Development of Creative Commons licenses

[email AT greglondon.com]

cover songs are handled by "compulsory licenses"

briefly explained here:
http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/fair_use.html#licenses

"compulsory licenses allow third parties to copy,
perform, or distribute certain types of works without
the copyright owners permission, in exchange for which
the third parties must pay a predetermined royalty amount."

So doing a "cover" means you have to pay predetermined royalties.
I'm not sure how that works, but you may or may not be able
to license a cover tune as CC-SA, since the predetermined
royalties may or may not cover giving a work away for free,
which is a requirement for any CC license.

If the predetermined royalties do not cover giving the work
away for free, then a cover tune is a derived work that the
original author holds the rights to, requiring the original
artists permission to license it SA.

The above link on compulsory licenses ends by saying this:

"Before taking advantage of any of these compulsory
licenses, an individual should consult with a knowledgeable
copyright attorney"


William Morgan said:
> Hello all,
>
> I have a question which I don't think has been covered before---but
> apologies in advance if it has. It concerns performing cover songs.
>
> We are a bluegrass band with some audio files we'd like to distribute
> under a CC license. The situation with bluegrass is a different from
> that of most other genres, in that, in addition to performing originals,
> artists typically also perform music drawn from a standard repetoire.
> Some of the standard repetoire is traditional and in the public domain,
> but some of the material is under copyright control, and performing
> these songs is essentially akin to what is called performing "cover"
> songs in other genres.
>
> What is involved in applying a CC license to this type of material? Is
> it enough to simply state that our copyright and licensing extends only
> over the recording of the song, and not over the lyrics and composition?
> Or must we procure some form of permission from the copyright holders
> before applying a CC license (a feat which is essentially impossible for
> us)? Or are we simply SOL in terms of releasing these recordings?
>
> Thanks in advance for any help. I am not an expert in copyright issues
> by any means, so I'm sorry if I'm making obvious mistakes in the above.
>
> --
> William <wmorgan-cc-licenses AT masanjin.net>
> _______________________________________________
> cc-licenses mailing list
> cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-licenses
>
>


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