The legal part of my response was in response to tonyg0499 and my reasoning for not trying to monetize remixes was aimed at you. I guess I should have broken up your names and made different paragraphs addressing each.

...where did you find out about this forum if not from audioz.download?

This is a sister site for one of the most prevalent sources of illegal pro audio content on the internet. What I said was not speculation but in fact represents 99.9% of the people on this forum. People who had some sort of moral objection to use pirated content would not be posting here and would be on gearslutz or some similar forum instead.

This is only to prevent this forum from being completely overrun with people requesting stuff. I imagine the moderators already have enough of a difficulty dealing with those topics even with that rule. That and the proper place to do so is on the other site.

If you have even one pirated piece of software on your computer you are supporting piracy. Most members only purchase those products which are not yet pirated due to sophisticated copy protection measures. I doubt anyone here has a legitimate license for Wave's Mercury Bundle or Fabfilter's plugins. Buying Cubase 9 doesn't redeem one from also using tens of thousands of dollars worth of illegal plugins like so many hypocrites seem to believe.

The only part I disagree with you on is your obsession with trying to monetize everything you produce. A remix should not be created with the goal of making money off it but instead merely as a way to connect potential fans with your style and music. You can then try to sell them your original works like many successful artists have done throughout the years and continue to do.

I am actually quite knowledgeable in copyright law as I took several classes in business law when I went to college. I also looked into this matter quite extensively when I started creating my own cover songs and piano arrangements.

This is also the sort of double standard I was trying to highlight in my post. Companies like Waves do care if you pirate their products! They actually have the misguided mindset that everyone who uses pirated products are lost/stolen revenue. I am actually surprised they don't try to hide some ransom-ware like code in their updates that trigger when you are not using a legitimate version.

I was just trying to give the author another option to consider. To many people adopt this short term mindset that they need to make money now with the current song they are working on. The people who gradually build up their fan base over the long term, even if that means releasing the occasional song that you don't see any immediate profit from, are the ones who are successful in the end.

...and that is the futility of debating on internet forums. I should have been working on my music instead of typing this long reply that no one will probably completely read, and even if they do it won't likely change anyone's mind.

 

You can think all you want but the law is the law. Just don't be giving people "legal advice" if you don't know the law.By the way, your claim that you are "actually quite knowledgeable in copyright law as [you] took several classes in business law when [you] went to college" is ...%&$^*#$R
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CRIMINAL COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT
(courtesy of "The Copyright Corner")

Most copyright litigation is civil in nature – a court finds that a defendant has infringed and orders her to pay either statutory damages or actual damages and profits. There are also criminal copyright penalties, and Congress has shown recent interest in increasing these penalties. Criminal copyright infringement exists to punish infringers who misappropriate copyrighted works in which an “author” invested time, creativity, energy and money to create but who lacks the means to prevent such infringement.

Misdemeanors are less serious crimes, and criminal misdemeanor penalties have been a part of the copyright law since 1897. Traditionally, available only if the infringement was willful and done for profit the misdemeanors involved unlawful performances and representation of copyrighted dramatic and musical compositions. So, the reproduction and distribution of copies of copyrighted works, even when undertaken for profit, was not a crime. In the 1909 Copyright Act, criminal copyright infringement was expanded to cover all types of works and all types of activities. It continued to be a misdemeanor offense with both willfulness and a financial motive required; the penalties included and imprisonment.

The 1976 Act revamped the criminal provisions by changing the “for profit” requirement to infringement conducted “willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain.” This lowered the standard from requiring that the defendant profit from the infringement merely to an intent to profit or gain from the activity. The Act retained the one-year in federal prison term but increased the fine from $1,000 in fines to up to $10,000 generally, and to $50,000 if the work infringed was a sound recording or motion picture.

In 1982 the criminal infringement provisions were amended to make certain types of first-time infringement punishable as felonies (more serous crimes), although most criminal infringements remained at the misdemeanor level in the statute. The types of activities that were classified as felonies depended on the number of copies made or sold within a 180-day period. Increased penalties of up to five years imprisonment and $250,000 in fines were available only if the infringement involved reproduction or distribution of motion pictures, audiovisual works and sound recordings. Repeat offenders were subject to the maximum fines regardless of the number of copies or types of works involved. All other offenses continued to be misdemeanors with maximum fines of $25,000 and one year imprisonment.

The most recent amendment to criminal copyright infringement was the No Electronic Theft Act of 1997 (NetAct) which made it a felony to reproduce or distribute copies of copyrighted works electronically regardless of whether the defendant had a profit motive. Thus, it changed the 100-year standard regarding profit motive but retained the element of willfulness. The ease of infringement on the Internet was the primary reason for criminalizing noncommercial infringement as well as recognition of other motivations a nonprofit defendant might have such as anti-copyright or anti-corporate sentiment, trying to make a name in the Internet world and wanting to be a cyber renegade. So, the infringement must be either: (1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain or (2) involve the reproduction or distribution of one or more copies of a work or works within a 180-day period with a total retail value of $1,000. Commercial infringers are subject to higher penalties, however. A commercially motivated infringer can receive up to a five-year federal prison term and $250,000 in fines; a noncommercial willful infringer is subject to up to a one-year prison term and $100,000 in fines. The prison term maximum for repeat infringers is up to 10 years for commercially motivated ones and up to six years for noncommercial infringers.

