The Musa project is entrusted to the Musa Academy, a Delaware public benefit corporation.
A public benefit corporation ("PBC" or "B-corp") is a new type of corporate structure that is a for-profit business that has a stated "public interest" set out in its certificate of incorporation to allow for a purpose beyond maximizing profit for stockholders. In our case, the stated purpose is to develop and promote a universal alphabet.
A public benefit corporation is not a non-profit, and donations are not tax-deductible - but we're not looking for donations. Nor do we plan to make dividend payments to stockholders.
The Musa Academy is a virtual corporation - it has no offices and no exployees. Collaborators are either volunteers, paid contractors, or users.
This entire website (not the alphabet) is copyrighted under the Berne Convention. However, material from the website may be reproduced, when attributed with a link, for all the uses permitted as fair use or fair dealing, including
For other uses, please contact the Musa Academy.
The Musa Academy has trademarks in both the United States and the European Union on two marks: the name Musa and the Musa logo:
The Musa Alphabet itself - the letters, gaits, and encodings - have been contributed to the public domain. You may use the Musa Alphabet freely, without paying royalties, without attribution, and including for commercial purposes or for inclusion in derivative protected works.
We use the Creative Commons CC0 license:
To the extent possible under law, The Musa Academy has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to The Musa Alphabet. This work is published from the United States of America.
Here is the actual legal text of the CC0 license, reproduced from their site:
The laws of most jurisdictions throughout the world automatically confer exclusive Copyright and Related Rights (defined below) upon the creator and subsequent owner(s) (each and all, an "owner") of an original work of authorship and/or a database (each, a "Work").
Certain owners wish to permanently relinquish those rights to a Work for the purpose of contributing to a commons of creative, cultural and scientific works ("Commons") that the public can reliably and without fear of later claims of infringement build upon, modify, incorporate in other works, reuse and redistribute as freely as possible in any form whatsoever and for any purposes, including without limitation commercial purposes. These owners may contribute to the Commons to promote the ideal of a free culture and the further production of creative, cultural and scientific works, or to gain reputation or greater distribution for their Work in part through the use and efforts of others.
For these and/or other purposes and motivations, and without any expectation of additional consideration or compensation, the person associating CC0 with a Work (the "Affirmer"), to the extent that he or she is an owner of Copyright and Related Rights in the Work, voluntarily elects to apply CC0 to the Work and publicly distribute the Work under its terms, with knowledge of his or her Copyright and Related Rights in the Work and the meaning and intended legal effect of CC0 on those rights.
A Work made available under CC0 may be protected by copyright and related or neighboring rights ("Copyright and Related Rights"). Copyright and Related Rights include, but are not limited to, the following:
To the greatest extent permitted by, but not in contravention of, applicable law, Affirmer hereby overtly, fully, permanently, irrevocably and unconditionally waives, abandons, and surrenders all of Affirmer's Copyright and Related Rights and associated claims and causes of action, whether now known or unknown (including existing as well as future claims and causes of action), in the Work (i) in all territories worldwide, (ii) for the maximum duration provided by applicable law or treaty (including future time extensions), (iii) in any current or future medium and for any number of copies, and (iv) for any purpose whatsoever, including without limitation commercial, advertising or promotional purposes (the "Waiver"). Affirmer makes the Waiver for the benefit of each member of the public at large and to the detriment of Affirmer's heirs and successors, fully intending that such Waiver shall not be subject to revocation, rescission, cancellation, termination, or any other legal or equitable action to disrupt the quiet enjoyment of the Work by the public as contemplated by Affirmer's express Statement of Purpose.
Public License FallbackShould any part of the Waiver for any reason be judged legally invalid or ineffective under applicable law, then the Waiver shall be preserved to the maximum extent permitted taking into account Affirmer's express Statement of Purpose. In addition, to the extent the Waiver is so judged Affirmer hereby grants to each affected person a royalty-free, non transferable, non sublicensable, non exclusive, irrevocable and unconditional license to exercise Affirmer's Copyright and Related Rights in the Work (i) in all territories worldwide, (ii) for the maximum duration provided by applicable law or treaty (including future time extensions), (iii) in any current or future medium and for any number of copies, and (iv) for any purpose whatsoever, including without limitation commercial, advertising or promotional purposes (the "License").
The License shall be deemed effective as of the date CC0 was applied by Affirmer to the Work. Should any part of the License for any reason be judged legally invalid or ineffective under applicable law, such partial invalidity or ineffectiveness shall not invalidate the remainder of the License, and in such case Affirmer hereby affirms that he or she will not (i) exercise any of his or her remaining Copyright and Related Rights in the Work or (ii) assert any associated claims and causes of action with respect to the Work, in either case contrary to Affirmer's express Statement of Purpose.
