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[BonsaiK]

I was wondering what kind of legal hoops would a cover band have to jump through to be allowed to play copyrighted material in a situation that would get them payed for playing the material. As in if a band is getting payed to play at a pub and they only play other people's music what would they have to do to be legally safe?

In theory, get permission from the original songwriters for every song that they do.

In practice, most original songwriters/artists are generally happy to collect the performance royalties of more well-known bands who do this without making a fuss, and the smaller bands like some band playing at a pub slip under their radar anyway. Where an original band is more likely to veto your performance is if you make a recording of it and try to sell it, and even then, it's not highly likely that they will be anything except flattered if they found out about it. There have been instances of bands sending a "cease and desist" to a cover artist, or refusing to grant permission for the cover in the first place, but it's fairly rare, simply because it's the original artist who is going to end up making more money out of a cover song if it gets huge, not the people covering it, because royalties go to the original songwriters, not the performers.

 

[Keepitclean]

I was wondering what kind of legal hoops would a cover band have to jump through to be allowed to play copyrighted material in a situation that would get them payed for playing the material. As in if a band is getting payed to play at a pub and they only play other people's music what would they have to do to be legally safe?

In theory, get permission from the original songwriters for every song that they do.

In practice, most original songwriters/artists are generally happy to collect the performance royalties of more well-known bands who do this without making a fuss, and the smaller bands like some band playing at a pub slip under their radar anyway. Where an original band is more likely to veto your performance is if you make a recording of it and try to sell it, and even then, it's not highly likely that they will be anything except flattered if they found out about it. There have been instances of bands sending a "cease and desist" to a cover artist, or refusing to grant permission for the cover in the first place, but it's fairly rare, simply because it's the original artist who is going to end up making more money out of a cover song if it gets huge, not the people covering it, because royalties go to the original songwriters, not the performers.

Huh, I thought it would be a bit more complicated than that because the music industry is often portrayed as having a "make every penny" mentality. If that held some truth I thought it would be even more so now that a lot of its potential sales are being lost to internet piracy.

 

[BonsaiK]

I was wondering what kind of legal hoops would a cover band have to jump through to be allowed to play copyrighted material in a situation that would get them payed for playing the material. As in if a band is getting payed to play at a pub and they only play other people's music what would they have to do to be legally safe?

In theory, get permission from the original songwriters for every song that they do.

In practice, most original songwriters/artists are generally happy to collect the performance royalties of more well-known bands who do this without making a fuss, and the smaller bands like some band playing at a pub slip under their radar anyway. Where an original band is more likely to veto your performance is if you make a recording of it and try to sell it, and even then, it's not highly likely that they will be anything except flattered if they found out about it. There have been instances of bands sending a "cease and desist" to a cover artist, or refusing to grant permission for the cover in the first place, but it's fairly rare, simply because it's the original artist who is going to end up making more money out of a cover song if it gets huge, not the people covering it, because royalties go to the original songwriters, not the performers.

Huh, I thought it would be a bit more complicated than that because the music industry is often portrayed as having a "make every penny" mentality. If that held some truth I thought it would be even more so now that a lot of its potential sales are being lost to internet piracy.

There are exceptions, but generally a record label has bigger fish to fry than some band down at their local pub doing covers of "Louie Louie" and "Smoke On The Water". Also, doing cover songs is not something that costs the original artists money, in fact it has the potential to make them quite a bit of extra money. The industry isn't going to clamp down heavily on what is basically free money plus free advertising for the original product. Piracy is the original product being repackaged/resold without the label or artist getting a cut, but a cover song is a version of that song which is not the same, getting repackaged and resold, and the original artist/label does get a cut. Big difference as far as the original artist and label are concerned, as one scenario represents potential lost income and the other represents potential extra income.

Where a band could potentially run into really deep shit is if they included a cover song on their album and didn't credit the original songwriters. Then there would be hell to pay. This is a pretty rare event, but highly controversial when it does happen. However, as long as the covering artist credits the original songwriters, when the royalties come in they will flow in the correct direction and that's usually all it really takes to keep people happy.

