Copyright question (has to do with go...

Posted on Jun 07, 2004 09:13 pm
moorefamily2
Member Since: Jun 06, 2004

I'm just curious to see if anyone ever records people that use "split tracks." I know that people record and sell that stuff all of the time. While I realize that it is illegal to make money off of someone else's songs, where does this leave the sound engineer? Will "the man" come after me if I was the one that recorded them even though the singing group is making the money? A lot (and I mean A LOT!!!)of singers and music groups do this. Does anyone know the rules?

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Walt
Chief Cook and Bottle Washer
Member
Since: May 10, 2002

Jun 07, 2004 11:42 pm

Technicaly, you can record anyone singing anything as long as it is for private use. Now the private use term is presently being really streached, bent, and proded. Does that mean for a few friends in your home? Does that mean "not for profit"? All depends on which piece of liturature or legislation, or pseudo legislation you read. The whole intelectual rights thing is a hand grenade at present. Everybody has an opinion. All depends on well the weather. Which way the wind is blowing at the moment. We have had a lot of huge threads on this and tangential topics. There's tons of liturature on who's doing what, who's going to do what, who is doing the wrong thing, and who will be the night in shining armor that will set it all streight. I guess you can always draw up a contract that clearly states you are recording the material specificaly for say the band's use as a review tool or something. Problem is if there is a lot of money involved, there probably will be a lawyer involved at some point to suck the life out of the situation. This can lead to tons of money lost just per a loose affiliation, given you have any money for the lawyer to suck out of you. Security equals "if in doubt don't". Making a reasonable profit equals "say under the radar". Going for the gold means "get the biggest, baddest, lawer available on retainer up front". Oh ya, and always keep the Feds smiling.

moorefamily2
Member
Since: Jun 06, 2004

Jun 10, 2004 08:43 am

For anyone interested in this issue, I did a little research on the topic and found these:

wordmusic.com/copyright/

and

www.brentwoodbenson.com/licensing/faq.asp

Overall, it looks as if you mess with anything like this, you need to get a CCL license. Still, after you get this license, you are still very limited to what you can do. For those of you that may record people using split tracks, be very wary that you could get into some trouble. After doing this research, I've come to the conclusion that I'm not going to do it.

On the flip side, if you have a southern gospel group that wants to record hymns, chances are you can record them due to public domain. Works published in the United States with a copyright date of 1922 or earlier are in the public domain in the United States, which means a lot of hymns fall into this category. Below is a link to a lot of public domain songs:

www.pdinfo.com/copyrt.htm

Thanks,
Martin in NC

Copyright question (has to do with gospel and contemp. split tracks)