Tortoiseshell Music Home of composer Nathan Curtis

This website showcases a large amount my (Nathan Curtis's) intellectual and creative property, and also occasionally makes use of the intellectual and creative property of others. Furthermore, this site is primarily devoted to music on the internet, which has been a very contentious area for intellectual property law. Accordingly, the copyright and licensing aspects of material on this site can be very convoluted. If any of the forthcoming explanations seems incomplete, unclear, or erroneous, please contact me with your concerns.

Basic copyright information

Most of the material at tortoiseshellmusic.com is copyrighted by Nathan Curtis or Tortoiseshell Music.¹ In particular, all writings and musical scores which are attributed to Nathan Curtis or Tortoiseshell Music are copyrighted by one of the above. Any writings or musical scores presented on this website should be assumed to be copyrighted by Nathan Curtis or Tortoiseshell Music if the copyright notice "All contents © 2001-08 Nathan Curtis unless otherwise noted" appears at the bottom of the page where they are found.

The sound recordings on this website are copyrighted by their respective performers unless otherwise noted, even if they are recordings of musical works copyrighted by Nathan Curtis and/or Tortoiseshell Music. All recordings of musical works composed by Nathan Curtis are used here with the permission of their respective copyright owners. In the case of mp3 files available for download from this site, the performers should be indicated in the id3 tag of each file.

Photographs appearing on this site are usually not copyrighted by Nathan Curtis or Tortoiseshell Music, but are used with the permission of their respective copyright owners. Copyright information for photographs on this site will usually be indicated in text accompanying the photographs, or in alt or title tags for the image itself.

Additionally, portions of this site may, under fair use guidelines, incorporate writings, musical score, sound recordings, or photographs whose copyrights do not fall under the categories listed above. If not stated explicitly, these works are copyrighted by the creators to whom the works are attributed. However, content which is merely linked to from pages within tortoisheshellmusic.com and not actually hosted there may not be attributed in the manner described above. Nathan Curtis and Tortoiseshell Music assume no responsibility for the copyright status of linked to from this site, or for the proper use thereof.

Licensing information

Much of the content at tortoiseshellmusic.com which is copyrighted by Nathan Curtis or Tortoiseshell Music is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License ("CC By-NC license"). This license allows other users to copy and redistribute this content, and even produce derivative works based on this content, subject to certain restrictions, as summarized below. For more information, see the copy of the license linked to above, or go to creativecommons.org to find out more about "some rights reserved" licensing in general.

Under the CC By-NC license, users are permitted to copy and redistribute licensed works, or produce derivative works involving licensed works, as long as the user a) clearly identifies the creators of the initial work, and b) is not using the work for commercial purpose. This does not mean that commercial uses of the licensed material are entirely forbidden; as with any copyrighted work, other people may use these works commercially if they obtain the express written permission of the copyright holder beforehand. So, if you want to use any of the works of Nathan Curtis for commercial purposes, whether or not those works are covered by a CC license, you should contact him to ask permission. Even if you're using his works according to the licensing guidelines, it would be nice to contact him in advance -- he'd like to know how his music is getting around, and help spread the word about performances.

Now, not all of the content copyrighted by Nathan Curtis or Tortoiseshell Music at tortoiseshellmusic.com is released under the aforementioned Creative Commons license. All writings and musical scores which are freely available from this website are released under the CC By-NC license unless otherwise noted. However, the license only applies to those particular versions of a given work. Musical scores purchased from the online store are, in general, not under any CC license, unless otherwise noted. Sound recordings available from this website, even if they are solo recordings of Nathan Curtis (and thus copyrighted solely by Nathan Curtis), are not released under any CC license unless explicitly noted otherwise -- Nathan Curtis and Tortoiseshell Music have secured permission to make these recordings available to the public, but not for subsequent redistribution. The licensing status of musical scores and similar works with multiple creators, including Nathan Curtis or Tortoiseshell Music, may vary from work to work; consult the copyright information listed for each individual such work.

We hope all this information has not scared you away from the works of Nathan Curtis and Tortoiseshell Music. After all, Creative Commons licenses are intended to encourage the lawful use -- and reuse -- of copyrighted works. So please: enjoy the music!

¹Tortoiseshell Music is the business name adopted by Nathan Curtis for music publishing and related activities, as recognized by the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is possible that some references to "Tortoiseshell Music" should be more properly construed as referring to "Nathan Curtis," and vice versa.