Compilation Copyrighting

[LuckieIrie]

I'm a DJ in Houston and have serveral mixes (Reggae and Oldies)on cassette and now i'm moving them over to CD. I want to market these mixes so they can be sold in the Record Stores. What is the best way to do this and/or what is the procedure?

[Brad]

First off, if you are mixing or re-arranging other people's music, you need permission, and that permission usually has a price. You have to contact the publisher of each individual song (Find them here: http://www.bmi.com/repertoire/titlesrch.asp
and here: http://www.ascap.com/ace/search.cfm?mode=search ) and then I would think you would want to copyright the whole thing under form SR.

If I am wrong and this CD is a compilation of your original work, then just file it with the copyright orifice as form PA.


Hope this helps

Brad

[Rev E]

To add to Brad's comment,

If you don't want to contact the publishers directly, you can just pay the statutory mechanical royalty through the Harry Fox agency (http://www.nmpa.org/hfa.html). It's currently 7.55 cents per song or 1.45 cents per minute if the song is over 5 minutes.

You would still need to find out exactly who the publisher is from the links that Brad provided. If you want to try to negotiate a lower rate, contacting the publisher is way to go.

One note about the original material. If it's original material, you should also file form SR once you have a finished recording (i.e. mastered copy, printed artwork, etc.). If you're already there and you are the only author of the music, then you can file form SR and it will cover the lyrics, music and the sound recording.


[This message has been edited by Rev E (edited 04-03-2000).]