JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Giggers busted not having license to cover copyrighted songs?

This isn't for me, I am not interested in doing this, it was asked on another forum and I don't know the answer.

It is known that the PRO's have agents go around and bust venues for not having a license to allow bands to play cover songs. Happens quite often.

But what about the performers? Do they ever get busted for selling or even giving away CD's with cover songs on them? (And the performer does not have a compulsory license.) If busts do occur, who does it? PRO's or whom? What is a typical fine?

My understanding is that per song, for songs not in the public domain, you must pay 9.1 cents per song for each distribution. If it's a song administered by the Harry Fox Agency, there is a 500 song minimum? Which would be $45.50? Is this right? So, if you had ten songs that fall under Harry Fox Agency, $455 for selling or giving away up to 500 cd's? And if it's not covered by Harry Fox, you pay the copyright holder monthly?

Main thing I am wanting to know is... do performers get busted, who busts them and what are the penalties? I am not encouraging artists to skate on this. BTW, performers who want to do this are not songwriters, they just perform cover songs. Of course, they could do public domain songs and I suppose all is fine.

No. The fees are paid by the establishment in liscencing fees.

The performers do not pay.Although that would be a good way to end all live music. Performers genereally don't make enough to pay attention much less pay the performance fees.

The minimum is actually closer to 1000 than 500, and if someone wanted to get nitpicky, probably a case could be made for it.
But performers don't sell or even give away hundreds of CD's. They sell in the 3's, 4's and 5's a night, not fifty or one hundred. There are not as many CD sales as people think.

In this day and age, very few people are going to record a CD of cover songs. What would be the point?

More sales with T shirts and hats than those.

MAB

Hmmm... that seems odd. They don't have to pay? Then what is a compulsory license for? So, you're saying it's okay to manufacture a CD with ten cover songs on it and sell three or four a night and nobody will ever bust you?

Are you sure you read that right? I am not talking about performing, I am talking about selling or giving away cd's with cover songs on them that are not public domain.

I don't think very many cover bands do CD's of covers do they Marc?

If they did tho they cannot legally do a CD of cover's without the license. And I think the copyright fines are very steep. In the $1000's per incidence I think.
At $45.00 per 500 it would be silly to not have the license. A 10 song CD of covers would only be $450.00 or so. At 3 CD's a night it is recovered in a reasonable time.
Besides everyone knows they aren't in it for the money. It's for the love of the music.

OK,
Pro royalities. These are collected by the PRO'S for public performances such as live venues as well as Airplay. A Venue will pay a license fee to the PRO, all three in the U.S. based on a forumula as to how many nights, time of play, etc. I understand the license amounts to about one or two mixed drinks per person per night, in other words it isn't much.
Pro Royalities are paid directly to the songwriter(s) by the PRO'S.

Mechanical Royalities. These are paid by the Artist/Record Label for the number of Records/CD's Pressed or manufactured to the Copyright Owner, usually a Publisher. The current rate, as set by the U.S. Congress is 9.1 cents per copy for a song up to 5 minutes in length. A bit more for songs that are longer. These are paid to the Copyright Owner, most likely a Publisher who pays the writer's according to what is in the Publishing Contract.

A Compulsory License can be invoked if a copyright owner refuses to issue a license. After a song is recorded and released to the public, anyone can record it and release it by paying the license fee. A Compulsory License can be obtained thru the U.S. Copyright Office. The full mechanical rate is required to be paid when obtaining a license that way. Also Harry Fox requires the full mechanical rate be paid for the license.

Artists don't pay a fee to the PRO'S. Venues do. Hope this clears it up.

I once paid the BMI license for a club. The deal was, we were the only band that would play in the club. We had a pretty good crowd and started to outgrow the place. After the license was up we got another gig. Other bands tried to get in the club then, but as far as I know they've never had live music again.

A lot of dance bands do cds of covers, we're not talking radio artists, we're talking the front lines of live music LOL. I'm sure most of them do not pay the publishers. I've never heard of one getting busted for it. Some dance bands will do a cd, then send a check to the publishers after selling product. That's not the way to do it, but I've never heard of a publisher sending the check back. But that's different, of course, than the OP subject, PROs.

