Legal Question in Entertainment Law in Florida
music laws
My husband and I have a home recording studio. We sing and play our own instruments and have produced about 60 cd's. We would like to try to sell some of our cd's on Ebay but since we sing songs by professional artists, we are concerned about copywrite laws. Could we get into trouble singing some one else's songs and selling our home recorded cd's? Thank you
3 Answers from Attorneys
Re: music laws
Yes. Feel free to contact me regarding this; my firm focuses on Internet and entertainment law.
Re: music laws
Provided you pay the compulsory license you won't get into trouble under copyright law if all you're doing is selling the CD. It's called a cover and you're no different than the Rolling Stones singing Roll Over Beethoven. You don't need a lawyer, just contact the Harry Fox Agency (http://www.harryfox.com/index.jsp). They're website is inutitive and designed for doing it yourself without an attorney. If you publicly perform the song or have it synchronized with an audio/visual recording, there are other considerations. In those cases, you should contact an attorney familiar with the music business.
Re: music laws
While you should be familiar with the compulsory license provisions of the copyright act, you would be better served working with an attorney, particularly when dealing with publishing and performing rights agencies. Our firm can assist as we have worked on many compulsory licensing matters in music copyrights.
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