Legal Question in Intellectual Property in Connecticut

I belong to a non-profit organization, and as a fundraiser we had the idea of creating a band within our memebers and recording a CD of cover songs. these songs belong to various record companies, and i know you need permission to sell music for your own profit, but if its for a non-profit organization, does that change anything?

the organization is called elephunk: http://elephunk.weebly.com

we are a high school, completley student run group (although we do have a teacher overseer)

we give money to cancer patients in the best way we see fit.

each CD will be sold for 4 dollars, and we expect to sell about 200

we will use the money we made to pay for the CD itself (about $0.25) , and the case about ($0.25) and 100% of the rest will go to cancer patients. if the CDs or cases are donated to us, we will give 100% of the money to the patients

if you could answer my question that would be great! thanks!


Asked on 12/28/09, 6:28 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Sarah Grosse Sarah Grosse, Esquire

I admire your optimism and belief in your cause. However, I do not have good legal news for you. There is no exception to copyright infringement for non-profit organizations. You cannot copy music, reproduce it, put it on a CD, etc. without permission from the copyright owner. You should find another fundraiser which does not involve stealing other people's work (sorry if that was harsh, but I need you to get the definitive point).

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Answered on 1/02/10, 10:41 pm


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