 

[Keepitclean]

I was wondering what kind of legal hoops would a cover band have to jump through to be allowed to play copyrighted material in a situation that would get them payed for playing the material. As in if a band is getting payed to play at a pub and they only play other people's music what would they have to do to be legally safe?

In theory, get permission from the original songwriters for every song that they do.

In practice, most original songwriters/artists are generally happy to collect the performance royalties of more well-known bands who do this without making a fuss, and the smaller bands like some band playing at a pub slip under their radar anyway. Where an original band is more likely to veto your performance is if you make a recording of it and try to sell it, and even then, it's not highly likely that they will be anything except flattered if they found out about it. There have been instances of bands sending a "cease and desist" to a cover artist, or refusing to grant permission for the cover in the first place, but it's fairly rare, simply because it's the original artist who is going to end up making more money out of a cover song if it gets huge, not the people covering it, because royalties go to the original songwriters, not the performers.

Huh, I thought it would be a bit more complicated than that because the music industry is often portrayed as having a "make every penny" mentality. If that held some truth I thought it would be even more so now that a lot of its potential sales are being lost to internet piracy.

There are exceptions, but generally a record label has bigger fish to fry than some band down at their local pub doing covers of "Louie Louie" and "Smoke On The Water". Also, doing cover songs is not something that costs the original artists money, in fact it has the potential to make them quite a bit of extra money. The industry isn't going to clamp down heavily on what is basically free money plus free advertising for the original product. Piracy is the original product being repackaged/resold without the label or artist getting a cut, but a cover song is a version of that song which is not the same, getting repackaged and resold, and the original artist/label does get a cut. Big difference as far as the original artist and label are concerned, as one scenario represents potential lost income and the other represents potential extra income.

Where a band could potentially run into really deep shit is if they included a cover song on their album and didn't credit the original songwriters. Then there would be hell to pay. This is a pretty rare event, but highly controversial when it does happen. However, as long as the covering artist credits the original songwriters, when the royalties come in they will flow in the correct direction and that's usually all it really takes to keep people happy.

You make it seem so obvious. Thanks for the reply.

 

[Ham_authority95]

And another question: Can you give any tips for interviews, interacting with the media, etc?

That's very broad. Also I'm not sure what you mean by the question. As far as interviews go, do you mean giving interviews or being interviewed? Being interviewed isn't that hard but giving them is a real artform. Interacting with the media, as who, a musician, or someone at a label, or someone else? And which media, for what purpose? To answer your question in its current form would take me about 25 pages just to cover all the potential bases, you might have to narrow this one down a bit for me.

By media I mean like magazines, news, etc. for the purpose of being interviewed for stories.

And if you could tell me some stuff about giving interviews, that would be nice.

 

[BonsaiK]

And another question: Can you give any tips for interviews, interacting with the media, etc?

That's very broad. Also I'm not sure what you mean by the question. As far as interviews go, do you mean giving interviews or being interviewed? Being interviewed isn't that hard but giving them is a real artform. Interacting with the media, as who, a musician, or someone at a label, or someone else? And which media, for what purpose? To answer your question in its current form would take me about 25 pages just to cover all the potential bases, you might have to narrow this one down a bit for me.

By media I mean like magazines, news, etc. for the purpose of being interviewed for stories.

And if you could tell me some stuff about giving interviews, that would be nice.

That's not a lot narrower but I'll do my best to be brief.

