copywrite help needed

mixmaster

Active Member
Does anyone here record band/vocal events? If you do, do you sell the recordings? A band director wants to make some money by recording events but I don't know if his permission to perform a song extends to me recording and reproducing the song for profit. I doubt it but I am looking into things anyway. Any legal beagles out there care to offer advice? Thanks
 
Basically I think you will find that you can't do this without an extra licence. Get the band director to show the documentation he has for performing the songs. It will normaly state recording options.

If the director is not helpful just point out that if you do it without the proper licence it'll cost the school way more in fines then he makes in funds.

If the actual music is out of copyright then that is not an issue. But you'll have to check USA law for the dates.

There is an organization that handles the music rights for composers etc there may be others but this one is probably applicable to you.

http://www.ascap.com/index.html

The school will have to obtain a licence from them but hopefully for schools it won't be to expensive.
Talk to the DRama, AV teacher and / or librarian they may know if the schol already has the licences.
 
With recorded music from a lable there's what's referred to as a "Statutory Rate" which is a minimum ammount of money per sale that has to go to the original producer of the song, weather they gave you their permission or not!!! That's how you get punk bands covering country bands and Wierd Al and stuff like that. If there's a law school near by, hit up a student, they're usually pretty happy to flex their legal stuff for free (or at most for some free fast food). There's a good chance you can do whatever you want with the music you're wanting to record, as long as the owners get their due. Fortunately, it's pretty easy to accomplish. Good Luck
 
We had the same issue a few years back in our school.

Our band director looked into it, and here is the explanation he gave us. You can record a concert and distribute it, but only to members of the band performing (we extended that to their family). The recording is strictly for "archival purposes" only. As such, when we did sell the recordings, we did sell them for the cost of materials and labor only (had to make a profit somehow ;) ). We wouldn't make a crazy profit on them or anything, we treated them as a nice keepsake for the crowd that didn't cost us anything.

When a band, like a high school concert band, buys a piece of music, the rights that come with it are performance rights and they do not have to request permission to play it, they are allowed to play it wherever/whenever. The publishing company we contacted said that it typically extends to all these rights to archival recordings.
 

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