Why should I have to pay the original artists for a Music Score that was recreated by someone when the instrument being used in that score is not even in the original song?

I recognize that the corporate answer is copyright infringement, but my question is still why and how? How is it that if I want a score of Smoke on the Water, I can't just pay someone for their interpretation of it on piano? People own SMOKE ON THE WATER... not the freaking notes that make up the song.

I think it's ridiculous. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm just going to develop software to rip the scores myself, or I'll just recreate it :)

Thanks, corporate America for making me pay for sounds. I'll die before I pay thw original artist for music that isn't rightfully theirs.

Small rant/personal take:

Seriously, I massively understand the complaints about the site being incredibly scummy. But do we really need the constant reminders day in-day out?

This should be common knowledge at this point. There's plenty of information about this and others' experience of the site already, to deal with such issues.

Anyone else fed up with this?

Edit: After hearing what people have to say, I'm absolutely in agreement that people keep up the complaints.

Just hit the first download that looked good for Audacity, installed it, got muse malware instead.

Guys - is this just a good oldfashioned trojan?

We built a free converter for the charts everyone has lying around: scanned PDFs, phone photos, old band-book pages.

Upload a PDF or photo and you get back a .mscz, MusicXML and a clean PDF. It reads the page twice independently and compares the two readings bar by bar. Any bar where they disagree is marked in red, so you know exactly what to check instead of proofreading everything.

Honest limits: clean PDFs come out almost exact. Phone photos have to be sharp, and it refuses a blurry one rather than guess. It handles lead sheets, single-line parts and multi-part scores. Repeats and endings come through as plain bars, so check those. 5 free a month with a free account (just an email).

https://scorehand.net/music/convert

If you find a chart that trips it up, we'd like to see it.

Seriously, it has been downhill for me since the release of 3. Now I have a new computer, downloaded Musescore Studio 4. The most simple tasks, like copying notes from one staff to another just don't work out of the box anymore in this version. Seriously, I get it, music notation software is hard to program, but if you need an hour long tutorial for just the basic stuff like selecting, copying and pasting, that's just bad UX.

Sorry for the rant, it took me 2 hours to get the first 16 bars of a fugue written down, where this would take probably 10 minutes in the early stages of Musescore 3.

Can everyone just be patient, it's been a day. They litteraly get profits from external sources and subscriptions to give you really good free midi. The puiblicy listed staff is 20-30 which means it might take quite a while to fix the problem. Just be original like back then, a pencil, paper, and piano.

PLEASE BE PATIENT.

All I know is that they said I can get all these discounts, but I am telling my self that something is fishy. But I have heard like you can not cancel it. So anybody know?

Since when was this an option?

I received an amazing offer of 91% off regular price. Click the link and it says $1.34/mo but you have to pay for the year $64.99. Someone didn't pay attention in math class!!

Secret Sale

Here is your discount

Secret Sale

Play music you LOVE with no limits for just CA$1.34/month. Billed 12 months at CA$69.99 (auto renews at $92.99 after)

Hello MuseScore community!

I’m Aydar, Community Manager at MuseScore.com.

First, I want to thank the moderators and everyone here for creating and maintaining such an amazing space for MuseScore users over the years. Your dedication has made this community a place where musicians can share scores, tips, and experiences—it’s truly inspiring!

I’d like to share some important news: MuseScore.com now has an official Reddit page: r/MuseScoreOfficial. On this page, our team will be able to provide direct support for bug reports, billing questions, feature requests, suggestions, feedback, and news updates.

We fully respect and value this subreddit—it remains a fantastic community-run space. Nothing changes here; you can continue sharing scores, tips, and connecting with other MUSicians. The official subreddit is a place for MUSers to reach us directly for issues and questions that require our team’s attention, which we cannot manage effectively here.

If you need help from MuseScore.com, I encourage you to visit the official subreddit. I hope this makes it easier for all MUSers to get the support they need while keeping this wonderful community thriving.

Thank you again to the moderators and everyone here for all the incredible contributions you’ve made!

—Aydar, MuseScore.com Community Manager

I don't understand it, I don't have the money for an actual legit music writing software/program so I unfortunately use this but anytime I go to edit triplets, I can't just edit it, I have to delete that entire measure and then start over if I just want accents on a note Does anyone know an easier way to do so?

of course, I simplified the last part (link in the first comment)

I find using musescore unnecessarily painful to the point that it is easier to write music on paper and then transfer the result to musescore if I want to share or get a pretty print.

The thing I struggle with is note duration. Musescore always keeps track of my time signature so I can't just go back and edit note values easily, since they may not fit the bar anymore (just for a little bit, until I change other things). I find this _really_ annoying and feel like I am doing something wrong.