If you're getting interviewed for a magazine or something like that, I guess there's a few things you should try and keep in mind. The most important one is that you want to be interesting somehow, which means having some ideology behind whatever it is that you're doing (even if that ideology is "woo let's party"), and therefore by extension, what you're saying. Band interviews are typically incredibly fucking boring to read because interviewers tend to ask the same questions all the time, so it's a good idea to have interesting answers prepared for the usual set of boring questions that you will always get asked, there's only about a dozen of them and I won't go through them because you can see them in any music publication. If your band has a clear concept or idea behind it that will be a lot easier than if you're just another rock band with nothing to say. Also keep in mind that most magazines are total shit and will tend to focus on the superficial aspects of what you're talking about, and sometimes even take what you're saying completely out of context (such as removing the irony from an ironic remark). If you say "I did 8 lines of coke this morning" as a joke to someone doing an interview for a big publication, expect to see "[your name here] did 8 lines of coke!" in print, for example - even if you said it before the interview starts. You'd be amazed how little drugs a lot of celebs with "shocking drug habits" actually do. I was so pissed off with an interview I did recently with a really shitty magazine where they used maybe about three sentences of what I gave them and completely missed the point of what I was saying, but this happens all the time, and the main reason is not because they hate you or they hate artists, but because the editor has to fit in your interview plus all the ads that pay for that interview, in the same publication, so they don't have room for all that context-giving detail, so they just go for the stuff that they think reads the best. The best interviews you'll ever get to do will be for small fanzines and other cottage publications where the people interviewing you really genuinely give a shit about you (because they're not being paid to talk to you, therefore they're doing it because they want to first and foremost) and therefore don't have to worry about leaving space for advertisers, they'll often publish the entire conversation which is great and all-too-rare.

As for giving interviews, that is such a lengthy and complex subject that I'm just going to do dot points, but I could go on for entire thread's worth of text on pretty much each of these individual points, so if you have further questions about any of these, ask.

* Open questions, not closed questions, always
* Don't put words in their mouth or ask "leading" questions
* The reader/viewer wants to know what the subject thinks, not what you think about what the subject thinks, so keep your personal opinions out of it, be objective no matter what (in other words don't conduct it like an Escapist news article)
* Do your research before your interview so you can ask stuff specifically pertaining to that artist and don't have to resort to generic questions
* If it's a radio or TV interview be silent when they talk, don't say "uh-huh", "right" or any other stuff you might naturally say when somebody else is talking in normal conversation
* Don't ask any tard questions (you'd think this one was pretty fucking obvious but you'd be amazed...)
* If it's a well-known or controversial artist, asking if there's any territory they would really like to NOT be asked about before the interview starts is a good idea
* This person is talking to you for a reason, usually to promote something, so make sure you're familiar with whatever that something is, i.e if it's an album listen to it - I got asked by someone I interviewed recently "so what's your favourite track on my new album?" - you want to have a good, detailed answer to something like that if it comes up
* Don't defame anybody or encourage your subject to defame anybody, or you could be in a world of legal shit
* Don't condone or admit to doing anything illegal, if the artist wants to that's their business but don't say "yeah I filled a public bus with pig's blood once, too" or "damn commuters had it coming, you should do that again sometime"

Hope that helps, it should be a start anyway. My radio station had a whole multi-page document on interview technique which covers all this and a lot more in much greater detail than I have here, it's a very involved area. I haven't even scratched the surface of these topics and haven't even discussed things like mic technique, recording interviews from a technical side and a ton of other stuff. There's so much to learn, if you're genuinely interested in this side I'd say join a community radio station and offer to interview people, they'll train you up on all this and more...

 

[Ham_authority95]

Chop

You've actually covered a lot of the questions I had.

So would it be a bad thing for a band to give an interview if it has a big "Fuck music journalists! They're just in it for the money!" stance?

Also, do you think a local college radio station would let a 16 year-old like myself volunteer? Am I prime for the slaughter, so to speak?

 

[BonsaiK]

Chop

You've actually covered a lot of the questions I had.

So would it be a bad thing for a band to give an interview if it has a big "Fuck music journalists! They're just in it for the money!" stance?

Also, do you think a local college radio station would let a 16 year-old like myself volunteer? Am I prime for the slaughter, so to speak?

Bands who hate interviews because they have a "fuck music journalists" attitude (and rightly so, I mean, let's face it, they are incredible dickheads with very few exceptions) will often do ONE interview with someone in the industry that they really trust, and then make sure that that particular interview is widely available, by either doing it for a really big publication who can publish it worldwide and unedited, or by disseminating the content themselves on their website or whatever works. Or perhaps they'll have a metwork of people they trust in differnt places, i.e when they stop off in City A there's only one person they will give time to, in City B it will be someone from that city and so forth. Or maybe they'll only talk to certain publications with a particular focus, this is pretty common for politically-minded bands, they don't want to talk to a publication that might misrepresent or misconstrue what they say because of differing political ideas. It's very rare for any band to do absolutely no interviews at all, ever, because interviews are essentially free promotion, but there are quite a few artists who will grant them very rarely and under very controlled conditions.

