JoeCool

Hi,

I have an idea for an arrangement of Prayer of Saint Gregory. I would like to record it when I'm done and possibly post it on the internet and sell the arrangement for any takers. I would use it in public performance as well. Can anybody put the procedure in a nutshell as to what I have to do to keep this legal and what are the costs? Are there any good resources anywhere that would help me? Something like copyright for dummies. Thanks. Joe

wise3028

General Guidelines: If it's in the public domain, you can do just about anything. Unfortunately, I don't believe that this piece would fall into this category.

If any piece has been recorded before, you can make a recording of it (as is), but you'd need to pay Mechanical License fees -- most likely through the Harry Fox Agency. Basically, once someone records a piece, anyone else can record it as long as they pay these fees.

If you want to rearrange a non-public domain piece and sell it, you'll need to find out who "owns" the piece and get their permission to rearrange it and sell it. If I remember that piece correctly, it has something on the bottom that expressely prohibits rearranging it. (I could be wrong). Either way, the safest way is to check and get permission.

I'm not a copyright lawyer - just picked some things up over the years. There's a pretty good book out there called "The Business of Music" (may be an updated one since this one was out) that gives a lot of general guidelines.

Good luck.
Scott

DLoeffler

Check out the Library of Congress regarding copyright. They have a lot of info on the subject.

I will add what I have found out over the years after speaking with the Library of Congress Copyright Office, Harry Fox Agency, people that are in the publishing industry, etc...:

1) You are not allowed to arrange ANYTHING unless
a) it is public domain
b) you have the composer/author/playwrite/painter/publisher etc... permission.

2) You can record anything composed by anyone, BUT you must also pay a mechanical licensing fee that is usually paid to the Harry Fox Agency in New York for U.S. works. This agency then distributes royalties to the owner of the work. Congress passed a law many many many many years ago that stated you can not deny someone the ability to record something. However, you must pay the author/composer/etc... of the work.

3) If a work has writing on it that says you are not allowed to re-arrange it, your only option is to try and get permission. Because the original was for strings and the version you have is a reduction by the composer, good luck.

4) You can record an arrangement, think about all the different ways jazz players have recorded standards. However,
a) you can not sell an arrangement of someone else's work (unless you have permission)
b) you can not distribute an arrangement or recording of someone else's work for free (you don't own the original composition and you are giving away someone else's work)
c) you can record your own works and give them away for free all you want.

5) If you do record and sell the original or an arrangement or the sheet music of the arrangement without registering with Harry Fox or getting permission to do the arrangement and the composer/publisher/Harry Fox finds out, you won't win when you end up in court. Especially if you have made a lot of money on it.

The problem you are looking at is that a lot of the laws for music copyright were written for pop music (see 4 above). With pop music, you are copyrighting the lyrics and the melody. You can not copyright the chord progression. Think about it, if we could copyright chord progressions, there would be only one blues in the key of F, G, Ab, etc... There would not be any more tunes written based upon "rhythm" changes and no one would be able to use ii-V-I in any songs ever again.

A professor once told me that after playing professionally for over 30 years, he really believes that there are only 3 chord progressions in the world with slight variations that are harmonically related. After listening to a lot of music for a grad degree the last 3 years, I have to agree with him.

However, copyright laws for modern classical compositions don't deal with just melody and lyrics. When you start rearranging a piece of modern classical music, you are taking the original intent of the composer regarding texture, tesitura, voicing, instrumentation, etc... and doing something to the piece that was not what the composer originally intended, especially with the way music is written today. And the arrangement may completely change the sound or style of the piece to something that the composer did not want.

I know this sounds crazy, but in the end it comes down to two things
1) stealing someone else's work and taking credit for it
2) changing someone else's work without permission

In the past, I have been down the same route you are going now. In some cases I was lucky and got permission. In others, it was flat out denied. So, all I can say is good luck.

Also, my understanding is that several states that were big into marching band had school districts sued, for A LOT of money, because the band directors did not get permission to arrange something for the band show. EVEN THOUGH THE BAND WAS NOT MAKING MONEY ON IT. They were performing a piece of music and the composer/publisher were not being paid for the intellectual property that they owned. So, even if you give it away, you are still stealing, for lack of a better phrase.

My question, however, is, why do you want to change that composition? It is good writing and shows off the trumpet with the organ very well.

JoeCool

Scott, Thanks for the info!

Drew, Thank you too for your indepth offering. It is a great piece on it's own,
but this idea of updating it just kind of hit me and I think it sounds pretty cool. I'm using different instrumentation.

DLoeffler

Joe,

Sounds neato!!! Hopefully you will get permission.

JoeCool

Well it's a year later and this arrangement fizzled. I wanted to share it at least for a little while. If you go here www.myspace.com/eclectischism you can hear the demo I put together for Peer Music. Pardon the site, it is under construction.

JoeCool

So what do you think of the song???!!!!

ebtromba

I actaully really like. sort of a smooth jazz feeling. very cool.

JoeCool

Yep...that's what I was going for. Thanks for the kudo.