>you should. You are a free person who should be able to express yourself
>the way you want. Unless the covers are hard to differ from
>the originals, I strongly oppose any idea that this is some kind of
>copyright infringement
While having covers of copyrighted songs available on your site may *technically* not be in compliance with copyright law, the reality is that I think it is most unlikely that the copyright holders would see fit to pursue you for any kind of damages, since the recordings you are providing access to are performed, produced, etc. by you, and you are not benefiting financially in any way, and someone is *not* going to download a cover song in lieu of purchasing a CD from the original artist, which is the main justification against the RIAA's well-publicized legal witch-hunts in the US.
The absolute worst-case scenario I think you'd ever experience would be receiving a form letter from a law firm representing a copyright-holder demanding that you Cease and Desist from continuing to provide access to the files in question. Even that is most unlikely.
If you were *selling* or otherwise receiving a direct financial benefit from your recordings, or if your site was part of a commercial entity, that could raise other, somewhat more significant issues.
I have heard of legal action resulting from performance of copyrighted songs by a band playing a gig at a bar, but I have never heard of this happening where no for-profit business was involved.
At the end of the day, potential legal action by copyright holders comes down to a business decision, and I seriously doubt that there would be a perceived business justification for the cost of going after you in court--lawyers aren't cheap. A C&D form letter, *maybe*, but that's about it.
Yes, I know that the RIAA, etc. are investing bigtime in going after individuals for allegedly distributing *exact copies* of copyrighted recordings by their constituents, but the business case for that response is very, very different for what you are concerned about, especially since the recording industry feels the need to make a strong political statement, and set concrete legal precedents regarding the distribution of exact copies of commercial recordings.
However, if I were a judge presiding over your hypothetical case, and plaintiff's counsel tried do make an argument that their client suffered *measurable financial losses* as a result of amateur cover songs on a personal website, my ruling would be "go crap in a hat" (*bang gavel*).
This is all IMHO of course--I am not an attorney, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. :)
--Nick
On 3/11/07, Kjetil S. Matheussen <
k.s.matheussen@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Bob van der Poel:
>
>
> Anyone know much about the legalities of posting music recorded by
> oneself, but written by someone else? I put up a few recordings on my
> web site, mostly as a demo of MMA ... but I got to wondering the other
> day if some nice lawyer is going to be knocking on my door? I'm not too
> worried since I do live in Canada, and the server is <somewhere in
> Europe>. But, still ... one has to wonder.
>
I don't know the laws, but I would be extremely surprised if this is
illegal in Europe.
> In my case, I didn't write the music. But, I'm the "artist" (and
> recording engineer, etc.). And, I'm not selling anything. And, they are
> just demos.
>
> So, should I worry?
I wouldn't.
(In fact, I have a bunch of cover versions available for download myself,
and no way am I going to remove them.)
> Should I take them down?
>
Please don't. It would be extremely unreasonable for anyone to demand that
you should. You are a free person who should be able to express yourself
the way you want. Unless the covers are hard to differ from
the originals, I strongly oppose any idea that this is some kind of
copyright infringement
