Quote from: Dekkadeci on March 04, 2017, 09:08:45 PMI don't believe I'm the only transcriber (at least on this forum) who looks at existing sheet music of video game themes, whether free or commercial/buy-only, accurate or inaccurate. If the sheet music is good enough, my transcriptions will definitely be affected by theirs, to the point that I'd often use their copyrighted material if I can't make out accompaniments in the original theme well enough.You really... shouldn't be consulting other sources in order to copy notes when making arrangements. It's okay to skim other people's stuff for ideas or confirm a pitch here or there, but it's problematic if you start relying on them in any sort of way, because then you're dangerously skirting the border around plagiarism.
Since I view pretty much all of the arrangements that get submitted, I can say that the vast majority of everything submitted around here is done completely by ear (at least, from the arrangers I'm familiar with). If something is too hard to hear, improve your ear training or make up something that resembles the original (i.e. same chord, rhythm, etc.)
So to answer your original question, no, commercially available sheet music shouldn't and doesn't affect our arrangements*, because we don't refer to them.
*Not transcriptions, arrangements.