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Getting Permission for a Cover Song?


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Then the licensing fees should be fair:cop:

The license fees are fair. The real point is don't use other peoples' material for your profit. If you can't sell enough to cover the license fees, then you should consider not using/releasing them...because maybe, just maybe, the reason the fees seem exhorbitant is you don't have a marketable band, or you suck...;)

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The license fees are fair. The real point is don't use other peoples' material for your profit. If you can't sell enough to cover the license fees, then you should consider not using/releasing them...because maybe,
just maybe
, the reason the fees seem exhorbitant is you don't have a marketable band, or you suck...
;)

ME

:facepalm:

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9.1 cents per cover song per CD sold is too much for you? :poke:

 

I don't think you should pay a penny until you sell something and it should go to the composer not a publishing house or a middle man like HarryFox.

 

btw I do original and PD songs and distribute digitally so it's not me were talking about.

I'm just telling it like it is. No matter what the bogus law says and you and losers like DaddyMack think, lots of people are going to record and distribute cover songs and they won't pay unless they can pay a percentage of their profits.

Which in many cases will be zero.

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I don't think you should pay a penny until you sell something and it should go to the composer not a publishing house or a middle man like HarryFox.

You may have an arguable point about not paying before you sell anything, but Harry Fox is not paid by the licensee, they are paid by the person on whose behalf they are collecting; i.e. the writer and/ or publisher. The 9.1 cents royalty rate is set by Congress, and you would pay that whether you go through HFA or directly through the writer/publisher himself. No one has to use the services of HFA but many writers and publishers do because of the convenience.

 

In any case, what you or I think is (once again) irrelevant. I don't think the speed limit in Oregon should be 65, either, but that's the law and if I get caught ignoring it, there are consequences. But your problem is not with me or 'losers' like daddymack. It is with the 'losers' in congress. Don't like the law? Work to get it changed. Good luck with that.

 

What I really don't get is (speaking of losers) why there are so many self loathing musicians out there who think they and other musicians ought not be paid for their efforts. I can't think of another skill or trade where other members of their guild think their peers ought not be compensated financially and that somehow giving away their own product or stealing that of others helps them or anyone in the long run. :confused:

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I'm just telling it like it is. No matter what the bogus law says and you and losers like DaddyMack think, lots of people are going to record and distribute cover songs and they won't pay unless they can pay a percentage of their profits.

Which in many cases will be zero.

No sorry, you are telling it like you want it to be. What people do, whether it is legal or not, is not the issue here. The issue is that if someone covered your song, and sold a million CDs, you would damned well want your 9.1/unit, wouldn't you? The laws are set up to ensure that the intellectual property of individuals does have value in the market, and the value goes back to the creator.

 

and, btw, calling me a 'loser', is a violation of the TOS, and I will let it slide this time, next infraction, gets you banned.:cop:

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I don't think you should pay a penny until you sell something and it should go to the composer not a publishing house or a middle man like HarryFox.

 

 

Why shouldn't it go to the publishing? If an artist willingly signed their music catalogue and pretty much any music they write off to a publishing company, they are ok with the whole concept I imagine, and it's through them that they get paid.

 

As far as I understand (unless I got major screwed along with a few friends), you sign 100% to a publishing company who then takes 50%, then distributes the other 50% to the writers for that song. The publishing company is a huge part in a writers career though and may be the only reason anyone covering the song ever heard it in the first place.

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No sorry, you are telling it like you want it to be. What people do, whether it is legal or not, is not the issue here. The issue is that if someone covered your song, and sold a million CDs, you would damned well want your 9.1/unit, wouldn't you? The laws are set up to ensure that the intellectual property of individuals does have value in the market, and the value goes back to the creator.

This is hypothetical BS.

 

and, btw, calling me a 'loser', is a violation of the TOS, and I will let it slide this time, next infraction, gets you banned

You can say I suck but I can't call you a loser?:rolleyes:

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I'm curious about the use of work in television commercials, such as the use of "Start Me Up" in the Microsoft campaign. Are there standard licenses governing such use?

 

 

No, the compulsory mechanical license only applies to recording and selling music.

 

There is no compulsory license for other types of rights such as the right to synchronize a work with another work such as video. Those rights are negotiated by individuals and companies and can vary between free and hundreds of thousands of dollars.

 

So when you put someone's song under your youtube video, then you are violating that someone's copyright (assuming that the recording isn't fully in the public domain). Short of contacting the publishers and mechanical license holders, there is no way to secure the rights to do something like that.

 

One interesting thing to know (if you like to make cheesy music) is that there are a several sites on the net that provide backing music for advertising; they typically charge 3-500 for the rights to use a thirty second background music bed out of their catalog. I've never sold anything to one of these catalogs, but they are something to look at if you are interested in how advertising music works.

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So when you put someone's song under your youtube video, then you are violating that someone's copyright (assuming that the recording isn't fully in the public domain). Short of contacting the publishers and mechanical license holders, there is no way to secure the rights to do something like that.


.

 

 

Does anybody know if YouTube pays ASCAP etc. like clubs and hotels that have live music doing covers have to?

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One interesting thing to know (if you like to make cheesy music) is that there are a several sites on the net that provide backing music for advertising; they typically charge 3-500 for the rights to use a thirty second background music bed out of their catalog. I've never sold anything to one of these catalogs, but they are something to look at if you are interested in how advertising music works.

 

 

Can you PM me a link to a site like this?

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I found this thread thanks to a Google search and I joined just to ask a really major question: I'm a Christian rap artist and I recorded a remake of a popular 80's hit. I know it's a derivative work because I wrote ALL the rap lyrics and I rewrote the chorus, too. Plus my cousin that's been doing music for years completely redesigned the track without using ANY samples of the original arrangement of the song, in fact, the track sounds nothing like the original at all. The problem I have is that I'm nowhere near having my EP album ready for release and it's been brought to my attention that I should've gotten permission from the publisher to do this derivative work before we even recorded the track. Since I want to do everything by the book, what should I say when I contact the publisher for a mechanical license since I've already recorded the song?

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I found this thread thanks to a Google search and I joined just to ask a really major question: I'm a Christian rap artist and I recorded a remake of a popular 80's hit. I know it's a derivative work because I wrote ALL the rap lyrics and I rewrote the chorus, too. Plus my cousin that's been doing music for years completely redesigned the track without using ANY samples of the original arrangement of the song, in fact, the track sounds nothing like the original at all. The problem I have is that I'm nowhere near having my EP album ready for release and it's been brought to my attention that I should've gotten permission from the publisher to do this derivative work before we even recorded the track. Since I want to do everything by the book, what should I say when I contact the publisher for a mechanical license since I've already recorded the song?

 

 

 

You should just be able to get the license from the Harry Fox Agency.

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You should just be able to get the license from the Harry Fox Agency.

 

 

It said that I would have to contact the publisher directly since I'll probably order less than 2,600 once I complete my EP album(2 songs down, 4 or 5 to go!)

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