While having covers of copyrighted songs available on your site may *technically* not be in compliance with copyright law, the reality is that I think it is most unlikely that the copyright holders would see fit to pursue you for any kind of damages, since the recordings you are providing access to are performed, produced, etc. by you, and you are not benefiting financially in any way, and someone is *not* going to download a cover song in lieu of purchasing a CD from the original artist, which is the main justification against the RIAA's well-publicized legal witch-hunts in the US. The absolute worst-case scenario I think you'd ever experience would be receiving a form letter from a law firm representing a copyright-holder demanding that you Cease and Desist from continuing to provide access to the files in question. Even that is most unlikely. If you were *selling* or otherwise receiving a direct financial benefit from your recordings, or if your site was part of a commercial entity, that could raise other, somewhat more significant issues. I have heard of legal action resulting from performance of copyrighted songs by a band playing a gig at a bar, but I have never heard of this happening where no for-profit business was involved. At the end of the day, potential legal action by copyright holders comes down to a business decision, and I seriously doubt that there would be a perceived business justification for the cost of going after you in court--lawyers aren't cheap. A C&D form letter, *maybe*, but that's about it. Yes, I know that the RIAA, etc. are investing bigtime in going after individuals for allegedly distributing *exact copies* of copyrighted recordings by their constituents, but the business case for that response is very, very different for what you are concerned about, especially since the recording industry feels the need to make a strong political statement, and set concrete legal precedents regarding the distribution of exact copies of commercial recordings. However, if I were a judge presiding over your hypothetical case, and plaintiff's counsel tried do make an argument that their client suffered *measurable financial losses* as a result of amateur cover songs on a personal website, my ruling would be "go crap in a hat" (*bang gavel*). This is all IMHO of course--I am not an attorney, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. :) --Nick On 3/11/07, Kjetil S. Matheussen &lt;k.s.matheussen(a)notam02.no&gt; wrote: > > > Bob van der Poel: > > > > > > Anyone know much about the legalities of posting music recorded by > > oneself, but written by someone else? I put up a few recordings on my > > web site, mostly as a demo of MMA ... but I got to wondering the other > > day if some nice lawyer is going to be knocking on my door? I'm not too > > worried since I do live in Canada, and the server is <somewhere in > > Europe>. But, still ... one has to wonder. > > > > I don't know the laws, but I would be extremely surprised if this is > illegal in Europe. > > > > In my case, I didn't write the music. But, I'm the "artist" (and > > recording engineer, etc.). And, I'm not selling anything. And, they are > > just demos. > > > > So, should I worry? > > I wouldn't. > > (In fact, I have a bunch of cover versions available for download myself, > and no way am I going to remove them.) > > > > > Should I take them down? > > > > > >

On 3/11/07, Kjetil S. Matheussen &lt;k.s.matheussen(a)notam02.no&gt; wrote: Why? This is how copyright law has always worked. You write a song, you get to charge people royalties to perform it. Lee

Lee Revell escribe: The one who plays the song (radio channel, bar, etc.) will need to pay royalties to the author of the song via a entity kind of SGAE, RIAA, etc. I don't think "performer" should worry about it. Cordially, Ismael

If I can rant for a moment, I get quite annoyed by the whole *music business* which seems to screw artists, reward mediocrity, and promote business models which evolved in a very different world. I'm just glad (very glad) that I've been able to enjoy music as a passion over my life and never needed it as income.

If I can rant for a moment, I get quite annoyed by the whole *music business* which seems to screw artists, reward mediocrity, and promote business models which evolved in a very different world. I'm just glad (very glad) that I've been able to enjoy music as a passion over my life and never needed it as income. For now I'll just leave my songs up on my site. If I get a C&D I'll take them down. No big deal to me either way. And, if I am technically breaking a copyright, I'll sleep well knowing that I'm not hurting anyone's income :)

Professor Lessig of Creative Commons was inspired by the approach that Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen took with the GPL, and it's very smart. You can't change a horribly broken and deeply-entrenched system, but you *can* go off and create your own better alternative to it.

Somewhat off-topic, but it's often struck me that only a LISP programmer would have come up with the recursive hack that is the GPL. :-)

Professor Lessig of Creative Commons was inspired by the approach that Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen took with the GPL, and it's very smart. You can't change a horribly broken and deeply-entrenched system