Limitations and DisclaimersNo trademark or patent rights held by Affirmer are waived, abandoned, surrendered, licensed or otherwise affected by this document.
Affirmer offers the Work as-is and makes no representations or warranties of any kind concerning the Work, express, implied, statutory or otherwise, including without limitation warranties of title, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non infringement, or the absence of latent or other defects, accuracy, or the present or absence of errors, whether or not discoverable, all to the greatest extent permissible under applicable law.
Affirmer disclaims responsibility for clearing rights of other persons that may apply to the Work or any use thereof, including without limitation any person's Copyright and Related Rights in the Work. Further, Affirmer disclaims responsibility for obtaining any necessary consents, permissions or other rights required for any use of the Work.
Affirmer understands and acknowledges that Creative Commons is not a party to this document and has no duty or obligation with respect to this CC0 or use of the Work.
Musa fonts that we copyrighted (e.g. © 2019-2021 The Musa Academy PBC - check the font metadata) are licensed under the SIL Open Font License, now at Version 1.1 as of 26 February 2007. Here is a copy of that license, which can also be found online with a FAQ at scripts.sil.org/OFL.
Version 1.1 - 26 February 2007
The goals of the Open Font License (OFL) are to stimulate worldwide development of collaborative font projects, to support the font creation efforts of academic and linguistic communities, and to provide a free and open framework in which fonts may be shared and improved in partnership with others.
The OFL allows the licensed fonts to be used, studied, modified and redistributed freely as long as they are not sold by themselves. The fonts, including any derivative works, can be bundled, embedded, redistributed and/or sold with any software provided that any reserved names are not used by derivative works. The fonts and derivatives, however, cannot be released under any other type of license. The requirement for fonts to remain under this license does not apply to any document created using the fonts or their derivatives.
"Font Software" refers to the set of files released by the Copyright Holder(s) under this license and clearly marked as such. This may include source files, build scripts and documentation.
"Reserved Font Name" refers to any names specified as such after the copyright statement(s).
"Original Version" refers to the collection of Font Software components as distributed by the Copyright Holder(s).
"Modified Version" refers to any derivative made by adding to, deleting, or substituting — in part or in whole — any of the components of the Original Version, by changing formats or by porting the Font Software to a new environment.
"Author" refers to any designer, engineer, programmer, technical writer or other person who contributed to the Font Software.
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of the Font Software, to use, study, copy, merge, embed, modify, redistribute, and sell modified and unmodified copies of the Font Software, subject to the following conditions:
1) Neither the Font Software nor any of its individual components, in Original or Modified Versions, may be sold by itself.
2) Original or Modified Versions of the Font Software may be bundled, redistributed and/or sold with any software, provided that each copy contains the above copyright notice and this license. These can be included either as stand-alone text files, human-readable headers or in the appropriate machine-readable metadata fields within text or binary files as long as those fields can be easily viewed by the user.
3) No Modified Version of the Font Software may use the Reserved Font Name(s) unless explicit written permission is granted by the corresponding Copyright Holder. This restriction only applies to the primary font name as presented to the users.
4) The name(s) of the Copyright Holder(s) or the Author(s) of the Font Software shall not be used to promote, endorse or advertise any Modified Version, except to acknowledge the contribution(s) of the Copyright Holder(s) and the Author(s) or with their explicit written permission.
5) The Font Software, modified or unmodified, in part or in whole, must be distributed entirely under this license, and must not be distributed under any other license. The requirement for fonts to remain under this license does not apply to any document created using the Font Software.
This license becomes null and void if any of the above conditions are not met.
THE FONT SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT OF COPYRIGHT, PATENT, TRADEMARK, OR OTHER RIGHT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE FONT SOFTWARE OR FROM OTHER DEALINGS IN THE FONT SOFTWARE.
The apps that you can download from this site are offered under a more restrictive license. You may use them freely, including for commercial purposes, but you may not redistribute them, modify them, or include them in derivative works.
You are entitled to use the version you download here, but not necessarily future versions. The explanation is understandable. These apps were developed by professionals who normally sell their work directly to users. However, in the absence of a substantial base of Musa users, the Musa Academy has jump-started their development by paying the developers directly. If, one day, the market grows to make it worthwhile for developers to offer apps for sale to the public, future versions may pass into that category. But you will always be able to continue using the version you downloaded here.
Note that this paragraph doesn't apply to apps that you download from other sources, like the Google Play ® Store or the Apple Store ®, even if you linked there from this site. They may use a different license: check as you shop.
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