At 16 I'm not sure but it wouldn't hurt to ask - ring up a station you're interested in and ask them about volunteer work and age restrictions. Some have age restrictions but some don't, and some even have specialist programs for young people to get involved in.

 

[Anarchemitis]

Why is it that pipe organ music isn't more popular? Their solos are way more awesome than guitar could ever be.

 

[BonsaiK]

Why is it that pipe organ music isn't more popular? Their solos are way more awesome than guitar could ever be.

It's because pipe organ fans are notoroius for illegally downloading music, so no major label will put money behind that big super-soloing pipe organ ensemble for fear of not getting a return on their investment.

(Not really but I just love blaming everything on music piracy.)

 

[Ham_authority95]

At 16 I'm not sure but it wouldn't hurt to ask - ring up a station you're interested in and ask them about volunteer work and age restrictions. Some have age restrictions but some don't, and some even have specialist programs for young people to get involved in.

Thanks. I'll contact them about. I really just want to start out young to get as much experience as possible, and (just maybe) have some people to go to when I need a job.

 

[Inglip]

I've heard that most people who work in the industry are dicks. Would you say this is a statement you agree with?

 

[Anarchemitis]

Why is it that pipe organ music isn't more popular? Their solos are way more awesome than guitar could ever be.

It's because pipe organ fans are notoroius for illegally downloading music, so no major label will put money behind that big super-soloing pipe organ ensemble for fear of not getting a return on their investment.

(Not really but I just love blaming everything on music piracy.)

SHOW ME THE METAL
ALL 30 TONS OF THEM TINS

 

[MisterGobbles]

This isn't really an industry question, but...

I've been playing guitar for around three to four years. I consider my skill level to be fairly high, but two things really stand out that I'm not good at - soloing, and complicated chord switching.

As lessons are not currently an option for me (I used to take, but the person I was taking from apparently stopped offering lessons, and even if there was someone I have certain health issues at the moment that would prevent me from regularly meeting with someone), do you have any suggestions on how to improve those skills?

I realize I probably could get help elsewhere for this, but I'm interested to hear what you have to say.

 

[BonsaiK]

I've heard that most people who work in the industry are dicks. Would you say this is a statement you agree with?

Yes. Especially me.

 

[BonsaiK]

This isn't really an industry question, but...

I've been playing guitar for around three to four years. I consider my skill level to be fairly high, but two things really stand out that I'm not good at - soloing, and complicated chord switching.

As lessons are not currently an option for me (I used to take, but the person I was taking from apparently stopped offering lessons, and even if there was someone I have certain health issues at the moment that would prevent me from regularly meeting with someone), do you have any suggestions on how to improve those skills?

I realize I probably could get help elsewhere for this, but I'm interested to hear what you have to say.

When I teach soloing I always start with blues soloing because a. it's the easiest to get your head around technically, b. it's a great introduction to the idea of less-is-more and making each note count, and c. most popular styles of music are blues-based in some way. If you know the scales used in that format (here's a hint, they all have the word "blues" in them) then dial up some backing tracks on youtube or something and start practicing.

Complicated chords is just muscle-memory, you just have to keep doing them over and over and going back and forth. There's no easy way. Break the piece down into small 2-chord sections and practice each transition. I used to practice with my electric guitar in my lap unplugged while watching TV, just doing chords over and over, training my fingers. Persistence pays, you'll get it eventually.

 

[MisterGobbles]

snip

Practice time won't really be a problem, I practice more than 30 minutes a day, although I don't have any specific excersises I do. Prehaps I'll find some through online music lessons. I did take lessons for quite a while, but it got to the point where I couldn't for reasons I don't want to get into. However, I plan on getting another teacher as soon as I'm able.

Music theory is not something I'm completely unfamiliar with, but improvisation is something I'm not too good at. I'll definitely do the things you suggested.

Thanks, both of you.

