Musician Forum - Band Discussion Board - BandMix

When I look at peoples profiles on here, a lot have cover songs on their audio.

Are these people breaking copywright laws doing this?

Or do you have to be taking money in on the recordings to break the law?

Not trying to start something just curious how that works.

I saw a post in another forum on here and the guy was saying that you are breaking the law posting some elses material.

ROFL.. if covers were illegal, bars and venues would lose so much money.
Ofcourse it's legal.. as long as you don't put.. say Deep Purple's "Smoke On The Water," and claim that you did the vocals, guitar parts, bass lines and played the drums :? or even one of em. Because these are copyrighted.

If you meant the karaoke/instrumental tracks that vocalists use, it's also legal, as long as your [track] source didn't copyright it.
Hope this helps.

Technically it is illegal even to PERFORM cover songs in nightclubs, without licensing and permission being established. One of the benefits of joining a union like ASCAP is that you are granted a performance license to perform ANY songs in their catalog. Musicians generally have nothing to fear however, in playing cover songs in bars, even if the band is paid, because the club is legally assumed to be the ultimate beneficiary of the music's value, and it is the club which MUST have a license to allow bands to play covers. ASCAP occasionally goes after such establishments without these licenses, and will force them to acquire a license or else the club will pursue the alternative course, which is to allow ONLY ORIGINAL music to be performed by the artists playing there.

Being as BandMix is a paid site and receives ad revenues, it is likely that copyright holders would go after BandMix. But if they did, BandMix would have the right to go after you, since you affirmed that you had the rights to post what you did. If BandMix pursues legal action though, you would have to travel to Knoxville Tennessee to resolve it, since you also agreed to that.

You aren't making any money off posting your performances, this is a relatively small source of revenue. There are bigger fish to worry about.

A couple of good links I recommend to anyone here, and both of these will teach you ALOT about the legalities of performance and mechanical licenses.

These are must-reads:


http://www.ascap.com/licensing/licensingfaq.html

http://www.cleverjoe.com/articles/music_copyright_law.html

Oh, come on.
Half my profile is covers.

I think we're all safe as long as we stay away from Metallica covers.

They WOULD come after us.

Fellow Bandmixerinos,

This is an excellent topic for this forum , and should be taken seriously.

Thanks to JW for bringing it up.

I don't lose any sleep over anybody "ripping off" my original material on my profile (Come on to me) , or getting busted for any covers that I may chose to post.

However, I can tell you all more then one A.S.C.A.P, horror story.
I may do so in the future, as time permits, if any one cares to hear them.

I have had a limited amount of success in my day of getting some of my music recorded and aired on "big time" radio, and consequently have been a member of that ol' "Music Mafia" (as it is sometimes termed) .

I hope to see more talk on the subject.

(perhaps well get lucky and the "Godfather of pop composers, AND A.S.C.A.P." , good ol' Hal David , will chime in on the forum to "straighten us all out", concerning the rights of the present day composer)

I'll be back,
Howlin'J

Hey, man, I'm REAl interested in hearing any A.S.C.A.P, stories . .

Well Alan,

I sure-nuff don't wanna' end up on the ol' RythamMan poop list, so, to honer your request ,for your perusal, here are ,not one, but TWO A.S.C.A.P. horror stories!

Story #1

Once upon a time, I believe it was back in the late 70's, I was in a four piece cover band named "Phase Four" . We practiced our asses off until we felt that we were good enough to jump in the local bar circuit. Being unestablished, we considered ourselves lucky to score a gig at a bar that was just starting to book entertainment. The proprietor (a very nice lady, full of enthusiasm), liked our crappy demo tape , and booked us for BOTH Friday and Saturday night!

Well, the Friday night gig was awesome. The bar-owner advertised good, and the place was packed. Needless to say, WE ROCKED THEM HARD!

We went home happy, cheerfully being paid by a joyous bar owner, and looking forward to an even better gig (now that our debut was so successful) the following night.

When we arrived on Saturday, we found the nice lady bar owner nearly in tears. She told us that some people paid her a visit, and informed her, that because she was not a dues paying A.S.C.A.P. establishment, she did not have licence to hire entertainment that PROBALLY would be playing their member's copy written material! She then told us that she was terrified to have us play, and asked us if we were going to demand payment due to us.( We were in the Federation Of Musicians Union and we had a valid sighed contract.) We were stunned and astounded that such an organization could trash our gig. What a bunch of "kill-joy, scumbag assholes", we were thinkin'.
We were four reasonable nice young men, however, and we did not hold her to our contract.
Sadly, some time later, that bar burned to the ground!

Story #2

Once, (in the mid 90's, when I was on Jury duty, I seen an ol bar owner friend of mine. I asked him if he was on jury duty too. He replied that he wasn't but was there because he was being sued by some "cacksukkas" named A.S.C.A.P, for hiring live music and refusing to pay their "extortion "

He lost the case.

Some time later (deja-vu)... HIS bar burned to the ground!

I Paid MY dues to A.S.C.A.P when I had my record "I Like Ronnie's Hair"
That song was played all over te place, including on The Dr. Demento Show , and by Howard Stern when he was on WNBC, New York.

I'm still waiting for the check!
Frig the BIG MUSAK industry, and God bless the computer revolution!

Your cynical ol' pal
Howlin'

I guess we all should take it seriously.

All the quick burger joints in the vicinity of Ardent Studios (ZZ Top, Led Zep, 3 Doors Down) have ASCAP and BMI stickers in the windows. Why cause whenever reps came to Ardent they would eat at these places and bust the owners for playing the radio in their establishments.

One Memphis group a few years ago got busted for selling their gig demo tapes of cover material to a rep for ASCAP.

So this stuff does happen, thats why I brought it up. I had someone contact me thru here for a cover gig and wanted to know why I didnt have any cover music on my player. My response was cause I didnt write that music. Who knows it could have been a rep checking, all these organizations are under pressure to produce revenue, which in the internet world has to be harder and harder to chase. I wouldnt want to be made an example of.

jw123 wrote:One Memphis group a few years ago got busted for selling their gig demo tapes of cover material to a rep for ASCAP.

You hit the nail on the head. Selling. As long as you don't make a profit out of your cover (regardless of the licences), you're good

I've never heard of ASCAP filing suit against the entertainer for playing their licensed material. It seems that it's usually the venue management that they go after.

As far as selling your cover versions of someone else's intellectual property, I'd be careful!

This kind of stuff sucks and is a drag to talk about, but if you're gonna play the game, it's always good to know the rules.

Rock On Brothers and Sisters! (but try to keep it legit)
Howlin'

On my profile i have a few covers done up just to show an example of what i'm into,nothing more.To make a profit off someone else's work seems kinda stupid and makes no sense,that'd be like someone copying down something that Edgar Alan Poe wrote word for word and trying to find somone dumb enough to buy it.We should just be influenced by others to form our own, just like evolution.

Whoa! If you make no profit and you give credit to the artist I just dont believe they have a leg to stand on. Every one who plays a cover should announce it as such. profit irrelevent. Lets call it Artistic Honesty?

The links I posted above spell it out pretty clearly.

But there is legality and reality.

In reality, performing artists just aren't gone after for performing.

They're looking for the deeper pockets. The venues.

i have a lot of material to copyrite and dont know how.....can i get a heads up?