Think about the cost-benefit analysis of that. A major publisher isn't going to be staking out tiny venues looking for local bands covering pop songs without paying 9.1 cents for a handful of CDs. They would, I think, go after people with a much higher profile, or perhaps scan the Internet, rather than troll live venues for that kind of thing.

Yes, exactly. That's why it is fairly widespread among dance/lounge/tourist bands. They'll do up a cd as a demo and sell it to the audience to help pay for it. It makes sense for the PROs to hit the venues, the publishers might just google titles now and then.

Mike, having the band have the BMI/ASCAP/&c. license is a good idea. Our square dance caller has the BMI license--she says it's so the club doesn't have to, but it also means (1) she can go anywhere and do square dances with that license, and (2) if the club hires anyone else, either they or the club have to have a license. A band could do this, and (depending on the cost of the license) it could be a gig-getting opportunity. You could go to a venue--particularly a venue that's been hounded by the ASCAP Police--and say, look, if you hire us the license thing is covered, but *only* if you hire us. And it will cost you. I wonder if that'd work.

The problem I see with venues (and this is in the Portland area--I don't think the ASCOPS venture out into the countryside) is the venues get along without having a license for months, or years, and then get bit, and bitch about it. If the BMI/ASCAP/&c. license were perceived as just another cost of doing business, like the liquor license or the business license, there wouldn't be such a problem. But enforcement is so sporadic and inefficient that never happens.

Joe

Of course, this thread has evolved to be about two different things here but I enjoy your posts. I only brought up the PRO's and their stiff-armed enforcement of venues because of that -- enforcement. But that license has nothing to do with making a cd.

Andrew, I think it is a decent thread question. I don't think it's crazy to assume that the powers that be regarding copyright violation could hit bands that records songs without a license. After all, look at what the PRO's do to the venues, as I mentioned. And look at what has happened to little old ladies and young kids who download copyrighted material... remember all those lawsuits?

So, apparently copyright is a serious thing with certain groups!

So, I think it's a valid question to ask. I have never known a band to get busted for making a cover song cd, but...

The company that prints my CD's{QCA} wont allow you to print up CD's with cover tunes until you go through the proper channels and get a mechanical liscence through Harry Fox.

Well, the thing is finding the bands who are doing it. A PRO has an easy time. Almost any cover tune will be covered by one of the three PROs. But a publisher might go to a club and not hear one of their songs all night.

Bob, many cd duplicating houses insist on licenses. That's a good thing. Some don't. Some folks buy a duplicating machine, and some folks burn 'em one at a time.

Also, the cover bands are actually advertising for the songs and artist that they play! Those artists should pay the cover bands!
Same with car maker names on the cars we drive. Or hats we wear for companies.

We're all walking, talking, playing advertising fools!

And we love it! But pay US!

I'm quite sure that the PRO's use spies to locate venues that are having live music. The reason I say this is that I live in a small city that has few venues that promote live music.

A small (4 tables) coffee shop opened and had a young man in there to play his guitar and sing. Another local dude stops in and starts spouting the retoric about covering music and that you have to pay the PRO's.

Long story short, an agent of one of the PRO's started to harass the owner. So the music stopped. The same scenaro played out in another small shop too. Thats why I think there is probably somebody blowing the places in. Might even be a competitor. Not that its a bad thing, its the way one goes about it. Just takes a little work to do the honest thing.

Duke,

I don't really know of many bands that would do a CD of cover tunes. Doubtful they would bother to spend resources on cover CD's when that would take away from money spent on original music, which a majority of bands do.
Most that I have ever seen might do a cover on their CD or even a couple but I can't remember anyone ever doing a total CD of covers. If they did, like Rod Stewart and his "classics CD Series, all those songs are cleared by publishers.
What I thought this question was about was if bands or artists paid liscencing fees on live performance. To my knowledge I doubt it. I certainly never would. I was actually hired once to play a club that had a dispute with BMI. They could play no BMI tunes till it was resolved. I am ASCAP so I did all originals. No BMI tunes.
Many bands might record a cover song or two but this is mostly for booking purposes, not for sale. Other than that I have no answer for you.

MAB

As an artist that has licensed music in this nature this is what I did. I did most of the licenses thru Harry Fox. There was one song and one co-writer on another song that was not represented by Harry Fox that I had to contact. If you search Harry Fox for the song you're looking to sell, you will find that different songs cost a different amount up front for different situations.