Copyright infringers may be sued both civilly and prosecuted criminally for the same infringing act. In cases where the alleged infringer has few assets that a copyright owner might recover in a civil suit, the owner may seek to have the government prosecute the infringer as a criminal. In addition to the different remedies and penalties, there are other differences between civil and criminal copyright suits, although the underlying infringing activity may be the same. For example, the civil statute of limitations is three years; it is five years for a criminal prosecution. The burden of proof for copyright infringement in a civil suit is “preponderance of the evidence” while it is “beyond a reasonable doubt” for criminal copyright infringement. For civil remedies, it is the copyright owner who brings suits; for criminal penalties it is the federal prosecutor who litigates the case.

There are four essential elements required to prove felony copyright infringement: (1) that a registered copyright exists, (2) that the defendant infringed by reproduction or distribution of the copyrighted work, (3) that the defendant acted willfully and (4) that the works infringed were at least 10 copies of one or more copyrighted works with a total value of $2,500 within a 180-day period. Willfulness continues to be a very illusive concept, but the statute provides no definition. Case law illustrates that certain type of evidence generally is relevant to prove that defendant’s conduct was willful. For example, that the defendant had legal notice that conduct similar to his was infringement or that he had actual notice that his conduct was illegal. However, under Section 506(a) of the Act, “evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement.”

Section 506 also details other actions that may give rise to criminal misdemeanor charges. These include: (1) fraudulent placing of a copyright notice on a work, (2) fraudulent removal of a copyright notice and (3) knowingly making a false representation of a material fact in an application for copyright registration.

In 2003 two bills were introduced into Congress to enhance further the criminal provisions of the copyright law. H.R. 2752, the Author, Consumer and Computer Protection and Security Act of 2003, would strengthen the criminal provisions generally and penalize file-trading in particular. It would classify anyone who downloads even a single song for personal use as a felony copyright infringer. S. 1932, the Artists Rights and Theft Prevention Act, would make it easier for prosecutors to convict individuals who put pre-released material, such as movies, software and songs, on the Internet. Both bills would eliminate the 10 copies and $2,500 value requirements so that even a single act of such infringement would create liability for felony copyright infringement.
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Last edited by a moderator: May 5, 2018

Cd Baby now owns loudr,thats the best place to go through for doing cover material....itll run about 30$ for a license

 

@C7 I couldnt agree more with @tonyg0499 on this. Giving members the wrong legal advice can have adverse consequences and accordingly only should be given by those who really know what they are talking about. Both Matt77 and Tonyg0499 seem to have a pretty good knowledge of Copyright Law.

 

Those laws are not really applicable to creating remixes and arrangements like you seem to believe. Those are more for activities such as distributing pirated pro audio applications or a new movie or album over BitTorrent. Even then those criminal charges are seldom brought against the individuals who shared the illegal content. The trend these days is to go after the website that hosted the content not the individuals.

I can't believe you honestly believe that law enforcement is going to waste their time and money pursuing criminal charges against someone who created a remix for a song, that probably didn't even cut into the revenue of the original work. Record labels, despite what many seem to think, are being slowly bled to death by new forms of distribution and don't have the personal or money needed anymore to bring charges against people who create harmless remixes. Most labels have formed contracts already with YouTube so you don't even need to worry about getting the license yourself if you upload your remix there.

The OP being from Croatia and probably doing a remix in their native language as well as in a different style will probably be so different from the original work that people may not even be able to link the two and it could approach being transformative in nature and satisfy the fair use doctrine.

Most copyright owners actually encourage remixes as they help drive the sales of the original work. If your remix gets popular enough then perhaps they may approach you and ask for a percent of the earnings, but the last thing they are going to do is sue you. To sue you they would have to determine that your remix is actually so good (like a top 100 chart hit) that it is negatively affecting the sales of their original work. They would then decide whether the legal costs outweigh the added revenue that would result from removing you from competition. They don't just scan the internet for anything that infringes their copyrights and bring thousands of lawsuits against fans, that would be a horrible business move.

I honestly don't care if anyone heeds my advice or not. You all seem to be overly paranoid about breaking the law which I find rather ironic coming from a forum such as this.

 

Last edited: Aug 9, 2017

@C7
I have to agree with @tonyg0499 explanations within the context of this thread. You are right that creating remixes and arrangements do not run you afoul of the Copyright Laws as long as you are not distributing it. You forgot to mention that last part. You forgot also that the OP does plan to have his creation distributed. And if that is the case, then he better be within the law.
You have turned the thread into a piss contest. And in so doing, attempt to support your position with conjecture, presumptions, speculation and most importantly a total disregard for the law on this subject matter. This reply my friend is not a personal attack on your person. It simply is a critique of your point of view on this issue.