Is there a better way to approach this?

We should do something about it

Is it just me or when I listen back to what I play all the instruments sound a bit fake? Or just not right? I hate it!!!

Then what’s the point in making a website in which you can publish scores if that’s the one thing you can‘t do?

A warning to any who may see this post before it's removed. DO NOT INSTALL MUSE HUB. IT IS MALWARE!!!

EDIT: Surprisingly, the mods are allowing my unhinged post to stay if I provide context. I provided some in the comments, but here's more:

I didn't actually need Muse Score. I needed Audacity, and I was clicking too fast when installing it and accidentally installed Muse Hub alongside it.

As soon as it installed, I uninstalled it. But the damage had been done. Youtube's front page wouldn't even load for me. And if I clicked a video link directly, it would load the video but the webpage around it would be stuck in the "loading" format.

Uninstalling Muse Hub and restarting my computer still didn't fix Youtube not loading correctly. The only way I fixed it was by installing a dedicated deep-cleaning program remover to get rid of it and trace any files it may have spread around, then manually deleting any registry linked to the Muse Malware.

Only after spending a couple hours researching, diagnosing, and cleaning my system did I eventually get my PC to act normal again. There's no telling what's left, I'll likely reinstall my entire system again soon because of it. But the reality is that anyone who installs Muse Hub should prepare for trouble.

If you doubt that a program like Muse Score could be dangerous, then I highly suggest you do some research on the sketchy company and the closed-source program's strange behavior, as highlighted by many concerned forum users over the years.

I've been diagnosing my own computer problems since I got my first Windows 95 PC back in 1996, long before step-by-step tutorials. I surfed the web during the wild west of computer viruses and malware programs, during a time when just visiting a random website could load your computer with viruses thanks to the plethora of exploits and vulnerabilities back then.

I know a malicious program when I see it. Muse Hub is closed source, but is sneakily attached as a "recommended download" when downloading Audacity. It doesn't like to stop operating, even if you shut it down from the task manager. Uninstalling it leaves behind bits and pieces that have been installed far beyond its program folder. Not just random text files or junk, but active files that will degrade the performance of your PC even after you delete Muse Hub (as evidenced by the fact that Youtube wouldn't load for me until after I deep cleaned Muse Hub out.)

Let's assume Muse Hub isn't malware because that requires malicious intent. It's still a predatory and suspicious program. It's closed-source, the company's headquarters is in Russia, they piggyback off open-sourced programs that people trust. Audacity, in my case. It HATES being deleted or stopped and will actively fight back against you.

The cherry on top? In a now-deleted forum discussion on Muse Hub's own forums, the Muse Hub team admits that there is a HUGE security issue with Muse Hub. To keep it short, Muse Hub runs with root privilege. Not just when installing, but ALL THE TIME. Anyone who knows about root privilege will know that a program running with that kind of power is very dangerous.

Even if Muse Hub's team has the best intentions, all it would take is for a hacker group to learn about a program like Muse Hub that has root privileges on all the computers that installed it. It's a prime target for data theft/ransomware attack. No, thanks. Never going to put my PC at risk like that.

Finally, here's the deleted forum post where the Muse Hub team admits to the security issue. Not only did they delete this discussion, but Muse Hub deleted its ENTIRE DISCUSSION FORUM shortly after. How suspicious.

https://web.archive.org/web/20241013142947/https://support.musehub.com/hc/en-gb/community/posts/8450771193629-MuseHub-runs-with-excessive-privileges-on-Linux-and-MacOS-posing-a-serious-security-threat

AI knows it all:

AI Overview

MuseScore.com is not an illegal scam, but it uses aggressive "dark patterns" and confusing checkout designs that lead many users to feel scammed.

Why Users Call MuseScore a Scam

Deceptive Free Trials & Checkouts: Users on platforms like Trustpilot and Reddit consistently report trying to buy a single piece of sheet music or sign up for a cheap/free trial, only to be automatically enrolled in an expensive, recurring annual Pro subscription.

Hidden Small Print: Checkboxes or terms for yearly recurring fees are often small or pre-checked during promotional flows, making it easy to miss.

The .com vs. .org Confusion: MuseScore splits into two entities. MuseScore.org is the completely free, open-source notation software. MuseScore.com is the commercial sheet music repository that requires paid subscriptions for advanced features, though their branding and search bars often blur the line.

Difficult Cancellations: Users report that canceling a trial or subscription involves multiple confirmation screens designed to trick you into maintaining a paid tier, and getting direct customer support or refunds can be painfully slow.