Legal Question in Entertainment Law in Illinois

Re: Selling music

Your question demonstrates why band members should have a written band agreement put together. The correct answer to your question may depend on factual details that are not provided in your question. Assuming you do not have a written band agreement, the rights to the recordings are probably owned in equal percentages by all of the original members of the band. From what you have said, the "band" paid for the recordings, meaning that all of the band members contributed to the payment for the master recording of the live performances. If you sell the recordings, then you will likely have to share the income with the other band members.

This is true even if you are the only owner of the musical compositions. From what you have said, you may own the copyrights to the musical compositions, and therefore do not need to obtain any permission from others to record the songs, the copyrights to the recordings themselves are most likely owned by all of the members of the ban in equal proportions, based on what you said.

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