Are cover songs on MeFi Music legally okay? July 12, 2006 9:09 AM Subscribe
Are cover songs on Metafilter Music really legally okay?
Yeah, we shouldn't allow cover songs if we really want to stay in the clear. I figured it would take some time before we ran afoul of anyone, and I could deal with it then.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:18 AM on July 12, 2006
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:18 AM on July 12, 2006
Matt didn't say it was legal, he just said he was fine with posting them, at least until some rights-holder requests their removal. Otherwise, you're right; distributing cover songs without paying compulsory license fees is legally problematic. I'd recommend that Matt talk to his lawyer about this; of course, for all I know, maybe he already has.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 9:20 AM on July 12, 2006
posted by monju_bosatsu at 9:20 AM on July 12, 2006
As long as someone is thinking about it besides me. Oops, baby just woke up, so I won't be responding any more in thread for a while.
posted by nanojath at 9:24 AM on July 12, 2006
posted by nanojath at 9:24 AM on July 12, 2006
Nanojath, you'd better not infringe. ASCAP/BMI is listening!
posted by Plutor at 9:40 AM on July 12, 2006
posted by Plutor at 9:40 AM on July 12, 2006
I'd say that this is something that can best be dealt with by waiting for a complaint and then complying with the DCMA.
posted by klangklangston at 9:50 AM on July 12, 2006
posted by klangklangston at 9:50 AM on July 12, 2006
We shall now all pause and listen intently to four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence.
posted by loquacious at 9:51 AM on July 12, 2006
posted by loquacious at 9:51 AM on July 12, 2006
if you're not profiting from it, it should be fair use, no?
posted by amberglow at 9:51 AM on July 12, 2006
posted by amberglow at 9:51 AM on July 12, 2006
"If the original song writer asks me to remove it, I will, but I don't think Madonna is going to care if quonsar wants to dress you up in his love, all over, all over..."
posted by slimepuppy at 9:55 AM on July 12, 2006
posted by slimepuppy at 9:55 AM on July 12, 2006
if you're not profiting from it, it should be fair use, no?
No, that's not quite how fair use works. If it were, Project Gutenberg would have a lot more books.
As I understand the law from skimming a few articles about the Grokster case, until Matt is made aware of specific infringement going on at MeFi, he can safely assume that anyone uploading songs has cleared the necessary rights to do so.
posted by scottreynen at 10:09 AM on July 12, 2006
No, that's not quite how fair use works. If it were, Project Gutenberg would have a lot more books.
As I understand the law from skimming a few articles about the Grokster case, until Matt is made aware of specific infringement going on at MeFi, he can safely assume that anyone uploading songs has cleared the necessary rights to do so.
posted by scottreynen at 10:09 AM on July 12, 2006
The DMCA doesn't apply, so it's not like someone can just ask for a takedown. ASCAP/BMI could demand fees for all downloads from me today, but I figured I'd rather not worry about it until it becomes a real problem.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:09 AM on July 12, 2006
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:09 AM on July 12, 2006
Can ASCAP/BMI demand fees for stuff that's not even in their catalog?
If so, I've never quite figured out how that's even legal.
posted by loquacious at 10:39 AM on July 12, 2006
If so, I've never quite figured out how that's even legal.
posted by loquacious at 10:39 AM on July 12, 2006
The only caution that I would urge is that if ASCAP/BMI/some other rights-holder gets alerted to Music on MetaFilter, they are likely to audit the site and uncover every instance where compulsory license fees are due, and ask for them in arrears.
The DMCA doesn't apply, so it's not like someone can just ask for a takedown.
Well, yes and no. Maybe the DMCA doesn't apply, but that doesn't mean that somebody can't just send you a C&D. If anything, a rights-holder may have broader rights in this context because they aren't required to comply with the restrictions on take-down letters under the DMCA. Again, though, I'm not an IP specialist, so I'd suggest you talk to your lawyer.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 10:52 AM on July 12, 2006
The DMCA doesn't apply, so it's not like someone can just ask for a takedown.
