Copyright question

[rastasean]

I have a friend who plays in a Bar band where they sing mostly covers.  The story he tells me is that years ago he was approached by someone from ASCAP telling him the band needed to buy a license every year.  So the band broke up and reformed under a different name, to keep under the radar.

I record a local "Open Mic night" and we are putting out a CD, and 80% of it is covers.  We were nervous about it, and someone (who is a lawyer and seemed to know what they were talking about) agreed that what we were doing was technically gray area, but that since we were going to donate any profits to a charity (which we are), we are not "low hanging fruit".  The ASCAP folks and RIAA have bigger fish to fry (the Napsters of the world), and if/when they found out about us and the charity they would leave us alone for fear of bad publicity.

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Do you have any idea the cost of the annual license? It also seems like going after religious institutions may be bad publicity as well.

I just find it hard to believe that every club from corner to corner in america has some kind of license to play cover songs live. What about all the clubs that just play radio music or DJs who have a vast collection of CDs. Would they have to pay royalties on top of purchasing that album?

either way, this has been an interesting thread.

[bgreen]

around here, they don't. non of them. Not a single bar has ever filed anything from what I've dug up.

and from talking to a few folks at these royalty brokers, they don't know of one that exists.... It's per song. If you get a express live license from harry fox, you buy a day grace period to file(even if not distributing for $), but when I asked about a blanket license, I got a blank response.

So how does LMA operate. is there a chance that someday Bob Dylan is gonna come and file a suit against all musicians covering his song tangled up in blue, are tapers or folks torrenting or uploading to lma responsible for making it public?

I'm sure there is something out there, something that makes lma so adamant about it being all non profit to keep it all legit. certainly has me curious, anyone?

[page]

For sold recordings, it's based on volume produced. If you keep it under 500 or 1000 copies, you pay one license, but jump above whatever the magical number is, and suddenly you have to pay a royalty specifically to that label or artist. I have a friend who explained that they sign the simple licenses and do limited edition releases of singles that have covers on them that way.

[printguy]

Here's a good article on what you need to do to record and release covers: http://www.cleverjoe.com/articles/music_copyright_law.html

And here's another that speaks to the venue paying the fees, nit the performer: http://www.musicianwages.com/the-working-musician/recording-releasing-performing-cover-songs/

[greenone]

So how does LMA operate. is there a chance that someday Bob Dylan is gonna come and file a suit against all musicians covering his song tangled up in blue, are tapers or folks torrenting or uploading to lma responsible for making it public?

I'm sure there is something out there, something that makes lma so adamant about it being all non profit to keep it all legit. certainly has me curious, anyone?

I honestly don't know. Every so often we get a band asking us the same question, and the answer is always that we've never had problems with it. There's nothing anywhere on the site specifically dealing with royalties or licenses, just the general language regarding what steps to take if you believe your copyright has been violated. I did a good amount of searching after this question was posted and all I could find was the licensing language regarding copies of a given recording. Not selling the recording, just how many copies are made. I would tend to think that this is a real gray area - yes, the Internet Archive is a non-profit 501(c)(3), so that may have a lot to do with it as well. If you're curious, you could write to info@archive.org and see what their response is. That's the general queries mailbox and maybe you'll get an answer there...I doubt you'll get a full legalese run-down though.

[setboy]

I just find it hard to believe that every club from corner to corner in america has some kind of license to play cover songs live.

They don't, but ascap and the like sure want them to. i know of a few places around here that have had the ascap/whatever the other name is come to their place to try to shake them down for $$$. most of them just tell them they are only booking people that don't play cover and some other pay it just to keep the crap off their backs

[setboy]

I just got word today that ascap shut down a local open mic near me....pretty freaking sad.....all people want is money these days...........

[printguy]

I just got word today that ascap shut down a local open mic near me....pretty freaking sad.....all people want is money these days...........

As greedy as ASCAP, RIAA, etc may be - it doesn't excuse the fact that your local club was breaking the law. Just because you disagree with a law doesn't mean you can ignore it.

The club makes money at the door, on booze and food from the patrons who attend the open mic night... Shouldn't the owners of the music being performed get their share?

[rastasean]

I just got word today that ascap shut down a local open mic near me....pretty freaking sad.....all people want is money these days...........

As greedy as ASCAP, RIAA, etc may be - it doesn't excuse the fact that your local club was breaking the law. Just because you disagree with a law doesn't mean you can ignore it.

The club makes money at the door, on booze and food from the patrons who attend the open mic night... Shouldn't the owners of the music being performed get their share?

if its a bad law, why not break it. freeing slaves was illegal. if this was the time period of slavery and you knew people who were freeing slaves, you would turn them into the authorities since it was illegal?

