Josh has it right. In the absence of a contract assigning the rights, the artist has the right to control or license the recording of the performance and the broadcast of the performance. But many recording contracts assign, to some degree, the rights to commercial exploitation rights of all recordings of the artist to the record company, which assigns away the artist's pre-existing power to license others. And variances in contracts make it impossible to make sweeping generalizations.
Going back to jer's original question, it's true that playing copyrighted commercially released CDs in a business technically requires a license similar to that paid by jukebox companies, which is where Muzak et al. find their market, providing the programming for a fee and taking care of the licensing for you. Situation does get murky with the noncommercial taper-friendly recordings because of the vague unknowns of whether (a) the artist by 'licensing' (saying OK to) the taping and trading intended to license such a quasi-commercial exploitation (to state the harsh legal view, not a personal opinion) and (b) whether their own contract with a recording company deprives them of the right to unilaterally grant such a license. The good news is a lot of the artists, particularly the 'smaller' acts, aren't that hard to contact. I'd find the right addys and send an email directly to some of the artists I'd like to play, describing the situation much as Jer did here, and see if I didn't get back at least a few OKs to play my CDs of their performances in the store. I'd bet that many whom you got through to would indeed say OK once it was made clear you were just talking about playing your CDs at work in a camping goods store, not like you're "selling" it as entertainment in a bar or nightclub, in which case most artists would rightfully prefer that businesses play the commercial releases and pay the licensing fees, which is part of how they feed and clothe themselves and their families. wilbur At 01:21 PM 3/29/2002, Josh wrote: >Everything is negotiable in a contract. The artist has probably had to make >some concessions on %'s to allow their fans to tape. Or the record company >knows going in that they will not agree to any contract that does not allow >their fans to tape and structures it accordingly. _______________________________________________ etree.org etree mailing list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://mail.etree.org/mailman/listinfo/etree Need help? Ask <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
