Posted by Question... on August 11, 2003 at 11:36:57:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Tuba Compilation posted by Here's the skinny... on August 11, 2003 at 07:44:25:
If you play copyrighted music at a gig or recital, it's ok. You've purchased the music for that purpose.
As I understand it, the issue of copyright is separate from the issue of performance rights and is arranged not through the publisher, but rather BMI or ASCAP. Similarly, mechanical reproduction rights are separate. Just because I've purchased the paper and ink, I can't blissfully record a bunch of CD's and hawk them.
Tied up in all of this is the situation that copyright infringement is a criminal offense in the USA (see the DMCA), where making a knockoff of someone's patented product merely opens me up to a lengthy civil process. I've written my congressional representatives that we really neead a uniform code for protection of intellectual property in this country.
But in the light of stuff like DMCA and Sonny Bono and the behind the scenes lobbying by the likes of Warner Brothers. I don't hold out much hope for any reform, rather I resignedly look forward to 200-year retroactive copyright protection with lifetime imprisonment for infringement.