Discussion Thread

 As I understand it, if you're going to record a cover song, you have to buy mechanical licenses in advance from the Harry Fox Agence (HFA) in multiples of 500.  That's all fine and dandy if I'm making a set number of copies, but if I post a cover song online, it could be downloaded (copied) any number of times.

How do you get licenses to legalize covers you post on YouTube or your website?

That is a VERY good question. And the thing is, I believe the answer is that YouTube already pays for those. YouTube is a double whammy: It's both a mechanical right AND a sync right. Sync is even worse than mechanical, in that there's no statutory limit on what it could cost, no clearing house like Harry Fox, and there's no law FORCING them to let you use their song. They can say no.

Want to know what's even more complicated? If you post a copy of their music video, which most non-musicians do. That's a violation of the mechanical right AND the master use right (and possibly the sync right, in that its a new copy of it). But you'll note that there's music videos posted all of the time by individuals rather than bands, and that's of the original band's music videos.

From what I have heard, it's a constant battle out there, and the old-style rights that were sliced so thin are really not working well in this new world of mashups and instant posting of media where a single post can violate 8 rights at a time.

The answer may be best left to a lawyer in this case. Of course, most bands just post it and let it get taken down if there's a problem. The reason is that the big media that own the most common cover songs go after the big websites that host them in order to revenue share. The bands that make the covers don't have enough money to go after. That doesn't make it the right thing to do, but it's the reality.

Oh, and for your website, you just make an estimation of the number of downloads, and buy them ahead of time. If you are responsible about it, you'll track your webstats, and if it goes over that number, you'll need buy more copies.

I see, so with YouTube it's almost like how bars and clubs pay the PRO's to let people perform covers live in their establishments? 

And with my own website, legally I thought I couldn't wait until it went over, and that the licenses had to be purchased in advance. Like, prior to the copies made. It just seems unfair because, I could be tracking 3 downloads a month, and then someone could post a link to it on the right board at the right time and *wham* a thousand downloads overnight.