Frequently Asked Questions

The Business
What is Matthew J. Scott Music Publishing?
Matthew J. Scott Music Publishing is a company that provides sheet music and music book publishing administrative services that focuses on new composers and authors. This means that we take care of the administrative aspects of publishing such as sales, printing, distribution, and a share of advertising. We do all of this while allowing the composer to retain many of their rights and all of their ownership so that they can expand in the field of music.
Who is Matthew Scott?
Matthew Scott is a composer, musician, writer, and the owner of Matthew J. Scott Music Publishing. He lives in Fort Collins, Colorado. You can see his offerings here
Why is Matthew J. Scott Music Publishing different?
Matthew J. Scott Music Publishing acts as a publishing administrator in order to offer the composers it hosts as much freedom as possible while taking the burden of publishing off their hands. By allowing composers to focus on their music at their own pace without tying them to production contracts, we feel that they have more of a chance to grow into the field and to become better writers. Also, all music is print-on-demand, which means no initial runs to pay for if the music does not sell. Finally, by allowing the composer to retain most rights and ownership, they are free to do what they please with their music, including self-publishing, publishing through other companies, or donating printed copies of their music without worrying about rights issues.
How does the company work?
Each composers is offered a General Agreement to state that some of their works will be sold by Matthew J. Scott Music Publishing. This agreement has no stipulations on production, so a composer may add a piece a month to our catalog, or they may only publish one piece with us ever. Each piece is put under a contract to describe aspects of its publishing such as price and legal aspects. Finally, those pieces are presented to the public on MJS-Publishing.com for purchase online through Google Checkout. When a piece is purchased, it is printed on demand and shipped to the customer for performance.
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Composers
Why should I publish through Matthew J. Scott Music Publishing?
Matthew J. Scott Music Publishing offers great flexibility in terms of your intellectual property rights, allowing you to retain all ownership. This gives you, the composer, great freedom to write what you want, whenever you want without having to worry about production contracts or the hassles of printing and distribution
Who should publish through the company?
In its current state, the company is perfectly suited to student and non-professional composers. In other words, we are willing to publish anybody's music with the following caveat: as we are still quite new, we have no contracts with music distributors such as Flescher-Hinton or J. W. Pepper. This means slightly less exposure to musicians and groups that rely heavily on these sources. Also, since all music is currently offered on a print-on-demand basis, high-demand scores - choral scores in particular - may require additional time for production due to labor; of course, we welcome such a challenge!
How do contracts work?
When your first score is accepted for publishing, you are offered a general agreement stating business practices and relationships between you and Matthew J. Scott Music Publishing. You will be given three of these to sign, and you must send two signed copies back. For every score you publish through us, you will be sent three copies of a contract stipulating the rights, responsibilities, and publishing information such as price, payment, and coupon eligibility. Again, you will be given three copies to sign, and you must send two signed copies back. After that, your score will be added to the catalog!
What rights do I retain?
We retain only a non-exclusive right to publish your music. This includes printing, distributing, displaying, advertising, and so on. You are free to do anything with your work that you want: since the rights we retain are non-exclusive, you can even feel free to self-publish your music yourself for an added point of sale. Of course, we ask that if you're willing to sell through us that you use us as your distributors, but we won't hold you back, and if you want to donate your work to an ensemble, school, or individual, we are all for that!
What licensing schemes can I use?
Some restrictions apply to licensing due to the fact that the business is set up as a for-profit entity. This means that several more open licenses are currently beyond our reach legally. These include Creative Commons licenses utitilizing 'No-Commercial' restrictions. Such licenses may be available in the future through a separate legal entity run as a non-profit entity.
What responsibilities does Matthew J. Scott Music Publishing bear (and what am I left with)?
Matthew J. Scott Music Publishing will sell, print, and distribute your work, as well as take a share of marketing and advertising. The rest is on you: it is up to you to produce new works on your own schedule, to help with the advertising, and to let us know if anything changes. This is particularly applicable if you wind up in a situation involving an exchange of rights. Long story short, we need to know if you give someone else rights that we would be infringing upon. It is also your responsibility to secure copyrights, royalties, and permission in the case of texts and arrangements.
How can I learn more?
We have a sample contract and sample general agreement available for you to look at. Both require Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you have any further questions, feel free to contact us.
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Customers
How does Google Checkout work and why is it being used?
Google Checkout allows you to make secure purchases from businesses over the internet. As with any online store, you may simply add items to your shopping cart. When you are ready to check out, click the 'Google Checkout' button and you will be sent to Google Checkout where you can pay and apply any coupon codes you may have. When you submit your payment, we will process, print, and ship it to you as soon as possible. After you have received your order, you can view it on your Google Checkout account. We use Checkout due to its flexibility and security. Since we are such a small business currently, it makes little sense for us to have our own credit card processing system, when such a safe one is available to us.
Can I pay outside of Google Checkout?
Not yet - we are working on a framework to allow check and money-orders through mail.
What's the difference between active and inactive carts?
If you want to create a cart and save its contents for later, you may create a new cart, view it, and then make it your active cart. When you are finished adding items to it, you may make it inactive by viewing another cart and making it your active cart. This is similar to 'wish lists' on many other stores' websites. If you share your cart, you can allow others to view its contents much like a wish list by sharing the URL.
How long will orders take to get to me?
That depends on two factors: how many orders are in our queue and how much you ordered. Since orders are printed on demand, we will have to print all products before shipping them to you. In general, however, orders ship within one to two business days. See our shipping policies for more information.
I have a problem with my order!
Please contact us immediately and we will do our best to resolve the problem!
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The Site
Who made the site?
This site was written by Matthew Scott working under MJS Services, except for portions of this site: Google Checkout integration provided by the gchecky module written by Evgeniy Tarassov, the tagging mechanism written by Jonathan Buchanan, and the registration mechanism written by 'ubernostrum'. The store app is available at MJS Services.
What is the site run on?
This site is run on a SliceHost server running Debian Lenny. It is built using the Django web framework and written in Python.
I found a bug!
Please contact MJS Services about it!
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