Using cover songs on demos?

[Deleted]

Hi all,

I'm about to embark on a bit a marketing/promotion crusade to drum up some more acoustic gigs but it strikes me that a lot of the material I've got recorded either for demo CDs or on my myspace/soundclick are covers (certainly the best recordings -and thus the ones I'd most like to use - are covers anyway).

I'm not planning to sell CDs or downloads of covers, but you could say I was using someone elses music to generate income from the gigs they might procure and the performance of those songs at said gigs.

Does that put me in a sticky situation from a copywrite point of view? And if so, does anyone have any tips on how to find out how to obtain permission to legitmately record and distribute someone elses music (especially when it's old obscure blues?)

Any thoughts or opinions greatly appreciated!

Lewis

[Michael Messer]

Hi Lewis,

This is not a simple as a 'yes' or 'no' answer. And to advise you correctly I would need to know what songs you are talking about. However, I can tell you that in theory using somebody else's song on a demo without paying mcps (Mechanical Copyright Protection Society), if anyone wanted to be fussy, they could.

Lewis, give me a call and I will happily explain it all to you, but without knowing actual detail it is impossible to advise.

Shine On,
Michael.