Legacy Memberships
SMC will always honour its commitment to look after your music in our collection - storing it safely and making it available for consultation.
We regularly receive requests about the work of deceased composers and we do everything we can to ensure performers and researchers have access to the material and related information. In some cases this has come about through a renewed interest in a composer’s work, sometimes many years after their death. In recent years we have been pleased to help make possible performances and premiere recordings of work by Cecil Coles, Marie Dare, Francis George Scott, Erik Chisholm and William Wordsworth.
Option 1 Continuing Your Membership
Some composer members choose to arrange that their membership subscriptions (currently £120 per annum) continue as before, entitling their heirs to benefit from the full benefits of our regular scheme.
This includes the maintenance of a profile page on our website, promotion of performances through our social media channels, and the option of us selling and hiring their unpublished music on their behalf in return for a proportion of the income we receive for doing so.
Option 2
Legacy Memberships
For those composers who are unable to make such arrangements, we are introducing a new legacy membership scheme. For a one-off fee of £600 (or more if you can afford it) we would offer the same benefits of the regular membership scheme, but without the obligation to share the income from the sale or hire of your music. You may of course withdraw the permission for us to supply copies of your music to third parties, and if so your music would only be available for consultation by visitors to the Centre.
You may wish to make provision for this when making your will.
N.B - Should you not choose either membership option, we will continue to store the music we already hold and make it available for consultation on the premises. Any requests for copies of scores/parts will be forwarded to you for fulfillment. Should you wish for SMC to fulfil the request, you will be asked to cover the cost of any printing, copying, scanning, binding, invoicing and postage required.
Music not yet lodged at the centre
We aim to make our collection of each composer’s work as complete as possible. If you are able to donate copies of works not yet represented in the collection we would be most grateful.
Our priority is to ensure we have fair copies which can be used to quickly create and disseminate materials for performance and recording. We do not seek to accumulate original manuscripts and recommend that steps are taken to lodge them in a specialist archive, such as one of the main UK research libraries. However, if such attempts are unsuccessful we will consider taking care of them at least in the short-term.
Copyright
Lodging music in the Scottish Music Centre does not entail an assignment of copyright, which will remain with the copyright holder. In the case of unpublished music this will usually be the composer or their beneficiary (a family member or a trust) who will continue to derive income from the royalties generated by the performance, broadcast and recording of the work.
Some composers choose to assign copyright to Scottish Music Centre in their wills, providing a modest income that helps cover the cost of keeping their music safe and accessible for many years to come.
The PRS and the Musicians' Union can help beneficiaries of composers who were members ensure they receive royalties on their behalf.