I would tend to think that this is a real gray area - yes, the Internet Archive is a non-profit 501(c)(3), so that may have a lot to do with it as well.

Is there a list of donations that sponsor the archive? How can we donate to the archive?

[runonce]

I just got word today that ascap shut down a local open mic near me....pretty freaking sad.....all people want is money these days...........

As greedy as ASCAP, RIAA, etc may be - it doesn't excuse the fact that your local club was breaking the law. Just because you disagree with a law doesn't mean you can ignore it.

The club makes money at the door, on booze and food from the patrons who attend the open mic night... Shouldn't the owners of the music being performed get their share?

if its a bad law, why not break it. freeing slaves was illegal. if this was the time period of slavery and you knew people who were freeing slaves, you would turn them into the authorities since it was illegal?

I would tend to think that this is a real gray area - yes, the Internet Archive is a non-profit 501(c)(3), so that may have a lot to do with it as well.

Is there a list of donations that sponsor the archive? How can we donate to the archive?

http://www.archive.org/donate/index.php

[printguy]

I just got word today that ascap shut down a local open mic near me....pretty freaking sad.....all people want is money these days...........

As greedy as ASCAP, RIAA, etc may be - it doesn't excuse the fact that your local club was breaking the law. Just because you disagree with a law doesn't mean you can ignore it.

The club makes money at the door, on booze and food from the patrons who attend the open mic night... Shouldn't the owners of the music being performed get their share?

if its a bad law, why not break it. freeing slaves was illegal. if this was the time period of slavery and you knew people who were freeing slaves, you would turn them into the authorities since it was illegal?

Really? You're comparing this to freeing slaves?

[stevetoney]

The bigger picture is that when people sing an artists songs, they're keeping the songs alive so that the artist will continue to reap the rewards of the copyright.  Nitpicking local bars for copyright infringement on open mic night is greediness to the Nth degree and is simply biting the hand the feeds you.

Do they REALLY expect that bars would start paying in favor of just shutting down open mic nights?  So what has been accomplished? 

Effin' idiots.

[rastasean]

Really? You're comparing this to freeing slaves?

I know its very extreme but I'm just pointing out that there are bad laws that I would break if I disagreed with them, I would work on freeing slaves if it was illegal.

All this copyright nonsense is even a bigger reason we need to start using creative commons licenses on our work.
http://creativecommons.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_commons

[Elana]

So how does LMA operate. is there a chance that someday Bob Dylan is gonna come and file a suit against all musicians covering his song tangled up in blue, are tapers or folks torrenting or uploading to lma responsible for making it public?

I'm sure there is something out there, something that makes lma so adamant about it being all non profit to keep it all legit. certainly has me curious, anyone?

I honestly don't know. Every so often we get a band asking us the same question, and the answer is always that we've never had problems with it. There's nothing anywhere on the site specifically dealing with royalties or licenses, just the general language regarding what steps to take if you believe your copyright has been violated. I did a good amount of searching after this question was posted and all I could find was the licensing language regarding copies of a given recording. Not selling the recording, just how many copies are made. I would tend to think that this is a real gray area - yes, the Internet Archive is a non-profit 501(c)(3), so that may have a lot to do with it as well. If you're curious, you could write to info@archive.org and see what their response is. That's the general queries mailbox and maybe you'll get an answer there...I doubt you'll get a full legalese run-down though.

I've wondered about this too, but I don't think the site is high traffic enough to warrant scrutiny.

I've had issues w/ covers and Youtube though.

I have a video of someone covering "Brown Eyed Girl", and I got contacted, and said that the song was copyright and if I wanted to keep the video up there, I had to put a message that said who held the copyright and that they gave me permission to put the video up.  At least it was nice of them not to try and yank it.

Then I have another video of someone covering I think Living on a Prayer, and it was yanked from Youtube as a copyright voilation.  But I also have other videos covering this song and those weren't taken down, so I think it may be random checks or something.

But Youtube obviously gets tons of traffic and is a target for copyright violations.

I'm hoping people just don't care enough about the LMA.

[rastasean]

I have a video of someone covering "Brown Eyed Girl", and I got contacted, and said that the song was copyright and if I wanted to keep the video up there, I had to put a message that said who held the copyright and that they gave me permission to put the video up.  At least it was nice of them not to try and yank it.


I'm hoping people just don't care enough about the LMA.

the van morrison people will NOT tolerate ANYTHING that violates his copyright at all. I had a time-lapse with a song of his and it was up for about 3-5 days and someone called the web sheriff contacted youtube and me to remove the video. It was about 45 seconds of audio from the middle of one of his songs but that didn't matter.

I hope the do-gooders leave LMA and the entire archive alone or it will be censored much worse than youtube.