How Do You Get A License To Play One Song? Options

[Christiana]

Hey everybody;

For the most part, I don't play a whole lot of music in my shows, but what I do play is all podsafe.

That said, I'm doing some prep work for an upcoming secret project, and I found the perfect song for it, but it's not podsafe.

I can do without it if absolutely necessary, (It's not really part of the main project content anyway,) but being able to use it would make me ridiculously happy.


So what I'm asking essentially is: What would be required to be able to use that song legally?

Do I need to contact the record label? The band? Will the cost of the license depend at all on how successfull the project may end up being? How does commercial vs. non-commercial impact the cost? The project (if it actually happens) would be released via creative commons for free, but I would be accepting donations.

A lot of questions, I know, but I'm really lost on these matters, so if anyone can help me out, it would be very appreciated.

[Guest_Knitwitch1_*]

Well I did some checking on the "fair use" business last night and was surprised by what I found. First of all ASCAP had really nothing to offer other than to say it was discussed at their annual meetings in 2003. My membership information didn't go into any useful details either. So I ended up searching more into the legal aspects and ramifications and found that the "x" amount of seconds rule of thumb really doesn't apply across the board.

Rather than get into the legalese you can check out the info from Stanford University Libraries at:
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_...rview/chapter9/

There's a good summary under "What is Fair Use?" at
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_...apter9/9-a.html

Because this seems to be geared toward lawyers working in this area, there are listings of precendents and good examples of whta constitutes "fair use", but I found that most of the examples tend to negate most of what we had hoped for earlier in the posts. Bottom line, you'll have to check it out and make a determination for yourself (or with legal counsel if your really, really serious and have the bucks for that).

I'm going to keep searching and will pass along anything I discover.