Well, yes and no. Maybe the DMCA doesn't apply, but that doesn't mean that somebody can't just send you a C&D. If anything, a rights-holder may have broader rights in this context because they aren't required to comply with the restrictions on take-down letters under the DMCA. Again, though, I'm not an IP specialist, so I'd suggest you talk to your lawyer.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 10:52 AM on July 12, 2006
I think that's the first time I've heard the words "restrictions" and "DMCA" used in the same sentence when not accompanied by the the words "there are no".
posted by Plutor at 11:38 AM on July 12, 2006
posted by Plutor at 11:38 AM on July 12, 2006
Matt, now that this thread exists, it's been documented that you know about the problem. If you continue to distribute cover songs, I think you can be liable for absolutely draconian damages. The penalties in this area are ridiculous these days.
You could help CYA by saying in the posting guidelines 'no cover songs please!' and then removing anything that anyone complains about. If you're diligent about that, it shouldn't be a problem... but now that it's documented, I think you'd need to take (at least) both those steps to avoid liability.
This is definitely worth getting a Real Legal Opinion on. Think of it like an insurance policy... that's almost exactly what it would be. If you have a RLO that says what you're doing is okay, then your potential liability is vastly reduced, even if the lawyer was wrong.
And don't think they won't come after you... they went after the Scouts for singing songs around the campfire. And won. Seriously.
posted by Malor at 11:49 AM on July 12, 2006
You could help CYA by saying in the posting guidelines 'no cover songs please!' and then removing anything that anyone complains about. If you're diligent about that, it shouldn't be a problem... but now that it's documented, I think you'd need to take (at least) both those steps to avoid liability.
This is definitely worth getting a Real Legal Opinion on. Think of it like an insurance policy... that's almost exactly what it would be. If you have a RLO that says what you're doing is okay, then your potential liability is vastly reduced, even if the lawyer was wrong.
And don't think they won't come after you... they went after the Scouts for singing songs around the campfire. And won. Seriously.
posted by Malor at 11:49 AM on July 12, 2006
What Malor said. Seriously
Delete this whole thread ASAP for good measure, hopefully you missed the Googlebot or Yahoo spider.
posted by loquacious at 12:02 PM on July 12, 2006
Delete this whole thread ASAP for good measure, hopefully you missed the Googlebot or Yahoo spider.
posted by loquacious at 12:02 PM on July 12, 2006
I didn't do it. Nobody saw me do it. You can't prove anything!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:04 PM on July 12, 2006
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:04 PM on July 12, 2006
I heard that when you read MetaFilter for the first time, it installs DRM software on your computer
posted by matteo at 12:09 PM on July 12, 2006
posted by matteo at 12:09 PM on July 12, 2006
I manage my digital rights by hand.
posted by blue_beetle at 12:15 PM on July 12, 2006
posted by blue_beetle at 12:15 PM on July 12, 2006
Is it okay if I cover Springsteen's Cover Me? What about if I plagiarize Steal This Book?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:19 PM on July 12, 2006
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:19 PM on July 12, 2006
I'm going to start recording songs that I wrote, tagging them as being covers by bands which I also invented, and posting them. I bet I could get at least a cease & desist letter from someone!
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 12:29 PM on July 12, 2006
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 12:29 PM on July 12, 2006
"Can't Buy Me Loaves" by "The Baettlers"
As a sort of counterproposal, it'd be nice if the folks posting covers would universally use "cover" as a tag.
posted by cortex at 12:31 PM on July 12, 2006
As a sort of counterproposal, it'd be nice if the folks posting covers would universally use "cover" as a tag.
posted by cortex at 12:31 PM on July 12, 2006
Yeah, if I were you, I would really, really seriously delete this thread. Either that, or remove all covers from Mefi Music from here on out.
posted by reklaw at 12:54 PM on July 12, 2006
posted by reklaw at 12:54 PM on July 12, 2006
Yup, mathowie, because you do profit from the site as a whole you are opening yourself up to a shitstorm of litigation. I, for one, won't be posting cover versions and I'd encourage other users to avoid doing so without having first obtained some form of permission from the rights holders.
posted by persona non grata at 1:05 PM on July 12, 2006
posted by persona non grata at 1:05 PM on July 12, 2006
Yup, mathowie, because you do profit from the site as a whole you are opening yourself up to a shitstorm of litigation.
