A question on a piece of music regarding copy right laws: PartyA (private individual/music composer) signs over a few pieces of music to PartyB(a non profit organization/church). PartyA breaks away from PartyB and requests permission from PartyB full rights to use her music to her disgrestion, including playing, copying, and distributing (but acknowleges that PartyB still has copyright). PartyB declines, stating she can do none of these, including playing her own music. Does PartyA still have any rights to her music? Can she at least play her music w/out permission? Does it make a difference that a non profit organization has rights? And if PartyB dissolves, what happens to the copyright? Is there a website out there that could help with this? (more than basic copyright laws) Any help would be appreciated
In this case, sadly, she has no rights. If she signed away her copyright to another party in good faith, she can REQUEST her copyrights back, buy them back or request permission to use/distribute/profit by them but Party B has every right to refuse. Even though she wrote them, she signed them away to someone else and now that someone else has ownership. In addition, if Party B were to dissolve, those copyrights would pass to whomever the entity agreed to pass legal rights to. If they don't pass those legal rights onto anyone, the copyright MAY be relased back to the composer. I emphasize MAY because the law is really tricky on these kinds of points. Party B may even choose to sell the rights back to Party A if dissolution is emminent. Unless these songs are worth a lot of money, I would think Party A would have a pretty good shot at buying the rights back at a reasonable cost. The law is pretty clear on this and LOTS of musicians have lost their material that way. In fact, entire bands have been lost that way. There are cases of bands signing record deals and, in the process, signing over the rights to the band name, songs, etc. When they were cut by the label, they were not even allowed to perform together because it constituted a re-formation of the same band under a different name and the label owned the band "concept." Pretty crappy, but reality in the world of intellectual property and music in particular. I HIGHLY recommend you pick up a copy of This Business of Music. It has been published since 1964 and is THE guide to the legal end of the music business. Unfortunately, I don't believe Party A has much of a leg to stand on in this case. What did she sign away her rights to the material (out of curiosity)? One other question...when Party B says she cannot play her own music, does that mean the music she sold to them or ANY music she still owns the copyright to???
The musician would like to have her rights back to her music in case she ever decides to create an album of some sort. They are a few songs she wrote, with no monetary value at this point. She would like to play her music in other churches (once again, no monetary value) if she felt the need to. The church she signed her music over convinced her to do it because they planned to make an album with different musicans and stated it would be easier if they put it all in the churches name. She left the church and requested permission to at least let her play the music she wrote, in which the Pastor said "I would rather close and shut the doors forever than let you play the songs". She knows she can play her songs, just not the ones she signed away. thanks for the info
no its not... And almost everyone agrees. Hence why I asked if the church should dissolve, which is a very big possibilty.
She could get them back if she can prove that she was coerced into signing them over, or was not of sound mind at the time the contract was signed. DD PS. Nice to see you back Ghost.
And once Party A does this, Party A has no rights to the music anymore. A painful lesson many of us have learned.
Depending on the form of church politics used, it might be possible to use church legal proceedings to get the music back.
That would be very tough to prove, especially considering it was a church "gift" which is most likely what this would be considered. But... THIS is an excellent idea. Many church organizations have very specific rules about how they handle legal agreements and, if they feel the church acted in bad faith, they might order that individual church to give her the songs back. But, as others have said, this is a hard lesson to learn, but this is how copyrights work. Prince actually signed away all of his copyrights and in the next few years, as the term of those first copyrights run out (copyrights run for 28 years), he'll be able to begin reclaiming his own music. You really have to be careful about the contracts you sign when it comes to stuff like this.
True, but the copyright holder holds all those rights. The holder may allow another person to license songs for publishing meaning the songs could be played live or recorded for the benefit of profit, but the holder still owns the material and would be allowed to recoup publishing royalties (7 centers per song under 5 minutes per album sold) from record sales.
Just pretend like you never signed it and rush forward. Screw 'em all. You could get sued for what? Nothing? And if you ever do get sued hire The Caveman Lawyer from old SNL. Make a mockery of the situation. Contact the Houston Press they would love to cover it. show up to court dressed in full armor like a 15th Century knight. Every now and then during the trial stand up and yell, "Pikachu would KILL Grape Ape if given the chance." that's what I would do.
From the standpoint of playing the music live, I'd probably play it. However, recording it and selling it, I wouldn't. Not only can the owner recoup actual damages (whatever money you made), you can be held liable for punitive damages resulting from the potential loss of revenues by the license holder. I read about a guy who sold off his songs to a small company that did nothing with them. Frustrated by their seeming lack of interest, he went out and recorded them on his own. He made basically nothing off of record sales because he was a typlical local musician type, but the company who owned the copyrights sued him and won nearly half a million dollars in punitive damages and bankrupted the guy. Moral of the story: don't sell of your copyrights unless you really, REALLY know what you are doing.
What about changing a couple words in the songs and then putting your name back on it? Is that legal?
Absolutely NOT. That is plagarism. Music must carry significant changes to words and/or music for them to be eligible for their own new copyright. George Harrison lost a suit in the 70's that claimed he stole the musical hook for "My Sweet Lord" from "She's So Fine" by the Chiffons (recorded in the early 60's). The owner of the copyright argued that the hook was so similar, it was plagarized by Harrison and the owner of the copyright won. And that was over one chorus of a song MUSICALLY. Lyrical infringement would be MUCH easier to prove that this was.
Someone used this SAME example and suggested changing a couple lyrics. Except he stated the complete opposite, stating the courts found it two seperate pieces of work. That did not make sense to me, as Weird Al has been sued before for using the same notes of a song.
Yes, however, Wierd Al never loses because he is doing a parody, which is protected by copyright law. It is the same law that protects comedians when they do impressions from libel/slander laws. Wierd Al always asks permission of the artist to use his/her material, but it is not required because of parody protection. Just changing a couple of lyrics would be like taking a story from the New York Times, changing a couple of sentences and re-distributing it in another newspaper under your own name. It is big time illegal.
I always loved the irony of John Fogerty being sued because the song he wrote (The Old Man Down the Road), sounded similar to the song he wrote (Run Through the Jungle). He was essentially being sued for plagiarizing himself because he did not own the rights any longer to Run Through the Jungle). If I remember right, he played both songs for the jury to show enough dissimilarites that he won the case.
