If you wanted to learn how to play Adele’s latest hit Hello or simply want to learn some Tori Amos tunes on the Piano, Scribd has you covered. The e-book subscription site has just added over 2,600 different kinds of sheet music.
Co-founder and CEO Trip Adler states, “We are excited to bring even more value to our subscribers and to connect them with many different types of books while helping publishers reach new audiences. Each new partner validates our belief in the longevity of the subscription model, and we look forward to continuing to offer the most diverse selection of content to our readers.”
It is important to note that Scribd’s sheet music business has two parts. The first is their new premium subscription service, through which they partner with publishers to provide content to subscribers at a fixed monthly price. The second is their free publishing service, through which individuals and organizations upload and share original content and documents.
Their free service has thousands of piano and guitar sheet music from famous performers. What I like about the free aspect is that you can download 10-12 songs without having to register an account. Suffice to say, most of the sheet music uploaded by users are of questionable origin, but Scribd is making strides to remedy this situation.
Scribd has an internal BookID copyright protection system that is designed to protect premium e-book content. This was primarily done to placate publishers concerns that they could properly monetize their content, without having to compete against the pirates. Now that Scribd is involved in sheet music they are augmenting BookID’s capability to better service non-traditional publishers like Hal Leonard, and they expect sheet music matching to improve dramatically in upcoming weeks and months.
I think Scribd is doing something very unique. There are no other online bookstores that offer a legitimate way to download an unlimited amount of sheet music. This should bring in an entirely new demographic to the Scribd platform and hopefully they will stick around. Subscribe for the sheet music and stay for the audiobooks and e-books.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
