Message-Id: <01BDF464.6804E4A0.lnktheriot@csi.com>
From: Ken Theriot <lnktheriot@csi.com>
To: "'minstrel@pbm.com'" <minstrel@pbm.com>
Subject: minstrel: To Antionette and Eliane...
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1998 15:41:10 -0400
Encoding: 59 TEXT
Sender: owner-minstrel@rt.com
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Antoinette,

	About your copyright question: when you buy sheet music, you are buying 
information for your own consumption.  A fee was paid by the printer to the 
holder of the mechanical (publishing) rights to the song based on how many 
copies he ran.  Should you not want it anymore, you can give it away, sell 
it, or otherwise transfer it because the author has been paid for it.  If 
you COPY it, there is now a new copy for which the author has NOT been 
paid, and you are in violation.  Nothing is granted for performance, 
because it's a different copyright.  There are two kinds...

PERFORMANCE COPYRIGHT-Any performer automatically has the "permission" of 
the author to perform any published work.  THE OWNER OF THE PERFORMANCE 
VENUE is legally responsible for paying royalties on performances within 
his venue.  You, as the performer, cannot relieve him of the 
responsibility, nor can he come after you if he has not done his job.

MECHANICAL RIGHTS-This includes recording a song, copying and printing 
lyrics, or otherwise causing the song to be set down in any media.  This 
right you DO NOT HAVE unless you have arranged it in advance.  This can get 
complicated as the author usually owns the performance rights, but may have 
signed mechanicals over to a record company or publisher.

For example, Astridhr mentioned the Girl Scouts, who recently had a set-to 
with ASCAP, who grants PERFORMANCE rights to venues.  I believe the Girl 
Scouts settled by buying a blanket license which allows them to sing 
whatever they want around the campfire.  ASCAP also sued on behalf of their 
publisher members for MECHANICAL infringement because the camps were 
handing out printed song sheets (for which no fees had been paid).  Because 
ASCAP CANNOT grant blanket mechanical rights, GSA's lawyers advised them 
that it was not worth the work involved to get mechanicals from every 
publisher of every song they were printing, so they STOPPED printing.

In your example, you have the right to sing a song to your heart's content 
whether you own the sheet music or not (please try to give appropriate 
credit); owning the sheet music does not confer any mechanical right or 
other ability to copy, record, or otherwise set down the song.  So what do 
you get?  The right words, that's about it (unless the music has tablature 
done by the artist, you can't even guarantee that it is correct-I own the 
sheet music to "Longer" by Dan Fogelberg, and I have watched him play it, 
and the music bears no resemblance to his performance), which is why I own 
so little sheet music.

And it's not a dumb question; this stuff is HARD.

Eliane,

	I was probably the person who responded to a query about Baldwin, and I am 
in constant touch with him; what do you want to know?  I am not, by the 
way, a gentleman.  Despite the fact that my e-mail address has magically 
begun listing only my husband's name, it's safe to assume that all 
responses to this list come from me, as he spends all his on-line time 
posting to four different folk music lists and a forum on digital 
recording.

					Adelaide

T-shirt thought for the day:  I only please one person per day.  Today is 
not your day, and tomorrow isn't looking good, either.


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