Zurich, Switzerland (PressExposure) July 29, 2008 -- MyScoreStore is proud to announce the launch of its internet sheet-music self-publication platform. This online marketplace is intended to lower the barriers for composers who want to publish their music. The use of the platform is open to everyone: from established names to newcomers. MyScoreStore aims to promote a more direct relationship between composers and musicians looking for new music worldwide. To date, the platform already attracted over 60 composers from 20 countries, along with visitors from over 100 countries.

MyScoreStore offers a central and secure online environment in which composers and arrangers can upload and publish music in the same format in which they have written it. The platform lifts the burden of maintaining individual e-commerce websites from composers while providing them with the freedom to customize the presentation of their work. Those who upload music to the site are, for example, able to provide background information about themselves and their music, graphical score previews, audio samples, and multiple versions or separate parts of every title offered. They are also able to set their own prices. Customers, in turn, are able to download or print scores immediately after they have purchased them.

While music in audio form is increasingly available online, sheet music is only rarely distributed in digital form. Concerns about piracy have kept many publishers from offering a downloadable sheet-music catalog. Similar concerns originally caused hesitation in offering audio music online. Here, however, online channels are rapidly gaining in popularity as artists have started to distribute their own music via the internet. MyScoreStore offers composers, songwriters, and arrangers a convenient means of distributing their music in digital graphical form as well. For many, the risk of piracy - a phenomenon that will likely never completely disappear and that is not limited to the interest - seems to be outweighed by the new opportunities created by online sheet-music publication.

MyScoreStore founder and president Patrick Vergouwen notes that while mp3 was quickly adopted as a standard in digital audio, a similar standard has yet to be established for electronic sheet music. "Given the lack of a clear digital-publication standard, MyScoreStore offers a proposition many have been waiting for: The larger traffic afforded by a central distribution channel combined with the ability to offer scores in an individualized way." Composers may upload their work to the platform in any of a number of existing music-notation or graphical formats; even digitally scanned hand-written music has been offered on the platform. In this sense, MyScoreStore differs from the few existing commercial online sheet-music platforms, which require use of specific viewers, plug-ins, and software.

Also in contrast to other commercial sheet-music publication sites, is the fact that MyScoreStore charges no fixed fees for its use: a 20% fee is charged only on music sold. If the author of the music elects to distribute it free of charge, use of the platform is free of charge as well. "Transparency, fairness, and trust are paramount. As a business, we earn our share only when the composer does", Vergouwen explains. Music offered through MyScoreStore need not have been published elsewhere. nor does it preclude publishing it through other channels.

Although MyScoreStore’s focus is on individual composers, publishers are also free to offer their catalogs on the platform. "We place great importance on variety in our catalog", comments Vergouwen. "Composers (and publishers representing them) are often faced with the requirement that their work be of a minimum commercial potential to allow for publication. We, on the other hand, do not wish to act as a filter between composers and musicians. We are instead looking to offer our customers access to rare and original new music, and to offer our composers the freedom to publish exactly what they want."

©2008 MyScoreStore - All rights reserved.

About MyScoreStore

MyScoreStore is a privately held company based in Zürich, Switzerland. The company is managed by its founder Patrick Vergouwen. The company recently celebrated its first anniversary. In early 2008, together with Dutch information-technology partners Systony and digitalMonkey, the company launched its first central platform, MyScoreStore.com.

About Patrick Vergouwen
Patrick Vergouwen (30) was born in the Netherlands. As a hobby musician (various brass instruments and saxophone) and arranger for many local bands and orchestras, he was always looking for sources of new and original music. After completing his Masters in Business Administration at Erasmus University in the Netherlands and the financial management development program at General Electric, he decided to step away from a corporate career. He has combined his passion for music and knowledge of finance to create a platform to serve the international music community.

Contacts
Media relations: Elisabeth Coutts, coutts@myscorestore.com
Investor relations: Patrick Vergouwen, vergouwen@myscorestore.com

©2008 MyScoreStore - All rights reserved.

Press Release Source: http://PressExposure.com/PR/MyScoreStore.html