Music Rights

siniarch

siniarch

Veteran
I have a song that I like. Its just classical guitar. (no vocals)
Can I just pay someone to play the song for me and release me the right to it, or do I also have to have permission by the music composer?

In other words, can people perform any song without the permission of the author of the song. And someone record the performance. and just get permission of the performer? or does the performer need permission from the author of the song in order to perform it?
 
Fom what I remeber of trying to do this a few years ago, there are several types of 'rights' you can obtain to any one piece of music. You can get 'publishing rights,' 'performance rights,' or both.

Obtaining Publishing Rights gives you permission to use the written song (ie notes, and lyrics on paper) in the piece, but being performed by a separate artist from the original version.

Obtaining Performace Rights would give you permission to use a given song performed by a given music band, who is 'performing' the song.

In my case, we wanted to use 'My Kind of Town' by Frank Sinatra in a union video for a Chicago labor union. Well, the estate of Frank Sinatra wanted to charge something like $25,000 to first grant the publishing rights to the actual song (notes and lyrics on paper) with an additional $25,000 to use the classic old studio recording of Frank singing the song.

$50,000 for a music charge was too much in a video that had a budget of about $60,000.00, so we found a popular Frank Sinatra cover artist who gave us his 'Performance rights' at a much reduced rate, and since he (reportedly) knew Nancy Sinatra, the estate waved publishing rights. We got the song we wanted. Now, it wasn;t the original track by Frank himself, BUT it was by a guy who makes his living impersonating Frank, so it worked out very well.

In my experience, if you call the record label, aske to talk to their marketing department , and tell them you are looking for a video/film synchronization license, they will generally route you through to the correct channels at the label--- the label will usually know who holds both the publishing copyright, and the performace copyright, and can generally get you headed in the right direction.

Two lables that are especcially helpful in this area are MetalBlade Records and Earache Records.
 
Sorry I was a bit long-winded above-- yes, you should get permission from the composer/author.

If I Pay the band in my neighborhood to play 'Satisfaction' by the Rolling Stones, and then I put their garage recording of that song in my movie, Mick Jager and his lawyers could still take my house, cars, DVX100, and baby.
 
tell him to take the baby and leave you the rest. after all you made the baby, you can make another one. hahahah. (just kidding)
Thank you for your response. I will contact the record lable.
 
In short NO.

But the rights to the music (as opposed to the recording) are usually MUCH cheaper. Another alternative if you just need a song "like" the one your looking at is to find a "sound alike" song. There are quite a few people in the business of creating songs that sound like ones people can't afford to get rights to.



siniarch said:
I have a song that I like. Its just classical guitar. (no vocals)
Can I just pay someone to play the song for me and release me the right to it, or do I also have to have permission by the music composer?

In other words, can people perform any song without the permission of the author of the song. And someone record the performance. and just get permission of the performer? or does the performer need permission from the author of the song in order to perform it?
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