Copyright risks, and the law

  • Thread starter Thread starter TheRealWaldo
  • Start date Start date
Yes, if a parody is 'different enough', you'll get away with it.

W.
 
I played a local club in the mid 80's that was shut down for several weeks because there was a "bust" one night, and 1 of the 3 bands there that night played covers. When it reopened weeks later it was a "no cover band" club. Cost the owner of the place so much money in legal fees that the club soon closed altogeather. Seemed real bizare back then, but seems almost par today. It was always rumored that another local club owner was behind the whole thing. I alway found it hard to believe there are "cover" police that just happen to scout out small time local bands and clubs to make sure they are not breaking the law. Whatever the case, the legal problems that followed were very real. Funny thing is, they never went after the band it self, only the owner of the place was held responsable.
I still say it's all Lars fault.
 
DonF said:
Regarding covers and copyrights, wouldn't an artist need both a mechanical license and a performance license to record a cover and post it on the Web (mechanical license for the recording and copying/uploading, performance license for the electronic "performance" of the work)?
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I really don't see how someone could ever get clearance to post covers on the web unless they were friends with the artist or had major backing. Mechanical royalties run around $.075 per CD pressed. If the cover band also allowed download of the song then the original artist would be loosing out on the mechanical royalties.

I'd expect to see electronic downloads be exluded from Performance rights any day now.
 
Tex> Will never happen. Performance royalties and Mechanical royalties are two totally different things, and you are only looking at the guideline from the RIAA. Most artists recieve royalties for performance as well, so the more people they got doing it the better.

You can also go direct to the record companies and management of many bands and get permission for $0, but it is very rare.

Blanket coverages are available, and specifically for the internet. For example: ASCAP, BMI, SEPSAC, Harry Fox Agency.... They cost money, portions of that income go to the artists.

W.
 
TexRoadkill said:
I really don't see how someone could ever get clearance to post covers on the web unless they were friends with the artist or had major backing. Mechanical royalties run around $.075 per CD pressed. If the cover band also allowed download of the song then the original artist would be loosing out on the mechanical royalties.

I'd expect to see electronic downloads be exluded from Performance rights any day now.
Click to expand...
Why would someone want to stop having their property generate income for them? The only reason I can think of is that the use of the song might diminish the value of the original work in some way. But that would be a rare case.

Anyway, in the US there's such a thing as a compulsory mechanical license. The copyright owner of a published work cannot deny you the right to use that work, as long as you follow the rules. The mechanical license is very limited, though. With it you can do a minimal arrangement, record the work, and then make and distribute copies to the public. Using the song in a video would require a synchronization license. Using the original band's recording of the song requires a master license (usually extremely expensive). Performing the work in public requires a performance license. Distributing the work via the Web is covered by what ASCAP calls a "new media" license. All of these licenses have price tags, and some of them are hefty. But you can almost always find a way to do what you want to do, as long as you're willing to fork over the cash.

The only sane thing to do is to write your own stuff. :D

DonF
 
TripleM said:
Waldo... Suppose somebody rips off original material posted on NWR (or anywhere else). The original author has a copyright the instant they've written the work. But suppose that the original author does not have a registered copyright (with the U.S. Copyright Office for example). Suppose that author sues the person ripping them off.

How easy/difficult will it be for them to prove they've been ripped off? What could/would NWR do to help that author establish they created the work?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

It's not that difficult to prove you are the author of work. The real benefit lies in the fact that you can recover all of your legal fees from a court case if the songs are in fact copyrighted through the house of congress.

Let's say someone steals your song. You begin a court battle against someone who has so much money that they can streeeeeetch it out forever. It could actually cost you thousands$$$. You'll probably get steam rolled just by the financial loss. Now if you win, they say "yea, you're right, it was your song, see ya'. It cost you a small fortune to hear those words. That sucks!

Now if you copyrighted it legally, you can recover all of those legal fees. That's the big benefit!

You can put 15 or 20 tunes on tape for the $30 fee if you copy it under a collection, like (Joe Blo collection volume #1). No one should have any reason not to copyright everything IMHO.

Joe
 
DonF said:
Why would someone want to stop having their property generate income for them? The only reason I can think of is that the use of the song might diminish the value of the original work in some way. But that would be a rare case.