Repeat after me: Profit is not a prerequisite to copyright violation.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 1:34 PM on July 12, 2006
Repeat after me: Profit is not a prerequisite to copyright violation.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 1:34 PM on July 12, 2006
Full Disclosure: I'm ASCAP and so's my wife.
NARC! Git 'em!
posted by monju_bosatsu at 1:35 PM on July 12, 2006
NARC! Git 'em!
posted by monju_bosatsu at 1:35 PM on July 12, 2006
Big nose.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:44 PM on July 12, 2006
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:44 PM on July 12, 2006
Ok, I left a message with my lawyer, and I could block all cover songs from here on out, as well as delete the ones that have been added, but I'll wait until I hear back from her to make any changes.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:55 PM on July 12, 2006
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:55 PM on July 12, 2006
"Repeat after me: Profit is not a prerequisite to copyright violation."
This is not the place to discuss this, but man, profit so should be a prerequisite. Or at least the possible (or rather, plausible) denial of revenue. Project Gutenberg, for example, may not profit from hosting books as scottreynen mentioned, but publishing them online would reduce sales figures. However, I sincerely doubt that my Knight Rider theme song will hurt DVD or soundtrack sales, except in the case that it causes people to blind and deafen themselves to stop the pain (thank goodness I didn't have enough bass response that people could feel it, too).
posted by Eideteker at 2:10 PM on July 12, 2006
This is not the place to discuss this, but man, profit so should be a prerequisite. Or at least the possible (or rather, plausible) denial of revenue. Project Gutenberg, for example, may not profit from hosting books as scottreynen mentioned, but publishing them online would reduce sales figures. However, I sincerely doubt that my Knight Rider theme song will hurt DVD or soundtrack sales, except in the case that it causes people to blind and deafen themselves to stop the pain (thank goodness I didn't have enough bass response that people could feel it, too).
posted by Eideteker at 2:10 PM on July 12, 2006
profit so should be a prerequisite
No, actually it totally sucks. I was involved with talks around a certain open source type license, about how you could do anything you want with someone else's work if you didn't make money from it. It turns out it's pretty much impossible to prove you made anything and it's very easy to lie and say your monthly bills from hosting it exceed any revenue you might see from it.
Also, every blogspammer I've ever emailed that was sucking in my full RSS feeds and slapping ads on them as HTML pages has always claimed that oh yeah, I was just copying blogs I like whole hog and the ads were supposed to offset my hosting costs but I swear that I make barely anything off them honest.
...which is bullshit. If they didn't make money, they wouldn't run mirrors of dozens of tech blogs on crappy-domains-featuring-plenty-of-dashes.com unless it was profitable.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:20 PM on July 12, 2006
No, actually it totally sucks. I was involved with talks around a certain open source type license, about how you could do anything you want with someone else's work if you didn't make money from it. It turns out it's pretty much impossible to prove you made anything and it's very easy to lie and say your monthly bills from hosting it exceed any revenue you might see from it.
Also, every blogspammer I've ever emailed that was sucking in my full RSS feeds and slapping ads on them as HTML pages has always claimed that oh yeah, I was just copying blogs I like whole hog and the ads were supposed to offset my hosting costs but I swear that I make barely anything off them honest.
...which is bullshit. If they didn't make money, they wouldn't run mirrors of dozens of tech blogs on crappy-domains-featuring-plenty-of-dashes.com unless it was profitable.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:20 PM on July 12, 2006
"I left a message with my lawyer ... I'll wait until I hear back from her"
Your lawyer is a chick? Oh, dear.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 2:25 PM on July 12, 2006
Your lawyer is a chick? Oh, dear.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 2:25 PM on July 12, 2006
I've always admired her tracts.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:27 PM on July 12, 2006
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:27 PM on July 12, 2006
Excuse me, income should be a prerequisite. You shouldn't expect or attempt to make any money, even to cover your expenses, if you are using someone else's work. Having ads on the page would then be a no-no. I suppose, by extension, that this would mean HiFi couldn't show ads to non-logged-in users and still maintain the moral high ground.
