Copyright/overseas questions

[khina]

I'm planning to used songs for my DVD slide show project that will be mass produced to 5000 copies and sold just to the Laotian community in the U.S. The songs are Laotian songs sung by other Laotian singers that are not the original singers/writers. In Laos, singers copy each other work because there are no laws or there are but they don't care. Most of the songs are old, about 5-20 years ago, some of the original singers/writer died or migrated to the U.S. Canada, Japan, etc because of the Vietnam War. And some of songs sung by the "copiers" live right here in the U.S. There are songs that are my uncle's but he died 19 years ago. let's not go any further. sorry.

What should I do? Should I just go ahead and do it and deal with it later? Should I go to Laos and track those current singers down, and hope they don't live in the mountian somewhere? At what loyalty rate should I do at if I decide to do the harder way? Does U.S. copyright apply in this situation? Can the current "copier" singers that live in the U.S. and Canada sue me even though they copied some one elses songs?

thankyou in advance

 

[galt]

This is a good one for an attorney, especially since it involves laws from several countries. Spend the money to get a correct answer. But I doubt there is a generic answer, each song you want to use will have its own answer. My guess is that you will have to pay performers license fees (and get permission), even if it is a "traditional" song with no identifiable writer.

 

[khina]

This is a good one for an attorney, especially since it involves laws from several countries. Spend the money to get a correct answer. But I doubt there is a generic answer, each song you want to use will have its own answer. My guess is that you will have to pay performers license fees (and get permission), even if it is a "traditional" song with no identifiable writer.

good reply and thank you much. Basically, all the songs can be labeled performance. thank you