Anyway, in the US there's such a thing as a compulsory mechanical license. The copyright owner of a published work cannot deny you the right to use that work, as long as you follow the rules. The mechanical license is very limited, though. With it you can do a minimal arrangement, record the work, and then make and distribute copies to the public. Using the song in a video would require a synchronization license. Using the original band's recording of the song requires a master license (usually extremely expensive). Performing the work in public requires a performance license. Distributing the work via the Web is covered by what ASCAP calls a "new media" license. All of these licenses have price tags, and some of them are hefty. But you can almost always find a way to do what you want to do, as long as you're willing to fork over the cash.

The only sane thing to do is to write your own stuff. :D

DonF
Click to expand...

The reason I mentioned that is mainly because I have no idea what a performance license costs but if they give an act the right to distribute over the net then they would loose out on the mechanical rights unless the performance rights were high enough to make up the difference.

If I promise to give you a dime everytime I sell a CD with your song and then I give it away on the net you would be losing money.

What is this New Media license? Performance rights don't cover internet distribution?
 
TexRoadkill said:
If I promise to give you a dime everytime I sell a CD with your song and then I give it away on the net you would be losing money.
Click to expand...
That's why they don't use the word "sell". The word is "distribute". Doesn't matter what you charge, you still owe the work's creator his/her due.
What is this New Media license? Performance rights don't cover internet distribution?
Click to expand...
Traditional performance rights cover live performances, background music in a store, airplay, etc. New Media rights cover electronic distribution, and the cost varies depending on whether the distribution is via streaming or download. So I think they're trying to make up for the loss of mechanical license revenue. Here's a link that should answer a few questions about performance licensing.

DonF
 
yeah!@!

when i first wanted to put a thing up over at your thing i had done a cover of a blues thing so when i read the thing at your thing i changed the words and redid the vocal and that was how i did the jiggy thing!

then i post it and i find out that all these other doods are posting covers at your thing so i asked about it and they said it was ok!

come on folks at least change the words!!!!

its more basic than common courtesy!!!!

somebody needs to go through the lists and delete all obvious covers.

and somebody tell that twat watyf (twatyf) to take down his twattish del amitri covers (whoever that is) or del might sic his lawyer on we know who!

do it!!!!

:)
 
Actually... I went through some channels to get permission for those....









so there. :p







and their webmaster even asked me to do a collab with him... :eek:






(nice to see you again jeap... and your usual friendly comments, as always... :p)


WATYF
 
interesting thread.

I just read that the word for statutory copyright rate payments are based on 'manufacturing' and can be negotiated down to 'sold' or distributed, along with the rate paid being cut to 3/4.

I didn't realize it would be so hard to make money from such great sites! that sucks.
 
Hell, mp3.com just sold off because they weren't making any cash. And they were owned by Vivendi Universal!!!! They've got a credit line of nearly a trillion dollars, and a staff of hundreds of thousands!

I'm only one guy, with about $20 in the bank right now, lol

W.
 
Hey Waldo,

Just a quick comment - I had a cover posted in this forum recently which I had hosted on NWR.

If it wasn't for this thread being bumped, I would not have known about this issue and it's potential for impacting you personally.

I know I probably clicked something to accept some agreement that I may or may not have read in my rush to get songs posted some three years ago when I first opened my account, but I suspect there are quite a few muso's like me whose short term memory isn't what it could be.....

Why don't you add a dirty, great big red message saying DON'T DO THIS IF YOU DON'T OWN IT when you are in the process of uploading a song.

Might save you some grief in return for the short term pain of modifying the pages.

Ciao,

Q.
 
Interestingly enough, the big bold red letters alienates more users than prevents people from uploading illegally. In fact, it just lets people who willingly do it know we're watching....

I've done the big bold red letters thing before and people just 'obfuscate' the information to make it harder to tell that they're breaking the rule, making it more difficult for me to track them down and remove them.

I advise EVERYONE to carefully read agreements before signing up for something. They could simply state that you owe them $50 every minute for the next thirty years, and you'd be legally bound to do so.

W.
 
Not sure what you're trying to say/prove there man, murders are illegal, but you see them on the front page of the newspaper daily.

Covers are legal, if you have permission from the copyright owner, which can be got for free. Just 'cause some get away without getting that permission, doesn't make it right, or legal.

W.
 
oh not tryin to say or prove what I meant to ask as what do you guys think of the site not how do u explain it
 
I was just suggesting a place for people to put up their covers if they wanted to
 
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