I was arguing from an ideological standpoint, anyhow. Fun should be free, dammit. So long as you're not hurting anyone.
posted by Eideteker at 2:28 PM on July 12, 2006
I was arguing from an ideological standpoint, anyhow. Fun should be free, dammit. So long as you're not hurting anyone.
posted by Eideteker at 2:28 PM on July 12, 2006
Somebody said, "The most creative thing in hollywood is the accounting."
You can't base it on profit, but you could base it on revenue.. Like, you can do anything you want with this as long as it generates no income.
The real problem with copyright is the timeframe, not the profitability. Copyright law should look more like the Founders' Copyright:
You can't base it on profit, but you could base it on revenue.. Like, you can do anything you want with this as long as it generates no income.
The real problem with copyright is the timeframe, not the profitability. Copyright law should look more like the Founders' Copyright:
the U.S.'s first copyright law granted authors a monopoly right over their creations for 14 years, with the option of renewing that monopoly for another 14.posted by Chuckles at 2:31 PM on July 12, 2006
It's better to seek forgiveness later than permission now.
Too late for that in this case, obviously, but geez--why bring it up?
posted by First Post at 2:59 PM on July 12, 2006
Too late for that in this case, obviously, but geez--why bring it up?
posted by First Post at 2:59 PM on July 12, 2006
*swallows tail*
posted by mediareport at 3:23 PM on July 12, 2006
posted by mediareport at 3:23 PM on July 12, 2006
I guess I won't be posting any of my songs...
posted by mildred-pitt at 3:42 PM on July 12, 2006
posted by mildred-pitt at 3:42 PM on July 12, 2006
crappy-domains-featuring-plenty-of-dashes.com
Fuckin' Anil, man.
posted by gleuschk at 4:00 PM on July 12, 2006
Fuckin' Anil, man.
posted by gleuschk at 4:00 PM on July 12, 2006
Would this be an appropriate juncture to enquire as to the suitability of samples and sampling?
Having fairly little experience with sequencing and such like, but being familar with general audio manipulation, most of the stuff I've made is based on severely re-worked samples from random stuff. Usually I use small snippets that end up largely unrecognizable.
Is this sort of thing acceptable?
posted by MetaMonkey at 5:40 PM on July 12, 2006
Having fairly little experience with sequencing and such like, but being familar with general audio manipulation, most of the stuff I've made is based on severely re-worked samples from random stuff. Usually I use small snippets that end up largely unrecognizable.
Is this sort of thing acceptable?
posted by MetaMonkey at 5:40 PM on July 12, 2006
Just don't let the rolling stones know about it.
posted by puke & cry at 5:51 PM on July 12, 2006
posted by puke & cry at 5:51 PM on July 12, 2006
I would say no on the samples. Sample stuff you created or stuff people gave you permission to sample (like CC licensed music).
posted by mathowie (staff) at 6:10 PM on July 12, 2006
posted by mathowie (staff) at 6:10 PM on July 12, 2006
Usually I use small snippets that end up largely unrecognizable. Is this sort of thing acceptable?
If I recall correctly, there was some kind of court decision in the last few years that declaring that no samples of any size may be used, no matter how much you manipulate them, without permission.
This is, of course, completely fucking ridiculous. I feel your pain.
Now, of course, catching one doing this would be a problem. If you were a professional recording artist, the authorities could probably go through the studio source material and logs to find out what samples you use, and look for people who witnessed you manipulating samples, but as an amateur working on their own PC, it's going to be hard to trace. But I certainly wouldn't mention that you use samples in a particular song. Lie about it. Call it digitally manipulated noise, or something.
posted by Jimbob at 6:28 PM on July 12, 2006
If I recall correctly, there was some kind of court decision in the last few years that declaring that no samples of any size may be used, no matter how much you manipulate them, without permission.
