Wikifonia is an on-line publisher of sheet music

Sheet music

Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols; like its analogs—books, pamphlets, etc.—the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens...

, combining a MusicXML

MusicXML

MusicXML is an open, XML-based music notation file format.It was developed by Recordare LLC, deriving several key concepts from existing academic formats . It is designed for the interchange of scores, particularly between different scorewriters.Version 1.0 was released in January 2004...

-based technology in a wiki

Wiki

A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...

 system, with copyright

Copyright

Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...

 clearance.

Development

The Wikifonia system was developed in a collaboration between several institutes of higher education in Ghent

Ghent

Ghent is a city and a municipality located in the Flemish region of Belgium. It is the capital and biggest city of the East Flanders province. The city started as a settlement at the confluence of the Rivers Scheldt and Lys and in the Middle Ages became one of the largest and richest cities of...

 (Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

). March 2005 the researchers of the project received the Creativity to Business Award from AUGent (Ghent University Association). The system went live on 6 November 2006.

Copyrights

The Wikifonia system aims at the creation of music, the publication of public domain

Public domain

Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...

 traditionals, and the publication of previously copyrighted music.

Music published on the Wikifonia website is licensed by Musi©opy, a music copyright clearance organisation based in the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

. The actual rights are paid for by the Wikifonia foundation, a non-profit organisation founded in July 2006.

Wiki

The Wikifonia website can be browsed, and the sheet music downloaded in PDF

Portable Document Format

Portable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....

 or MusicXML

MusicXML

MusicXML is an open, XML-based music notation file format.It was developed by Recordare LLC, deriving several key concepts from existing academic formats . It is designed for the interchange of scores, particularly between different scorewriters.Version 1.0 was released in January 2004...

format, without login or subscription.

Uploading music, in MusicXML format, and commenting on published music require login or registration.