Questions tagged [music]
For questions about laws applying to musical works, recording and performance.
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Is it copyright infringement to use the same exact notes of another song if they are played at a different rhythm and sound completely different?
Basically wondering if it would be copyright infringement for a song to share the same 6 notes in the same order as an existing composition, provided the rhythm of the notes were different
For ...
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Dual Question: Are music transcription services legal? How to legally share/sell music transcriptions?
Is it legal to charge for the service of transcribing music for a customer? For example, if someone requests that I transcribe a copyrighted song for them, is it legal for me to do this and charge a ...
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How do people get away with old TV clips in music?
For example, old news coverage from decades ago (landing on the moon, things like that). Presumably there are copyright laws but such clips may be in songs, including clips of well known anchors ...
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Can I put "Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" on my album cover (which is not a soundtrack)?
If I wrote an album with a soundtrack-"feel" to it, which (crucially) is not a real motion picture soundtrack, would I be allowed to put "Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" on the ...
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Is it illegal to perform a song from sheet music that I transcribed?
So I have been transcribing a copyrighted song (as a HOBBY) that I love and was thinking about using it as a graduation song for my music school, but I’ve had to make some tweaks because there are ...
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Is it legal to arrange music I don't have rights to if it is never performed?
I had the idea to transcribe and arrange the music from the musical Ride the Cyclone for a wind ensemble for my school. I got in contact with the company that owns the license (Broadway Licensing) to ...
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Copyrighted Music, Personal Use, and not-for-profit Video Games?
I am creating a video game that is open-source and will be distributed for free (i.e. not-for-profit) on itch.io.
I would like to use a copyrighted song as part of the background music.
My question is,...
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Can a song be used in a presentation for work?
Does it fall under that Fair Use Act of 1976 to include a song as the intro to a presentation for work if the presentation is being given for educational/teaching purposes?
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Who owns the copyright in this case?
As a layman interested in the law, I'm facing a bit of a conundrum posed by my cousin.
Here are the facts:
A records company, M Ltd, has created (e.g. written code for, trained etc.) an AI that can ...
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Musical video production [closed]
I paid a video man to film a lady dancer and myself in a hotel dancing to my new music to be released. I wrote the lyrics, composed, recorded and sang it myself. He signed a contract with the hotel ...
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Is an "anti-copyright" notice legally significant?
I found a picture of a record sleeve for an album independently released in New Zealand, and on the back it says "Anti-copyright (band name) 1986".
There is a wikipedia page for "anti-...
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What is the legal distinction between watching a YouTube video in a browser and downloading it for personal use? [duplicate]
If the act of watching a YouTube video creates a temporary download in my internet cache, why is it illegal to use an app that intercepts the YouTube API to download music videos to listen to later ...
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Is it illegal to play copyrighted music on the piano on the street and receive passers-by's donation? [duplicate]
In America, if I play a piano arrangement, that is, not the original work, of copyrighted music on a street on the piano and receive the donation from passers-by, is this illegal?
And if I do not ...
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legality behind the copyright of adagio in g minor
sources claim it is still under copyright yet Artists continue to simply borrow from it or copy the piece.
Does this mean that the fragment stolen by giazotto is copyright free?
is it safe to cover ...
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Liability when using content from third party content distributor
There are sites that offer images and music that is supposedly usable without paying any royalities (for youtube videos, placeholder images, and so on). The content is uploaded by third party (from my ...
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Is monetizing a piano video playing others' sheets illegal?
Say, I bought a piano sheet from a youtuber in websites like mymusicsheet. I made some rearrangement to it or not, (does this make any change?) then I uploaded a video playing it in youtube and ...
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If I use a CC-BY background music track in my video on YouTube, is it enough to give credits in the video description or must credits be in the video?
If I use a CC-BY background music track in my video on YouTube, is it enough to give credits to the musicians in the video description or must credits be shown in the video?
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Is sharing sites where copyrighted songs can be downloaded freely illegal?
If Alan knows of some sites where copyrighted songs can be downloaded freely, and he sends the links to Betty, is this criminal?
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Is sharing anime songs downloaded from youtube with my family across countries illegal?
Say, I live in America, my family are in Turkey. If I download anime songs like this from youtube, then I send them to my family, is this illegal? If it is, and someone sue me, what would be the ...
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Creative commons license on sheet music of classical pieces and performing in public
Suppose that there is a piece of classical music (let's say written by Bach in 1726) and there is a recent arrangement (sheet music) of that piece which was made available through Creative Commons ...
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Take part of a song slow it down a bit and put it on a loop
Lets say someone hypothetically took the beginning part of a song and slowed it down a bit and put it on a loop for 3 min..
In this scenario the original song was copyrighted.
Would this be copyright ...
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Why is a cover song not fair use? (But parody songs are?)
Considering fair use law, parody, transformative works: Weird Al always asks for permission for his parodies but many law professionals have stated he would not have to.
Considering all this, why does ...
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What's the difference in copyrights between a book and lyrics of a song?
As far as I understand copyrights, both books and lyrics of a song are protected in the same way. Are they really? It's much easier to find whole lyrics of a song than it is to find whole text of a ...
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May I add additional lyrics to a copyright song without claiming any ownership?
A copyright holder has flatly refused my request to add additional lyrics to one of their songs, for use in a private congregational church setting.
Does this mean it is simply illegal?
I have seen ...
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Legality of busking a song with copyrighted melody but using different lyrics to deliver a message
Are there any legal impediments to busking a song with melody and lyrics copyrighted in the United States---with the same melody but with different lyrics---on U.S. streets?