This is, of course, completely fucking ridiculous. I feel your pain.
Now, of course, catching one doing this would be a problem. If you were a professional recording artist, the authorities could probably go through the studio source material and logs to find out what samples you use, and look for people who witnessed you manipulating samples, but as an amateur working on their own PC, it's going to be hard to trace. But I certainly wouldn't mention that you use samples in a particular song. Lie about it. Call it digitally manipulated noise, or something.
posted by Jimbob at 6:28 PM on July 12, 2006
I would say no on the samples.
Huh? Even when satire is involved? Didn't the Supreme Court lay out some pretty clear guidelines on that one in the Two Live Crew/Roy Orbison case?
posted by mediareport at 6:29 PM on July 12, 2006
Huh? Even when satire is involved? Didn't the Supreme Court lay out some pretty clear guidelines on that one in the Two Live Crew/Roy Orbison case?
posted by mediareport at 6:29 PM on July 12, 2006
Can you guys leave the self-important bloviating about IP law to the asshats on debial-legal? Please?
posted by blasdelf at 6:56 PM on July 12, 2006
posted by blasdelf at 6:56 PM on July 12, 2006
Didn't the Supreme Court lay out some pretty clear guidelines on that one in the Two Live Crew/Roy Orbison case?
Last year in the Beastie Boys case they ruled that any length of sample no matter how short requires permission and/or payment for the rights. They totally blew sampling out of the water.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 6:57 PM on July 12, 2006
Last year in the Beastie Boys case they ruled that any length of sample no matter how short requires permission and/or payment for the rights. They totally blew sampling out of the water.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 6:57 PM on July 12, 2006
Can you guys leave the self-important bloviating about IP law to the asshats on debial-legal? Please?
Nope.
posted by Jimbob at 7:01 PM on July 12, 2006
Nope.
posted by Jimbob at 7:01 PM on July 12, 2006
Yeah, shortly after that ruling I started to release my compilation of every note played on every instrument. 2,000 CD set. Expensive to produce, but it's so totally gonna pay off.
posted by graventy at 8:26 PM on July 12, 2006
posted by graventy at 8:26 PM on July 12, 2006
any length of sample no matter how short requires permission and/or payment for the rights
John Cage must be truly cleaning up now. All those silent bits between the notes? He fuckin' owns 'em!
posted by five fresh fish at 8:42 PM on July 12, 2006
John Cage must be truly cleaning up now. All those silent bits between the notes? He fuckin' owns 'em!
posted by five fresh fish at 8:42 PM on July 12, 2006
John Cage must be truly cleaning up now.
Actually, he did win a six-figure settlement over some silence on another record as plagarism.
The world is truly as fucked up as it seems, and laws around this stuff totally suck ass.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:15 PM on July 12, 2006 [1 favorite]
Actually, he did win a six-figure settlement over some silence on another record as plagarism.
The world is truly as fucked up as it seems, and laws around this stuff totally suck ass.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:15 PM on July 12, 2006 [1 favorite]
Well, not Cage but his estate. Cage was dead by then, and had he been alive it's unlikely any such bullshit would have been made to transgress. He was a pretty cool guy.
posted by cortex at 9:29 PM on July 12, 2006
posted by cortex at 9:29 PM on July 12, 2006
The world is truly as fucked up as it seems
Ain't that the truth.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:21 PM on July 12, 2006
Ain't that the truth.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:21 PM on July 12, 2006
Last year in the Beastie Boys case they ruled that any length of sample no matter how short requires permission and/or payment for the rights.
