Off Topic ASCAP fair use question

[adouglas]

Hopefully someone has run across this and can give me a bit of insight. I am NOT looking for legal advice, just want to hear what others have run into and what they've done.

I'm in a very typical small, local band. We play for fun and while we do get paid for gigs, we make very little. The number of gigs is small and the pay is low.

To generate interest, we have some audio of ourselves on our website. The number of visitors per month is probably a few dozen at best. Small potatoes.

Last week I got a letter from ASCAP demanding money. I have no problem with that, but given the not-even-lunch-money scale of income we actually generate I'd rather not have to.

Isn't there something about "fair use" that would allow me to post short clips without breaking any rules? Anyone know anything about that?

What have you done about this with your band? Ignored it, paid it, removed audio?

Thanks....

 

[MK Bass Weed]

Isn't there something about "fair use" that would allow me to post short clips without breaking any rules? Anyone know anything about that?

What have you done about this with your band? Ignored it, paid it, removed audio?

Thanks....

AD,

As far as fair use, the answer is simply no.

Eventually, Youtube would take it down, the song is protected under the copyright. It be different if you covered the song, paid the mechanical royalty fee through Harry Fox...That's another story.

 

[Hellboy]

Hopefully someone has run across this and can give me a bit of insight. I am NOT looking for legal advice, just want to hear what others have run into and what they've done.

I'm in a very typical small, local band. We play for fun and while we do get paid for gigs, we make very little. The number of gigs is small and the pay is low.

To generate interest, we have some audio of ourselves on our website. The number of visitors per month is probably a few dozen at best. Small potatoes.

Last week I got a letter from ASCAP demanding money. I have no problem with that, but given the not-even-lunch-money scale of income we actually generate I'd rather not have to.

Isn't there something about "fair use" that would allow me to post short clips without breaking any rules? Anyone know anything about that?

What have you done about this with your band? Ignored it, paid it, removed audio?

Thanks....

I understand that you play in a Top 40/cover band? No original music that your band has written, eh? If you have other artists songs played by your band up on the web site, then you must pay. If you yourself are the the composers, then that is ok. You can´t use any material that doesn´t file under "creative commons" where the original author/composer has given up his right to earn money from his work.

Creative Commons - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Everything else is a violation against the copyright laws..... If you want to avoid this, then you should take the songs off your website. Sorry to say.

Sincerely//J

 

[Bloodfist]

WOW ouch... I've never experienced this because I don't play cover songs. I do know that bars have to pay royalties around here for songs played on their jukeboxes. I'm not implying that your band is a jukebox, but I guess the same principle applies since your are playing other peoples music, and being paid by the venue to play. By paying you to play the songs you cover, the venues have covered their basis, leaving you to cover any royalties to be paid to the original artist. No offense to you or your band, but I've often wondered how cover bands get around this, especially considering how saturated my town is with cover bands. The only suggestion I can offer is contact them, and see exactly ho much they want, take down any recordings of cover songs you have, and try and write 2 or 3 original songs in the same style record them, and put them up instead. Did yall make the band a LLC, and how much were they wanting from yall,

 

[MK Bass Weed]

No offense to you or your band, but I've often wondered how cover bands get around this, especially considering how saturated my town is with cover bands. The only suggestion I can offer is contact them, and see exactly ho much they want, take down any recordings of cover songs you have, and try and write 2 or 3 original songs in the same style record them, and put them up instead. Did yall make the band a LLC, and how much were they wanting from yall,

Nope.

Clubs have to pay fees to ascap/bmi for the jukebox/live music cover band aspect to the club.

Coverbands don't have to go around anything unless they are recording the cover to CD, and sell it.

 

[shakinbacon]

this is an eye opener for me and a very interesting topic.

I've seen many youtube videos dissapear or have no music content making me wonder what is going on.

It seems the copyright protection is starting to ratchet things up

I'd like to read up on this myself as I know just about every coverband that has a website posts songs

There's a part of me that sympathizes with the songwriters - its weird what the digital age is bringing forth.

 

[MingusBASS]

I would take the tunes down and make a demo CD for booking.

 

[MrMusashi]

once upon a time there was a rule saying that if the clip was shorter than 30 seconds it was ok to post on the web..
but then again, im sure norwegian law doesnt apply over there

MrM

 

[Grand Wazoo]

Are they asking for how much exactly, adouglas? give us an idea please.

 

[Hellboy]

once upon a time there was a rule saying that if the clip was shorter than 30 seconds it was ok to post on the web..
but then again, im sure norwegian law doesnt apply over there

MrM

Are you sure about this? There are many misunderstandings floating around and to my knowledge laws regarding copyright and intellectual property are international and regulated under the Berne Convention. There were lots of misunderstandings earlier that stated that you could steal/borrow 3 bars from a melody. Not true. Misunderstanding.

