Licensing 'Trad Arr.' recordings

[gubu]

Hi,

I've got non exclusive licensing contracts for a song of mine with a couple of online licensing catalogues.

I'm wondering if it's possible to submit 'Trad Arr.' tunes under the same licensing agreements? Would it be legal for the arranger(s) of a Trad Arr. piece to register themselves as the songwriter(s) of a particular recording for the purposes of a licensing contract?

The contracts I've signed so far for my own work seem to be standard 'writer' contracts but I have ownership of a small catalogue of Trad Arr. recordings and I'm trying to figure out how to license them legally. Would it be better to contact the licensing operations or my performing rights society directly?

Any information is greatly appreciated,

Thanks in advance

ad

[daddymack]

I don't think you can claim 'authorship' of the work on a Traditional. However, I believe there is Arranger status which allows you to license...I will have to go back and look that up later.

[gubu]

Thanks, I'll look forward to that!

[daddymack]

read this

 

Okay, the key info: "The same goes for traditional music, meaning music where the composition is so old that nobody even knows who really composed it. Examples of this would be "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", "Silent Night", "Itsy Bitsy Spider", "O Danny Boy" and many, many other traditional music tracks. The Composition is not copyrighted to anyone, but if somebody hires musicians and makes their own recording of any of these tracks - then that person or company owns the rights in that recording."

 

This applies as well to Classical Music and whatever is on the recording is technically 'the arrangement'.