I was wondering if anyone with experience in this can enlighten me as far as the proper procedure.... when you put a cover arrangement of a song on a CD, say a solo Stick tune without sung lyrics, do all the laws applying to copyright apply? Who do you get permission from and how do you set up royalty payments if necessary?

I guess this also sort of applies to my YouTube account because I was invited to the Partner program, which allows them to share ad revenue with you, but they stress the importance of not flagging "cover" versions of songs for revenue sharing if you don't own the copyright to the song (permission must be sought first).

I just want to make sure I'm above board with whatever I decide to do with my Stick arrangements of other songs.

Hi Rob,

The Harry Fox Agency is a convenient one-stop avenue for dealing with this. You can buy licenses from them for CD pressings and to cover a certain quantity of paid digital downloads. The cost of the license depends on the number of units you want to produce.

http://www.harryfox.com/index.jsp

I've used them for a couple of CD projects, but they don't represent everyone, so sometimes you have to make a direct arrangement with the publisher. A lot of them aren't "up to speed" or have gone out of business, so I'd start with HFA first.

Rob
Does this mean you are getting ready to release a cd?


Brett

If by "getting ready" you mean "might hopefully start recording sometime this year with no clear completion date in mind either this year or possibly years thereafter" then I suppose so! Thanks for asking.

Hey Rob ... you do a great job with covers and I'm sure you've grown as a Stick player by adapting Tull and Gentle Giant to the Stick but I'm also sure you have a lot of original music in you ... How about an all ORIGINAL CD? Let's hear ROB'S music!!! That disk I would buy!!!!