Does it matter if the song ...
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Copyright transcription of public domain music?
Can I copyright my transcription of, say, a public domain Mozart symphony for brass quintet?
I downloaded a public domain PDF of a Mozart symphony. I used the musical content from the PDF and created ...
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Where can I buy a license to use digital copyrighted music for piano lessons
I am a piano teacher and wish to display copyrighted music on a tablet for the kids to play music from.
I will arrange simplified music for them.
What sort of license do I need?
Where can I buy this?
...
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Does buying a song on Gumroad allow me to use it in my video commercially?
If I purchase music from the link in a_hisa's music video description, can I use the music in my video?
Description:
a_hisa - Happiness Bell
from 8th album「colors 6」
buy on Gumroad
https://gumroad....
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Does Payola apply to Spotify and related services?
If someone paid a Playlist Curator to host music on the curator's playlist, without any disclosure of the payment, would that be illegal?
US Title 47 Section 508 states this kind of behavior is ...
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Obnoxiously loud music from a festival
There's a local annual festival that plays their music really loudly. I can hear it from three and a half miles away, and it's really annoying. There are houses just a few hundred feet away; I'm sure ...
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Is it copyright infringement if I don’t actually make any money from someone else’s audio? [duplicate]
Say I use audio snippets from copyrighted speeches (TED talks, news segments, etc.) on top of some original music. If I use this in a public performance that is completely free and generates no profit/...
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If I use a preset for a synthesizer VST in a song and make a commercial use of the song, do I need some license for this preset?
Assume one uses a preset for some synthesizer VST in a song and make a commercial use of the song: does one need some license for this preset? I live in the United States.
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Is the Scarborough Fair Melody Really in the Public Domain?
According to Wikimedia Commons:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarborough-Fair-Melody.png
the melody to the tune Scarborough Fair (which had been popularized in the 1960s by Simon and ...
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If I buy a song on Bandcamp, can I then use that song in my audio streaming website project accessible by the public?
I want to replicate this site here (note I am not a non-profit like freeCodeCamp):
https://coderadio.freecodecamp.org/
I'd like to repurpose it to feature a different genre of music. To accomplish ...
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Is it legal to allow users to upload their own music to an app for baseball walkout songs?
Ballpark DJ and Walkout Song DJ both allow users to upload music from their phone storage to play as walkout music or inning break songs for baseball games. BallparkDJ also allows using Amazon and ...
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Is an algorithm producing music copyrighted?
It is my understanding that algorithms (not their concrete implementations) are not copyrighted.
Musical scores or productions usually have a copyright.
Some music is constructed from a small set of ...
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What does copyright law have to say about publishing written notation for recorded music?
If you google the name of any popular song, among the top suggestions will be " chords" or "tabs" or "piano arrangement", etc. Many of these hits will take you to forum ...
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Sheet music artwork
I would like to take sheet music collection inherited from my grandfather and use the artwork covers to create a coffee table book. I am not copying any of the music, but I will be including photos of ...
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What would the copyright laws probably say about these 3 similar pieces of music? [closed]
Hopefully, someone with some knowledge or background in copyright and music can provide me with some insight for this question.
The following 3 short pieces of music seem to share a similar tune (or, ...
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Voice samples from the old movies in the music tracks
I bet most of you have heard - in some music compositions - short 5-10 seconds "injections" of voice-lines from some old movies.
I'm producing a track right now, where I want to insert a ...
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Does a Creative Commons license on sheet music affect what performers can do with their audio recordings of that piece?
As a composer, I only produce sheet music and I license all of it using the Creative Commons “Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International” license. This should allow a performer to perform and record the ...
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Audio exhibition rights for self-hosted video files: third-party content question
Suppose that there is a website hosted in USA, with most of its users in the USA. The website is owned by a Canadian corporation.
Suppose that the website allows users to create videos using their ...
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To whom does copyright of an item belong, if a computer program is used to create it, according to the Deutsches Urheberrecht?
Section 69b of the German Copyright Law "Deutsches Urheberrecht" states that:
Where a computer program is created by an employee in the execution of his duties or following the instructions ...
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Is licensing required to use an excerpt of a song within a recording?
I'm currently recording a cover version of a song for inclusion on a compilation album which will be sold on Bandcamp. Because Bandcamp does not pay mechanical royalties, the organiser of the ...
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Contract termination in distrokid - [closed]
It looks like from the big four (ditto, distrokid, tunecore and cdbaby) the only ones that do not want my rights forever (irrevocably) are distrokid and cdbaby (for more information have a look at my ...
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Do I grant ditto (music distributer) a free license?
I am looking into the ditto agreement (a music distribution service that puts my music on spotify) and there is the following section in it:
You agree that the licenses you grant are royalty-free, ...
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What legal rights does ownership of music grant me?
I am looking into music distribution service called TuneCore and can see the following in the terms of music distribution:
(b) By clicking the “I Agree” button, you irrevocably grant to Company, ...
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What if a copyright registration service goes bust?
When I create a song I immediately upload it to dropbox. That way I can make sure I can recover it if my hard drive is failing (as i don't have redundancy) but also to show I have a tangible form of ...
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Examples for songs copyright violation
it looks like you have to learn from examples of what constitutes copyright violation when sampling someone else's tune for example in a hip hop song (or even in a rap song).
I used search engine ...
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How similar should a tune be to constitute theft of someone else's tune?
i am a composer of hip hop songs. As opposed to rap songs, hip hop songs are very melodic by nature. now sometimes i get inspired by someone else's tune, or write my own tune and then find out ...