notice period, the changes will apply at the given date. In case of other changes to the Terms and Conditions, we will ask you for explicit acceptance.
  • 14.6. Severability Clause
    If any provision of these Terms and Conditions shall be unlawful, void or unenforceable for any reason, then that provision shall be deemed severable and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of the remaining provisions.

15. Refund Policy

  • In case of a successful print-out of the purchased digital sheet music item fixed by our system we are unable to provide a refund due to the copyright policies and obligations towards the publishers. However, if you face problems with printing your sheet music and were not able to perform the print-out, you may contact our customer service with a refund request and if not able to resolve the problem we will return your money within 10 business days.
   
   
 
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