help...want to record some popular songs

C

coady

New member
I have a two piece band that uses a sequencer for back up music. We use some midis found on the net as well as some we have made ourselves. Most are country songs, some swing, etc.

We were thinking of recording some of these songs to a cd. We have edited most of the midis and would be recording the midis as audio, adding an audio sax track and a vocal track through my pc into Sonar or Cakewalk and then mixing the audio into a wav or mp3 format and then burning the songs to a cd.

Is this illegal? How can we do this legally? We have quite a few people asking for a tape or cd of the music we perform at dances.

Thanks for any info.

Coady
 
These are covers, right? You cannot sell your own version of someone else's (presumably) copyrighted material without permission from the copyright owner and/or publisher. And if they say yes, they'll probably want a cut. If you gave it away for free, however, there shouldn't be a problem.
 
Thanks for the speedy reply.

Please define "cover".

That's probably what it is I guess. We wanted to record the songs and then burn them to a cd and sell them.

They are not our songs, an example would be "I Fall to Pieces". I play that song as an instrumental with a background midi (made by someone else).

If I record these and gave them away it would be ok?

Coady
 
You must be really new to this not to know the word cover. Yes, it means someone else's song.
And I believe I already answered your question.
 
The answer to this is really simple. If you record a cover of a song you are required by law to pay a statatory royalty rate called a mechanical license. The rate is about $.08 per copy manufactured. The author and publisher can NOT try and get you to pay a higher rate. (at least in the US, I don't know about other countries)

If you are making a couple copies on your computer, no one will probaly care, but if you are going to do a big run, its best to play it safe and pay. The easiest way to do this is contact the Harry Fox angency in New York. www.harryfox.com They have contracts with most big publishers to handle the administration of mechanical royalties.
 
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