One song in particular cost me up front of $25 for the first 180 digital sales (I didn't do it as a CD). The other writer on that song wasn't on Harry Fox so I had to contact their reps and those people wanted way more money, somewhere around $150. I mentioned to them that the other writer was being rep'd by Harry Fox and it was only $25. The more expensive person instantly dropped their price when I said "nah, I'll just forget that song on the release."

The good and the bad of Harry Fox is, it's usually cheaper, but then there's no room for negotiating the price that is set. It's different prices for different mediums and a few years ago I think the minimum was 180 for Digital sales. Of course you're expected to continue reporting additional sales and renewing licenses for as long as you're selling it.

Why take the chance of the artist finding out?

It's not hard to license a song for a recording. Besides, if you had a song people wanted to cover, wouldn't you like to be paid for it? Why rip off a fellow artist?

Excellent point Jody. (not ripping off fellow artists). Iggy, on behalf of our band, did the same, getting licensees. It's a matter of conducting music business in a respectful way.

They were for two Beatles songs on our otherwise original CD that we really didn't expect to do much. Iggy took it upon himself to just do the right thing before he went ahead with getting the CD's. (He does a lot for this band, besides write, play and sing).

Good other info as well. Haven't seen you around here as much, but I haven't been around a lot either. I just might have missed many folks posts over the past few months or more.

Keep us all, especially the young bands, informed of how things are going for you.

I don't think www.copyright.gov issues any kind of licenses for use of works registered with it.

I think www.harryfoxagency.com does issue mechanical licenses. There may be others that specialize in it.

If a work is not registered with one of those agencies, I can see the logic that the publisher might issue one but I don't know. A copyright owner might also, conceivably, if they are self-published and the work is not registered with any other Mech. Licensing entity.

If we don't know, for sure, authoritatively, we should be very careful about using other people's intellectual property without licensing. It could bring our business to a screeching halt with enduring bad publicity and/or costs we weren't prepared to pay.

A BMI rep. came through Portsmouth, Ohio once, advising bar owners of the illegality of their bands and juke boxes and TV's and radios and DJ's or other playing of unlicensed works.

I heard that bands are supposed to supply a set list of the songs they're going to play, to the club, and the club was supposed to submit that to the Performance Rights Organizations for appropriate accounting to the publishers and songwriters.

Again, better to reference some of the textbooks on the biz and be sure than have the headaches and heartaches that can hit you just when you're ready to make some money.

I don't know about this Joe. I've heard about some pretty out in the woods places who get visited. It might take a while and I'm sure some are missed but it does happen. And some of those out in the woods joints don't take kindly to it at all.

Gary,
A compusory License info is posted on the Copyright Office, you can read it, you just have to do some digging. It is part of copyright law. The only reason a copyright owner might not want to issue a license would for less than the statutory rate or the copyright owner cannot be located.

Yeah, it happens all right, and I think this sort of enforcement generally comes from the PROs rather than the publishers.

A lot of small clubs have a very strict No Covers policy that is in theory perfectly okay...but they find themselves in constant fear of slipping up and getting fined hard enough to endanger their business.

Folks, we're talking about two very different thingss.

1. The 9.1 cent fee is NOT paid by the club, it is paid by the record company (often that is the band themselves) to the publisher of each song. And, yes, it is not worth the cost for a publisher to send detectives out to the clubs and communiity in general looking for bands selling their cds off the back of the truck. They might go through a hundred or more bands' cds before they find one of their published songs.

2. It is the PROs, the performance rights organizations: ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC, that collect license fees from clubs. That is, I'm sure, to which Christine is referring. And, yes, they do that all the time...sometimes even out in the sticks.

Christine & Mark: You also misunderstood what I said. I never said PROs don't go after clubs, I said that they don't go after COVER BANDS playing at clubs. I've never heard of that in my life. You will never see some random band get fined by ASCAP for playing a cover song in a small live venue, and it is extremely unlikely they'd run into any trouble selling a handful of CDs with said cover song on it. Please don't be so quick to discount what I'm saying.

Actually, I've never heard of a PRO going after any kind of band. It is the club that the PROs license.

I'm part of a group that will on occasion put a cover on a cd... we buy a mechanical licence for that song... for a run of 500 cds ...