Help me Dannyalcatraz!!! Legal questions..

[Dannyalcatraz]

If I may continue my boldness...

One trend I've noticed in the rap community (and being tried by artists in other genres, like Bono, Tony Iommi, and most successfully, Santana) is the prevalence of artists who do "duets" with other established & novice artists on their albums...and how well those guest artists tend to do when they subsequently release their own material.

This "bootstrapping" is a powerful marketing tool- if you can do it, do it. No project is too small or quirky. The key, of course, is that the collaborations have to be good.

 

[Hypersmurf]

If I may continue my boldness...

One trend I've noticed in the rap community (and being tried by artists in other genres, like Bono, Tony Iommi, and most successfully, Santana) is the prevalence of artists who do "duets" with other established & novice artists on their albums...and how well those guest artists tend to do when they subsequently release their own material.

This "bootstrapping" is a powerful marketing tool- if you can do it, do it. No project is too small or quirky. The key, of course, is that the collaborations have to be good.

Jim Baen did this a lot with authors. Someone like Eric Flint, say, would do a collaboration on a novel or series with an author like David Drake. Once people were used to the name, he'd start publishing Eric Flint's solo novels. Once Eric Flint became a big name, Baen would team him up with another unknown like John Ringo. And then Ringo would get his own books... and then start being paired up with the unknowns...

Seemed to work really well, because most of Baen's authors are great...

-Hyp.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I've noticed it in print as well, especially in the short story format.

There are also certain authors who seem to be more likely to do it as well- C.J. Cherrhy springs to mind, as well as the Thieves' World books.

 

[glass]

Does anyone besides me think this thread would have been 80% better right off the bat if it had been titled "Help me, dannyalcatraz! You're my only hope!"

And then the first post could have started off with "Years ago you served my father..."

It was my first thought...


glass.

 

[glass]

But legally, all he has to do is get his use of the parodied song aproved via the same process that bands use to do a straight up cover- namely, agree to pay the proper royalties (which are pretty small) and give the proper credits.

If you (and the OP) don't mind my asking, could you expand on that a little?

How small? And to whom do you have to pay them? Does it only apply to recordings, or to live performances? (IOW, are all those cover and tribute bands who play in small pubs and clubs breaking the law if they don't cough up).


glass.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Technically, the cover bands in bars are supposed to pay royalties for the cover songs they play. However, live venues have licenses they are supposed to maintain that covers those royalties, so the bands have no worries there. Even if the venue doesn't maintain the license, a cover band is unlikely to get sued, since it was a failure of the venue to comply.

If, OTOH, your band is playing a geurilla show, nobody will really care about the royalties (since such things are so rare & difficult to police). Think of it as the economically efficient level of lawbreaking allowed.

Currently, mechanical royalties for a modern song run $0.091/copy of the song sold.

The mechanical royalties due to the song's copyright holders are handled thus:

http://cdbaby.net/dd-covers

Now, it may seem like a hassle, but the flip side is this: 1) you can record anything you want to cover- nobody can stop you. 2) If you don't, your bootay will be sued, and you will lose. See what happened to the Verve with "Bittersweet Symphony."*

*as an aside, there was another song on that album that the Verve didn't get clearance on which lifted substantial portions of a song by Aphrodite's Child (Vangelis' classic rock band), but nobody sued over it because the song never got released as a single.

 

[Thunderfoot]

Ok DA, I thought on a parody that the "cover" royalty was null and void since you can't copyright the music but you can the lyrics (with instrumentals being an exception under entertainment law since there are no lyrics). Not that I intend on selling myself into bankruptcy with royalty rights mind you.

And to think, I figured that this thread would die after a couple of back and forths

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Guys, after further research, a retraction & correction is in order.

Musical parody has never come up in my practice, so I'm a bit rusty. In reality, BMI and most of the other clearing houses currently require that you get permission before doing a commercial release of a parody of someone else's work- and yes, some can be a pain.

That said, here's a quote from Weird Al's own site (http://weirdal.com/home.htm):

[QUOTE}"Does Al get permission to do his parodies?
"Al does get permission from the original writers of the songs that he parodies. While the law supports his ability to parody without permission, he feels it's important for him to maintain the relationships that he's built with artists and writers over the years. Plus, Al wants to make sure that he gets his songwriter credit (as writer of new lyrics) as well as his rightful share of the royalties." [/QUOTE]

Basically, under the law however, parody is granted a "fair use" exception to the mechanical royalty rules as "transformative" works, new in their own right.

As the Court in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music (92-1292), 510 U.S. 569 (1994) ( readable in full at http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/92-1292.ZO.html) stated:

Parody's humor, or in any event its comment, necessarily springs from recognizable allusion to its object through distorted imitation. Its art lies in the tension between a known original and its parodic twin. When parody takes aim at a particular original work, the parody must be able to "conjure up" at least enough of that original to make the object of its critical wit recognizable. See, e. g., Elsmere Music, 623 F. 2d, at 253, n. 1; Fisher v. Dees, 794 F. 2d, at 438-439.

You can't just change a lyric and note here and there, however- your parody has to be substantive. (Really- check out that Campbell case in full.) The problem is that you won't truly know your work is "transformative" (and thus, protected fair use) unless and until you get sued and a court says it is...which is why artists like Weird Al and others basically use the CYA method and get permission.

If it isn't, it will probably be considered to be a normal cover song, thus subject to normal mechanical royalties...and of course, that would be AFTER you paid all of those legal fees.