Musicians Produce Their Own Cds, Getting Rights to Re-create old songs

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  • Hello and good day,
    I have a home studio and I record instrumental recordings and some with vocal arrangements.
    I sell these Cds and recordings online at my website (no lable or commercial).

    So far I haven't recorded anything other than my own works.

    I am wanting to re-record songs and instrumentals in my own style but using the older songs' melodies and arrangements.

    Example: If I wanted to re-create the song "Misty" but use all of my own instruments and arrangements AND still call it "MISTY",
    do I need to get permission or obtain some sort of rights?

    Certain arrangements to songs like "Orange Blossom Special" have NO lyrics but have been recorded by a MILLION musicians and still used the same title.

    Please help, thank you!
    Doug
  • There was a question about this in the forum not too long ago. You can see the discussion here:

    http://www.librarycopyright.net/wordpress/punbb/viewtopic.php?id=1164

    The answer to your question, which appears in RLiebler's response to that original post, is: "Once a song is recorded the first time, anyone can make a cover version WITHOUT asking for permission. That is why there are so many versions of Yesterday by the Beatles."

    You do still need to get what's called a compulsory license, for which you will pay a fee. You can get more information about that here:
    http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ73.html
  • [quote=MollyKleinman]There was a question about this in the forum not too long ago. You can see the discussion here:

    http://www.librarycopyright.net/wordpress/punbb/viewtopic.php?id=1164

    The answer to your question, which appears in RLiebler's response to that original post, is: "Once a song is recorded the first time, anyone can make a cover version WITHOUT asking for permission. That is why there are so many versions of Yesterday by the Beatles."

    You do still need to get what's called a compulsory license, for which you will pay a fee. You can get more information about that here:
    http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ73.html[/quote]
    Thank you so much!

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