 

[BonsaiK]

snip

Practice time won't really be a problem, I practice more than 30 minutes a day, although I don't have any specific excersises I do. Prehaps I'll find some through online music lessons. I did take lessons for quite a while, but it got to the point where I couldn't for reasons I don't want to get into. However, I plan on getting another teacher as soon as I'm able.

Music theory is not something I'm completely unfamiliar with, but improvisation is something I'm not too good at. I'll definitely do the things you suggested.

Thanks, both of you.

I can't let jeffers' post go by without comment - his advice is generally excellent, however I don't agree with his musical recommendations. Nothing to do with my musical taste vs his, or even the quality of the guitarists mentioned, but you ideally want to make a living out of music one day, and that's why you're posting in this thread, right?

It's worth addressing this in detail, not because I want to have a go at him (and I don't - in fact, cheers jeffers for saying some stuff that I didn't think of) but because there's a larger issue here that really deserves the full attention of anybody trying to get into the industry via the guitar.

If you look at all those artists listed they all have one thing in common. Their musical careers all started at least 15 years ago (mostly a lot earlier). Why is that bad? Because the music market has changed since these guys all hit their stride. The era of the "guitar god" in Western music is over, probably forever, and if you try to make a career out of your music by copying these guys, or even by learning from what they're doing and changing it to make it your own, you will not succeed. Two reasons why:

1. It's been done.


Back in the 70s and 80s seeking out technical guitarists took substantial effort - you had to go and buy their expensive albums, and if you liked something a little obscure that wasn't in the hit parade it usually wasn't even available, so you had to find someone who could order it in and then you had to wait up to 6 months for the damn thing to arrive. Moving images of these people, such as video, now that was really rare, good luck finding any at all unless they had a hit out or something. Some of my favourite guitarists when I was growing up I had never seen them play even on TV and in a couple cases I didn't even know what they looked like. Nowadays it's all changed, and everybody in the world who is reasonably internet-savvy and knows a thing or two about guitar has seen this video (or is just about to). Why are they going to pay big money for whatever it is that you can do when they can loop this (or something like it) on their desktop for the price of an Internet connection and get their "I want to see cool guitar" urge out of their system without even leaving the house or spending extra cash? Well, there is certainly one reason why they might, which leads me to...

2. You are not a hot chick.

Let me introduce you to the only two guitar virtuosos who have cracked really, really big commercial success in the last ten years:


Notice a theme developing? Yeah, me too.

Of course, if you can shoehorn your guitar playing into some kind of song that people already really want to listen to, there's no reason why you can't do well even if you're a guy. It's worked for countless metal bands. That's why neither Orianthi or Kaki King have very much in the way of lengthy guitar solos on their latest albums - it's all stuff like this:


8 bars is about the length of the modern pop listener's tolerance for a guitar solo in the 21st century.


16 bars is acceptable if the tempo is a bit quicker and thus those bars go by a bit faster.

Nobody wants to listen to guitar improvisation anymore. Okay, well a few people do but they're mainly other guitarists (or their mums) and they don't have much spending power because they're throwing all their disposable income at musical equipment while downloading your shit for free so from the perspective of your career, they don't matter. Everyone else needs another reason to listen to what you're doing besides "oh gosh, he can play guitar pretty well, can't he". Why do you think Buckethead has a bucket on his head (and even he started over 15 years ago)?

 

[MisterGobbles]

snip

Don't worry, I'm not interesting in becoming a solo guitarist. I've been following this thread a while and one of the points you keep bringing up is that if you wanna even be at least mildly successful in the music industry, you have to keep up with the times. Performing a style of music that no one is really interested in anymore isn't going to get you anywhere. And guitar solos aren't really the popular thing anymore anyway (and if you ask me most of them are quite boring).

But I am interested in doing stuff like this:


This is music that is fairly technical that doesn't really have any solos to speak of. It's not, we'll say, the most popular kind of music, but I believe it's relevant enough that you could get signed to a label that does stuff like this and develop enough of a fanbase to make a little money (perhaps not enough to quit your day job, but some bands in the scene have done it so it's possible).

Solos have never really interested me, thus why I'm not too good at them. However, when the rest of the song is just as complex and engaging as any good solo could be, you don't really need them. Technicality is nice, but the music comes first.