Music laws?

O

obobski

Newcomer
Anyone a DJ or similar? I'm wondering where the laws (US) sit on playing back copyrighted music at a public function, people are paying to attend, wheres the law sit on this, basically what can I do without going to jail/massive fines?

I'm sure its possible to just do whatever pirated material I want, but thats probably not legal (there isn't going to be some RIAA attorney checking this over, but its a large (>900 people) enough function that we should be worrying about laws). I've never seen "this content not for commercial use" stuff on CD's/Vinyl (like the FBI anti-piracy crap that DVDs are branded with) so if anyone has any ideas on the law here?
 
those are all for the UK, i'm wondering about the US laws?

And how much do these licences usually cost?

and for facilities licence, wouldn't it be ok if the facility itself is rented and already carries such a thing?

thanks for the info so far, but it'd be more helpful to hear from some americans (but thanks for the info so far, gives me an idea of what to expect)
 
yes i assume so no doubt the venue has hosted music before so they must know
and afaik if the party did get raided it would be the venue that would be in trouble not the dj
 
wait hold on, i can do whatever i want, and if it gets raided, the people who own the building are the ones who pay mad fines?
 
If you were an American campsite and wanted to show films,
The Federal Copyright Act, Public Law 94-553, Title 17 of the United States Code, states that all home videocassette exhibitions outside one's personal residence are "public performances" and mandates they be licensed. Non-compliance can subject those who infringe to statutory damages starting at $750 per exhibition.
Click to expand...
The licence costs up to about $500 (as of 2004) depending on the capacity of the site, and can run for a whole year, so the fine per exhibition (if they catch you) is more than the cost of being legal for a year. I figure that there is likely to be some similar legislation for public performances of pre-recorded music.
 
but how does this come into play if the organization hosting it is tax-exempt?

i get the feeling this is going to be a lot of legal BS because nobody involved with this (not talking about b3d members, talking about people who wanna do this) have any idea what they're doing legally...oh fun fun fun
 
It would probably help if you would just come out and say exactly what it is you're planning/want to do.

By you continuing to be so vague it's possible peolpe who know about this stuff won't be able to give you as good advice as they might otherwise.
Peace.
 
sorry, was trying to keep it simple, not intentionally vague

its for a school function, they wanna buy their own equipment instead of renting a DJ for something like $300/hr (...yeah, and it isn't even a "real" DJ, just a guy + JBL Eon sound), but the legalities are apparently biting us in the ass on it

now we can do copyrighted playback at sports events (and do do it) and various other events, and there has never seemed to be a problem with that, which leads me to believe there exists some sort of licencing for live sound, or that nobody really cares

so, i was trying to ask a general question about the legalities of live sound, but details are seeming to be in order
 
there is a diffrence between recorded sound and live (a band) legaly in the u.k, but as your just playing records it doesnt apply to you
 
If you're doing a live performance I can't see how anyone could possibly charge you with any form of copyright infringement - unless perhaps you photocopied sheet music for the orchestra out of some publication or other. I heard they did some kind of website crackdown on that a year or couple ago.

Last I heard reading from a book in public is not a criminal offense. But you never know these days. Mabey homeland security would get themselves involved - putting strange ideas in the head of th epublic could be dangerous foer a government aftera ll. :cool:

Peace.
 
I was under the impression he was DJing, spining records he owns for other people. Potentially making a profit from it. I would think you or the venue needs a license. The venue should know and I would imagine Google is your friend in this case.
 
yeah, i'm DJ'ing, not a live band, sorry if thats been a confusion, the google results i've found all seem to pertain to the UK or cinema licencing in the US...

update
found this:

"Performances at charitable functions are exempt from license or royalty requirements only if the performances are without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage and if no one involved with the performance, including the performers, organizers or promoters, is paid, and there is no direct or indirect admission charge. "

Given that its a school sponsored event, couldn't we fly it as a charity given that the money collected goes to A) rent the facilities and B) anything the school needs the money for later, not to pay salaries/etc (which would mean that its illegal for them to hire a DJ in the first place?)

Given that the licence is ASCAP/BMI, they won't care about tax exempt, because its like dealing with the RIAA ("we screw you because we love you"), but I'm wondering where exactly it falls into the legality, I know for a club the club would need a licence, because its a for-profit organization, however a non-profit, tax-exempt organization, thats holding the event not-for-profit, would theoretically fly by under the charity classification, yes?


update 2:
ASCAP's website is so entirely worthless for answering my question, anyone else feel like helping me look?
www.ascap.com


update 3:
they don't even list schools as a type of licencing, nor any other educational venue, they have dance schools for practice purposes, and universities for band sheet music and large functions, really really tempted to say f'it on a basis of them being so amazingly vague about this


update 4:
found someone who knew the legalities regarding this with schools, explained everything, thank you all for your help and advice
 
Last edited by a moderator:
because of the way the event is organized and sponsored through the various organizations within the school, it classifies as a fundraiser, which means its legal to use the money recovered from it to pay for anything it needs, and only what it needs, and anything else has to be donated (i.e: we can't pay people's salaries, unless its paying them for organizing this event)

so because of that, theres a minimal amount of licensing which we have to apply for, and potentially hold (like ASCAP doesn't explicitly require any licensing for fundraisers, however this may not be true for SESAC, BMI, etc)

the other advantage is because we count as a state recognized non-profit, and enjoy tax-exempt status under that, the license fee (if any) will be reduced, and the non-profit status also gets us the fundraiser status for the event

don't you love legal loopholes?
 
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