[HANASHIR:14936] RE: CD's For Religious Schools

[Adrian Durlester <adrian...>]

Chuck:
 
As previously explained by Michael, you can record previously "published"
(i.e. already commercial recorded and for sale) copyrighted songs by
utilizing the compulsory mechanical license. Nevertheless, you must notify
the copyright holder of your intent, and pay them the requisite fee:
 > Under US Copyright Law, in order to distribute CDs of copyrighted songs
which have previously been recorded and distributed to the public, you would
need specific 'permission' to duplicate them without paying the full
'mechanical' royalty (currently $.08/song/copy for songs under 5 minutes),
but you don't need advance 'permission' if you are going to pay the standard
'mechanical rights' royalty to the copyright holder. You can send them a
'Notice of Intention to Obtain a Compulsory License' and pay the fees
(generally, this can be done through the house which duplicates the CDs). 

Still, it would be the menschlikeit thing to do to ask permission in any
case, even if you go the compulsory mechanical license route.

You could have a much harder time simply securing permissions to copy
already recorded performances from extant CDs. In that case you would need
specific permission from each copyright holder (which might not be the
songwriter) to reproduce that original recording. Some might be willing to
do so for a fee, other perhaps gratis, and others might simply say no. And
think about whether, as a copyright holder, you would really want to
authorize a congregation to dub copies from one of your extant commercial
recordings to give away for free to their congregants. Wouldn't you rather
they all bought a copy from Soundswrite, Tara etc so you might at least
recoup your investment?

Adrian

Adrian A. Durlester, MTS
E-mail: adrian (at) durlester(dot)com  www.durlester.com
Director of Education & Congregational Life, Bethesda Jewish Congregation,
Bethesda, MD
www.bethesdajewish.com
Co-Director, Hazamir/JTAI Choir of Greater DC
Past Conf Chair, CAJE 27, August 4-8, 2002, Trinity University, San Antonio,
TX
List Owner, hanashir (at) shamash(dot)org; Jewish Songleaders/Performers List
www.ehavanashira.org
Co-Owner, l-torah (at) shamash(dot)org; Liberal Torah Discussion List


 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hanashir (at) shamash(dot)org [mailto:owner-hanashir (at) 
shamash(dot)org] On
Behalf Of Chuckm1961 (at) aol(dot)com
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 5:35 PM
To: hanashir (at) shamash(dot)org
Subject: [HANASHIR:14935] CD's For Religious Schools 


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