Hi guys,
I would like to ask you for an opinion. We made a remix of a single, by a major Republic Records artist, UMG. How can I get the permission of the author, or the label to formalize our remix and not have legal issues?
Anyone in the industry here can give me some pointers?

 

Find out the address of the record company and write there, describe your request and wait for an answer.

 

That's a really interesting question actually. I'm wondering if I'm allowed to release my remix if the actual author/label have released the stems for a remix competition for instance. Is that considered a "permission" already?

 

Thanks for the valuable information. When you mean addresses, you are talking about email, right? I mean, the Universal MG email, in the Request License section?

 

You'd have to read the terms and conditions that accompany release of the stems. Simply making them publicly available doesn't give the world carte blanche permission to do whatever the hell they feel like with them.

The first remix competition I dug up contained this in the rules:

"Except as otherwise provided herein You may not assign or transfer any rights or obligations hereunder without prior consent of SKIO."

Releasing a remix would surely involve 'assigning or transferring rights' without consent.

 

Last edited: Jan 15, 2022

You could also try licensing services like
https://www.easysong.com/services/licensing/get-permission/

they offer a 'custom license service' where they will contact the rightsholders for everything that's not a simple compulsory cover license (and since you do a remix, it is not simply a cover).
This is costly though, more than 100$, and on top of that you need to pay whatever license fees the rightsholders might end up asking for etc.

 

I see. That's a really complex subject with lots of important details involved. And even the interpretation of the contract is quite subjective as well. For example, I don't see a remix as a "rights transfer", unless one hide the credits of the original authors. But yeah, thats only my way of seeing things, probably a lawyer would prove me wrong, haha

 

Do you believe the rights somehow transferred to you? I'm pretty sure that they'd argue that they did for a very specific, limited use -- participation in the competition. And you have no right to use the IP for any other purposes.

As with all these things, if you were to just release it on bandcamp, nobody was listening to it and nobody was making any money, I'm sure nobody would care one way or the other.

But you couldn't sign it to a label or anything like that, that'd be a clear assignation of rights. And regardless of how it happened, if it ever started generating revenue, the original rights holders will be all over you like a nasty rash.

 

Oh, no, that's a completely different approach. I'm just talking about releasing it unnoficially on YT and Soundcloud for instance, without even activating the monetization and giving all the credits for the original artists. And always adding an e-mail for "DMCA" style requests on the description. And even like that I know there's a risk of my remix being taken down from the platforms.

 

Turn it into a parody record like Weird Al" Yankovic does. If you do that you don't need permission of any kind, although he does as he is a nice guy. Making parody songs have earned him five Grammy Awards and a further 11 nominations, four gold records and six platinum records in the U.S. He's sold over 12,000,000 records, so...

Go for it and fulfill the prophecy, your destiny, your true purpose in life.

 

Go the official route and they'll pay you the standard remixer's fee. You'll be able to buy a round of drinks and a pizza for your family.

 

White label that shit

 

If it was me in this situation, I'd just go ahead and do it. As you say, as long as you aren't depriving them of revenue then the most likely outcome is someone asking you to take it down or demanding that all the ad revenue goes to them.

 

Yeah, as an independent artist I would do it for sure. I believe it's totally harmless for the original artists if not trying to get money from it without their consent or hiding their credits pretending it's an "original" composition (sadly it happens a lot). And it can even be good and useful for the artist to have a different approach on his/her song to reach different audiences and being played in different places.

 

you can not pubish something which already has been published.

i am afraid in theory there is no big difference between distributing things with commercial interest or without. all what counts is that you have permission to disribute it if it is not yours.

there is also a high risk that youtube claims your original work would not be your orginal work. [/quote]