Actually, I think they refused to rule on the lower court case, and in essence was a pro-sampling decision - the Boys obtained a license to the recording of several flute notes but not to the underlying composition and the lower court held that the underlying composition was not infringed. Regardless, sampling remains a contested legal area. Commercial releases take the conservate route and get a license, which is probably appropriate given the ease of getting one and the sums involved either way. It is a whole lot more complicated for the likes of MeFiMusic.
posted by caddis at 1:12 AM on July 13, 2006
Actually, I think they refused to rule on the lower court case, and in essence was a pro-sampling decision - the Boys obtained a license to the recording of several flute notes but not to the underlying composition and the lower court held that the underlying composition was not infringed. Regardless, sampling remains a contested legal area. Commercial releases take the conservate route and get a license, which is probably appropriate given the ease of getting one and the sums involved either way. It is a whole lot more complicated for the likes of MeFiMusic.
posted by caddis at 1:12 AM on July 13, 2006
From that John Cage news article:
[Batt said] "Mine is a much better silent piece. I have been able to say in one minute what Cage could only say in four minutes and 33 seconds."
Pure genius.
posted by patricio at 1:21 AM on July 13, 2006
[Batt said] "Mine is a much better silent piece. I have been able to say in one minute what Cage could only say in four minutes and 33 seconds."
Pure genius.
posted by patricio at 1:21 AM on July 13, 2006
I have been able to say in one minute what Cage could only say in four minutes and 33 seconds."
I remember reading that before and even though it is pretty ingenious statement to make, I did disagree with him. Like so many minimalist composers, their pieces get better the longer you listen to them. Four minutes and thirty three seconds would be a much 'better' immersive musical experience than one minute of the same. Hell 20 or 30 minutes is probably better again (Cage himself said he often held impromptu personal performances of 4'33" of varying length). So I'd go with Cage for original and best!
Actually our class held a listening/viewing session of all the pieces we'd done during the year for our course and decided to watch a video of the full orchestral performance of 4'33" - man we're such musical nerds!
posted by TwoWordReview at 2:37 AM on July 13, 2006
I remember reading that before and even though it is pretty ingenious statement to make, I did disagree with him. Like so many minimalist composers, their pieces get better the longer you listen to them. Four minutes and thirty three seconds would be a much 'better' immersive musical experience than one minute of the same. Hell 20 or 30 minutes is probably better again (Cage himself said he often held impromptu personal performances of 4'33" of varying length). So I'd go with Cage for original and best!
Actually our class held a listening/viewing session of all the pieces we'd done during the year for our course and decided to watch a video of the full orchestral performance of 4'33" - man we're such musical nerds!
posted by TwoWordReview at 2:37 AM on July 13, 2006
Too late for that in this case, obviously, but geez--why bring it up?
I brought it up because I believe Mathowie is exposing himself to substantial legal liability. I believe Metafilter is a significantly large enough presence on the internet to attract the attention of the rights management agents of the copyright holders of the works in question - too big to assume the "keep quiet about it and hope for the best" approach is sufficient.
And if this sort of scrutiny were to happen it would not come by someone somehow stumbling upon some abstract discussion of the legality of covers in the backend discussion forum of the site, but by the more logical and common expedient of someone searching for common song titles attached to MP3 or streaming audio files. Once they found one a simple search for "cover" on the Music site would reveal most if not all of them. I also don't think it matters a whit whether Mathowie gives some opinion of the legality of it on the site, what matters is he is hosting unauthorized covers on his for-profit site. Plausible deniability of knowledge of the law provides no protection from its dictates.
I also suspect any liability is cumulative so my only regret is I didn't post it a couple of days ago when I first thought about it. That's all I have to say about it, I think the covers are fun too and I'm no fan of the way IP rights are getting prosecuted these days but the relevant lesson of recent experience from Napster on is don't fuck with the rights holders.
posted by nanojath at 2:53 AM on July 13, 2006
I brought it up because I believe Mathowie is exposing himself to substantial legal liability. I believe Metafilter is a significantly large enough presence on the internet to attract the attention of the rights management agents of the copyright holders of the works in question - too big to assume the "keep quiet about it and hope for the best" approach is sufficient.
And if this sort of scrutiny were to happen it would not come by someone somehow stumbling upon some abstract discussion of the legality of covers in the backend discussion forum of the site, but by the more logical and common expedient of someone searching for common song titles attached to MP3 or streaming audio files. Once they found one a simple search for "cover" on the Music site would reveal most if not all of them. I also don't think it matters a whit whether Mathowie gives some opinion of the legality of it on the site, what matters is he is hosting unauthorized covers on his for-profit site. Plausible deniability of knowledge of the law provides no protection from its dictates.
