The man behind one of the legitimate online sellers of sheet music has expressed some concern at the Music Publishers' Association's announcement that they are planning a more proactive legal campaign against those websites illegally supplying musical scores online.
Jonathan Irons of Sheetmusic.now says that he essentially supported the industry association's campaign against those people making sheet music available without reimbursing publishers or songwriters, but urged the publishing sector to be careful in how it how it managed the communication of any campaign.
Those remarks seem to centre on comments made by the Music Publishers' Association earlier this week in which it said it would be targeting "big sites that people would think are legitimate". Irons fears that remarks like that will confuse the public as to which websites are legitimate and which are not, and as a result might stop sourcing sheet music online altogether.
Irons: "The picture that comes over is that the MPA thinks that music download sites are illegal. We feel this is adding to the scepticism around and we do expect this to have a negative effect."