[HANASHIR:14935] CD's For Religious Schools

[Chuckm1961 <Chuckm1961...>]

I've been following the "Copyright/Camp Songs CD" discussion with interest.  
I'm in the process of planning a CD of songs to distribute to our religious 
school children in the fall.  It would include a bunch of songs, liturgical and 
otherwise, that were very popular last year, or will be new to the children 
this year.  You all know them--they're from "Shireinu" and "Manginot."

The plan is to record our own versions of the songs, but if there are 
copyright issues either way, maybe it's just as well to seek permission from 
the 
copyright owners and reproduce the original recordings on a CD.

I'm planning to make the CD using my home computer.  The duplication expenses 
will be covered from the religious school budget, and the CD's will be 
distributed free-of-charge, one per religious school family.

Two questions:  
       1) I'm assuming that we can't do this without permission from the 
copyright owners.  From my reading of the law, the "fair use" exception for 
educational purposes won't cover this situation, especially since we're 
reproducing 
the entire song.  Agreed?  

       2) Has anyone else done this type of project, and do you have any 
suggestions?  I thought a "karaoke" track might be fun, and I also hope to have 
some of the children singing on the CD.   

Chuck Mitchell
Songleader, Anshai Emeth 
Peoria, Illinois