| LearnJazzPiano.com archives: Copyright songs | |
| jazz jasper -- 08/27/2006, 15:34:44 -- #29507 | |
| Can someone let me know if I can upload songs such as fly me to the moon, there will never be another you, beautiful love and songs like that to the internet and release them as CD's or do I need to seek copyright permission? Thanks | |
| 7 -- 08/27/2006, 17:05:59 -- #29507 | |
| Often this is a question of how much attention you will receive. I'm sure that people like Diana Krall has to get permission from the copyright holder to record a standard and release it. But does your average small club pianist ask permission to throw his interepretations of a few standards onto a disk to sell to fans at the gigs. Hardly. Then comes the issue of interpretation. Your personal interpretation of a tune belongs to you, since no one has ever played it exactly the same way as you. Unless you are playing someone else's version note for note (which is a kind of an anti-Jazz way to play), you'll probably get a bit of leeway because it's YOUR rendition. Nonetheless, melodies ARE copyrightable and so the copyright owner (if they get a whiff of your big success) may first hit you with a "cease and desist" order. At which point, you delete those tunes from wherever you uploaded them to on the internet, and cease selling CDs with those tunes on it. Should it come to fines (which if you're small fry it probably won't), you claim "fair use" - meaning that you were only using that tune as a vehicle for your own personal artistic expression. IOW, don't sweat it - unless you're copying note for note or if you're big time. | |
| Scot -- 08/27/2006, 21:45:39 -- #29507 | |
| If you record a CD, most cd duplication places will put in ASCAP and other copyright charges into your final fee. So initially, maybe you're paying $1000 for a thousand CD's, but the price might be $2500 because the copyright fees are $2.50 per CD. I don't think the prices are that high, but I know it happens. If you're uploading your tunes to places that allow you to upload copyrighted material because they have paid their online webcast fees, then no problem. If you put them on your website, you may be contacted by ASCAP and others about those same fees. Learnjazzpiano.com is required to pay those fees because of the midi files we have of jazz standards. | |
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