I also suspect any liability is cumulative so my only regret is I didn't post it a couple of days ago when I first thought about it. That's all I have to say about it, I think the covers are fun too and I'm no fan of the way IP rights are getting prosecuted these days but the relevant lesson of recent experience from Napster on is don't fuck with the rights holders.
posted by nanojath at 2:53 AM on July 13, 2006
Yes -- for fuck's sake please don't post covers. Opens a whole bag of worms that could tie shit up here in a significant manner. Bad juju.
posted by Wolof at 6:40 AM on July 13, 2006
posted by Wolof at 6:40 AM on July 13, 2006
I just skimmed this thread, but are you guys sure about the illegality here? As far as I know, you don't need anyone's permission to record a cover song, you just have to pay them. I released a cover song on my last EP, and that's what I recall finding in my research and it's what I was told when I contacted the publisher. She specifically told me that I didn't need permission, I just had to pay royalties.
posted by ludwig_van at 11:46 AM on July 13, 2006
posted by ludwig_van at 11:46 AM on July 13, 2006
That's the problem ludwig_van, you have to pay them. Who pays? It should be the person who made and posted the cover, but who will the Harry Fox Agency pursue? Matt. You are correct that anyone has the right to do cover versions of songs, it all boils down to money. That's a thorny issue when you are distributing the songs for free. That means each time the cover song is streamed or downloaded it is going to cost Matt money that he is not getting from the person who downloaded the song or probably from the person who posted it, and then add to that the cost of accounting etc.
posted by caddis at 12:21 PM on July 13, 2006
posted by caddis at 12:21 PM on July 13, 2006
Right, that makes sense. But yeah, I believe it's something like a few cents for each stream or download of the song. It seems like it would have to be extremely popular for the rights-holder to even find out about it, let alone deem it worth pursuing. And I don't really think there's anything unethical about it, putting legality aside.
posted by ludwig_van at 12:32 PM on July 13, 2006
posted by ludwig_van at 12:32 PM on July 13, 2006
I think the going rate from Harry Fox is about 9 cents per download/pressing or thereabouts. Ninety bucks or so to license a cover for a 1000 disc run. How that translates to a more-or-less unmetered Random Website, of course...
And again setting the legal aspects, I agree with ludwig_van regarding the ethical non-issue of random covers on a friendly website. However, this conversation is about the legal aspects, so that means fuck-all.
posted by cortex at 12:38 PM on July 13, 2006
And again setting the legal aspects, I agree with ludwig_van regarding the ethical non-issue of random covers on a friendly website. However, this conversation is about the legal aspects, so that means fuck-all.
posted by cortex at 12:38 PM on July 13, 2006
As far as I know, Harry Fox don't accept fees for less than 500 copies, so anything less than that and you have to go for the rightsholder themselves.
posted by TwoWordReview at 3:02 PM on July 13, 2006
posted by TwoWordReview at 3:02 PM on July 13, 2006
or you pay the fee for 500, even though you distribute less
posted by caddis at 4:05 PM on July 13, 2006
posted by caddis at 4:05 PM on July 13, 2006
As far as sampling, the Bestie Boys case in the 9th Circuit (Newton v. Diamond) dealt with the composition rights of sampling. The Beasties cleared the rights to the sampled audio, but did not secure a license to the composition. Very generally, the court ruled that the use of 3 notes is a de minimis taking and not infringing.
The Sixth Circuit ruled in Bridgeport Music. v. Dimension Films that there can be no de minimis usage of a sampled audio recording-- that any use is infringing.
posted by andrewraff at 11:20 AM on July 14, 2006
The Sixth Circuit ruled in Bridgeport Music. v. Dimension Films that there can be no de minimis usage of a sampled audio recording-- that any use is infringing.
posted by andrewraff at 11:20 AM on July 14, 2006
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posted by nanojath at 9:12 AM on July 12, 2006