I posted the following article on my blog on June 29, 2010. Within hours, it became that rarest of creatures, a viral Internet sensation, and it has been viewed 200,000 times since then. The Dramatists Guild asked if they could reprint that article, so here it is with a couple of small emendations... so as to discuss what I've learned and encountered since I first published it.
I have known for a while that there are websites where you can essentially download sheet music for free, and I am certainly aware that a lot of the sheet music being downloaded in that manner was written by me. While my wife Georgia Stitt has written extensively about this problem, I have tended to sit back, certain that anything I do would just be the tiniest drop in a very large bucket. But about a month ago, I was seized by the idea to try an experiment.
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