This is just me planning for next year's concert, so I'm just wondering and it won't change my plans too drastically, but can someone play music off the internet at a concert dinner? It's for a high school band and our band director said for everyone to play as many songs as possible and encourages us to make lots of different ensembles. I wanted to play some songs from the Nightmare Before Christmas and I found some sheet music online for the program MuseScore, someone random arranged it, and I was transposing it to several instruments and thinking about playing it with my friends. Is this okay or do I have to ask a company for permission or something? Do I have to buy the actual book and then am I able to transpose it and play it, I have the money for it? Or can I just use the arrangement someone made for the program and transpose it and play it? Or can I not play it at all?
If I understand your question, you are wanting to make your own arrangement of music from Danny Elfman's The Nightmare Before Christmas for a few of your friends to play at a dinner that your school band is having next year. This arrangement isn't going to be recorded and distributed for profit. You are not going to be selling your arrangement. It is only going to be performed the one time by a small group of your friends in a private setting and not by a full band. I would suggest that you purchase the published sheet music, so the publisher/composer is earning money from his music, and make your own arrangement for your dinner party since the published arrangement for band may not sound good with the instrumentation with which you will be working. When the event is over, the music goes in a cupboard and isn't played in public again.
If the music is copyrighted, you are NOT allowed to make an arrangement for any kind of public performance without asking the composer's/publisher's permission. Do so and you risk his lawyers knocking on your door. It looks from one of the earlier answers that a suitable arrangement might already exist. You will need to buy or rent this music, but it will pay your dues and keep you on the right side of the law.
In a nutshell, if the music (not the arrangement) is copyrighted, then it is up to the venue to have a public performance license. If its not copyrighted, do what you want.