//J

 

[LawDaddy]

Hey guys, I litigated against BMI some years ago on behalf of a club owner.

I PM'd the OP to get a copy of the letter. When I see exactly what ASCAP is saying, I'll see if I can translate and provide some general comments here.

While of course I can't represent anyone through the interwebs, I'll see if I can clear the air a bit.

-Tim

 

[Hellboy]

Hey guys, I litigated against BMI some years ago on behalf of a club owner.

I PM'd the OP to get a copy of the letter. When I see exactly what ASCAP is saying, I'll see if I can translate and provide some general comments here.

While of course I can't represent anyone through the interwebs, I'll see if I can clear the air a bit.

-Tim

I bet that they´re just stating that they´ve not paid for using the songs on their website. This is rather basic and nothing to argue about. It´s all regulated in the copyright laws. One just can´t use someone else intellectual property anyway one wants....

//J

 

[oddjob]

Nope.

Clubs have to pay fees to ascap/bmi for the jukebox/live music cover band aspect to the club.

Coverbands don't have to go around anything unless they are recording the cover to CD, and sell it.

In Ohio, this is the general process as well.
Most of the clubs around here pay a modest monthly fee if they feature cover bands and that covers the bands. For profit live recordings are the exception to the rule - then you enter into a whole different realm.

 

[MrMusashi]

well, itunes lets you have a 30 second preview of songs. i believe its related to fair use, but do not take my words for it. im not american.. im not a lawyer.. <- its internet advice and yall know what to do with that

MrM

 

[Aussie Mark]

A medley of live recordings, with no single song >30 seconds would be perfectly acceptable to post on your website. Just call it "live medley", and nobody will worry about it at all.

 

[Hellboy]

well, itunes lets you have a 30 second preview of songs. i believe its related to fair use, but do not take my words for it. im not american.. im not a lawyer.. <- its internet advice and yall know what to do with that

MrM

Sorry but that has nothing to do with fair use. When agreeing to let iTunes sell your music you allow them to preview your music on iTunes. Hard for them to sell your music otherwise. It´s regulated in iTunes contract.

Sincerely//Jan

 

[adouglas]

Basically we'd have to play one gig for free each year to pay the fee. Which is to say two things:

1) The fee isn't that high
2) We don't get paid that much

I did email them asking about fair use, if it is valid in this context and what the limits might be.

Clearly if we post whole songs we should pay.

But what if we post a five-second clip?

Take it to the extreme... what if we post the first note of the song and that's it? Technically it's still part of the copyrighted work, but it'd be foolish to try to collect royalties on such a thing.

Nice idea about the medley, but if the bits that go into it are still recognizable then I don't see how it's any different.

I've taken the songs down for the time being.

I'll try to get the letter scanned sometime soon. I've got a nasty cold right now and am not disposed to doing anything that requires thought.

 

[RaginRog]

Our Drummer had a website which simply hosted the mp3s of the songs we played so that we could download them for our benefit, and he was told to remove the songs. I can't believe that covers of songs would cause such a big deal. The music industry has gotten quite angry at consumers...likely because of all the money they've lost to illegal downloads. I can understand their anger, but why take it out on cover bands!!??


I'd do what everyone suggests and remove the songs. Perhaps upload them with titles such as "in the likeness of The Meters."

We were getting ready to start a site and put recordings of a couple of the covers we perform....glad I saw your post.

 

[MK Bass Weed]

Our Drummer had a website which simply hosted the mp3s of the songs we played so that we could download them for our benefit, and he was told to remove the songs.


"I can't believe that covers of songs would cause such a big deal. The music industry has gotten quite angry at consumers...

There is justification in this anger.

The 'sharing of Mp3s' is against the basic of all basic copyright laws..making mp3s for your own use is fine, sharing is not. End of story. Just because people do, doesn't matter.

This law isn't going to change anytime soon, in fact it's getting tougher.
And..you can't sample EVER...it's never cool, but that's another story.

And then

Let's say YOU wrote a song...You know..maybe a cool song that people really like. And then, wow, you hear it all over the place, but not the version you did, and well, you don't see a dime from it while people who play your songs make a bunch. yeah..that's cool. No one is going after musicians who play cover songs in a band. This is not the issue of the AD's question.

A cover band isn't the problem.
The OP (AD) Was talking about posting covers on a website, for the purposes of advertising his band, which, gets paid for gigs..no matter what the sum, that would require a fee.

There are cover bands all over the US that do this all the time, and make HUGE $$ and since it's a business, they pay the fee and it's cool.

All the information is out there, in boatloads like this:

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf