I know a few peeps on here sing/play in bands... I wondered if anyone knew the legalities of royalty/copyright payments? ...If say you sing another artists song and you charge peeps to listem to it at a concert, how much would you have to pay and to whom? ...Should you get their permission before you attempt to sing their song? I appreciate that radio stations playing records pay like a set amount, wondered if its the same with live stuff?
Don't think this is the case with live performances. I regularly go to a little club where there are regularly "open mic" nights where people regularly play covers, And I'm sure noone pays royalties, and they definately don't need permission - this is however often done out of courtesy if the artist knows the original artist though. Even if it was illegal, surely it would be impossible to enforce - you can't have someone from the BPI at every single gig around the world to check up on royalty performances! I could be wrong however, so I'd wait for someone else to confirm/ deny what I've said
Check with an attorney or look up copyright terms for the songs you plan on performing, just in case.
They need to check their contract with the record label, the record company, if they have screwed over the artist like they usually do, is free to set whatever price they want and apss on as little as the contract specifies to the artist. Sometimes that is even as low as zero. Here in the states they have the nasty habit of paying the station to PLAY the music (50 cent) rather than charging them per play.
well radio play is mostly used as an advertising tool, however in the case of the band tool sometimes radio stations step their bounds in promotions such as when laterlus was released and they kept playing the entire albulm for a couple of days in repeat motion, however they were not suppose to play it that way and had to pay a fine. However in some casese if the artists themsleves own the rights some are cool enough to not charge you a fee if your doing it for something small or school related project, or if they dig your idea. So in your case if you might be able to not have to pay any fees if your just doing it for a concert.
