What about cover songs?

Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2004 10:31 am

I haven't seen many cover songs on this site... I was curious (before I uploaded one of my own attempts to recreate Radiohead's Karma Police) as to how covers are looked upon on ubw. Acceptable? Not recommended? Let me know.

Thanks,
JMJ

Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2004 1:15 pm

I think that obvious samples arn't allowed, say famous vices etc, but dunno about cover songs. Heck, I hope we can..I'll have Garth Brooks' "The Dance" up here like a shot!!

Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2004 1:25 pm

That'd be great! As soon as we hear from a mod, I'd love to hear that; "The Dance" is one of my favorite songs.

-JMJ

Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2004 3:59 pm

All functional body parts are crossed Shocked

Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2004 4:35 pm

Thanks for 'ASKING' before you upload a cover.

I'll be honest, I don't have an answer right now. This is something I need to look into and make a decision. Basically, if it's legal, I'm OK with it. If it's not legal then, I'm not OK with it.

I'll try and get you an answer as soon as possible. In the meantime, if anyone here can post links or supporting information "for" or "against", please do!!!

Ron

Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2004 5:04 pm

Thanks for your time Ron.

Although I would love to blast just ONE song up there, I do see a problem of a possible whitewash of unoriginality.
If it is all perfectly legal I suppose a trial run or maybe a cieling on how many covers an artist could post, say, only one, once a month possibly.

Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2004 4:52 am

I've been thinking on this one as well. Maybe so long as the artist covering a song isn't making money off it, it should be o.k. Even not allowing downloads, just streaming, may be a safe guard as well.

As soon as dollars are brought into it, I imagine it will get messy.

Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2004 9:55 am

I was talking to a guy who did a Beatles cover tune on one of his albums and there was a license he got was for a certain low # copies of CDs he produced. If he went over a certain CD count the amount he had to pay in royalties went up. The way he talked about it the license was tied to copies of CDs. I don't know if that same license discusses things like radio plays or streaming, but if anyone is familiar that language may be where to look. I don't know where to even start looking on a question like this.

Shane

Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2004 10:15 am

Nose to the ground, here's the research hound......

Here's what I found out.

Digital Licensing (licensing of copyrighted musical compositions in digital configurations, including but not limited to, full downloads, limited-use downloads, on-demand streaming and CD burning.)

This is down to the person peforming, whether sites owners already own a liscence themselves, they can't "sponsor" someone else.

Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2004 10:36 am

Thanks for the research Brooksys... Much appreciated!!!!

The UBW does NOT have any special license to allow for downloads of copyrighted music compilations.

I think it's best for our future if we just STAY away from cover songs. To be honest, I would really rather hear people's original work anyways.

Thanks to everyone for a very productive post!!!!

Ron

Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2004 11:15 am

my [limited] experience in this: you need permission to "publish" a cover tune. In general, any "public" performance or distribution will need a "license". I know from the soundclick site that if you have a letter from the publisher (owner) of the song stating the terms of your performance (hence making it legal to post it on an Internet site for instance), then you (and this site) should be covered.

from a UBW perspective, the folks in charge should speak to an attorney and get clear cut language posted on the upload page so it is clear on policy (nothing worse than getting sued out of existence over a friggin' cover song!) and make peopel "click to agree" on it before posting... also, make sure it is easy for the owner to get a hold of someone to remove/disable the song in the event of a complaint...

so in general: get a letter from the publisher of the song before posting. make sure you put in the credits as agreed to, limit usage to that expressed in the letter, pay your royalties if need be (wouldn't we all like to be on the receiving end of that someday...)
I guess my point is keep the works above board and you're less likely to get in trouble...

my 2¢...

Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2004 11:30 am

Well said guilfo!!!!

I think rather that going through many steps to allow someone to upload a cover, it's easier just stick with original compositions. We may look at this again in the future, but for now, original songs only.

Thanks again!
Ron

Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2004 4:20 pm

i don't understand why you can't cover somebody's songs as long as you're not making ANY money from it.

Posted: Tue Nov 02, 2004 5:17 pm

one thought - if you make a decent cover and people are listening to your version instead of buying another, you're potentially diluting the market. Rolling Eyes

the actual reason though is that it is someone else's material and you have to respect that... many artists and publishers will let you do a cover without fees so long as you talk to them (make sure you get it in writing). sometimes you may even make new friends and contacts by doing so...

Posted: Wed Nov 03, 2004 6:43 am

I was listening to radio 4 the other day and they have recently done an album of covers. (Including a pretty cool cover of "You're the one that I want" from the musical Grease).

The lead singer was saying that they didn't get any permissons and that apparently as long as you don't change to lyrics or chord progressions you can do covers.

Now this does sound wrong to me but since they've released an album of covers, you'd like think they know.

Apparently new EU legislation means that songs recorded over 50 years ago are definitely up for grabs. Poor old neutered Cliff Richards was moaning about that in the papers on the weekend.

This post has probably just made it all that much more confusing....

sorry.... Confused

What about cover songs?

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