I was thinking earlier about this whole mess with Prince and his obsession with copyright and it got me thinking about the covers which Prince did in London...

Did Prince get written permission from all the artists that he covered in London? Did Gnarls Barkely, Aretha Franklin, The Beatles, The Jimi Hendrix estate, Chic, etc grant permission for him to cover their songs?

I'm pretty sure he doesnt get permission from all the other artists and to be honest I don't think he should. But by pursuing this aggressive copyright lawsuit he is surely contradicting himself (assuming that he didnt get permission) as his shows were littered with his own performances of other people's work.

No, I'm sure he didn't.

Doesn't need 2 do covers anywayz.I'd rather hear him cover more of his own material.

purplejosh said:

There's no need to get permission. Instead, a payment is made for the live performance to the rights owner(s) of the composition. It is usually paid by the venue owner.

A artist like Prince would of course have to get copyright.....it's not that difficult.....

seanbee said:

He wouldn't 'have to get copyright'. The various rights to copy the work continue to vest with the author in most cases. However, the right to perform in public a musical compostion copyrighted to someone else is permitted in law without the need for the performer to obtain prior permission.

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[Edited 11/11/07 3:09am]

Exactly... Anyone can play what they like live (copyright doesn't come into it).
However, if he had wanted to release a DVD of his performance of a cover
version, he would then need to get permission.

He didn't get James Brown's permission. That's 4 sure.

ok so Prince was within his legal right to play the covers. however, the fact remains that he was completely at ease with the idea of himself using other people's work to help earn himself money through his concerts.

However, when people on these websites use images that often belong to themselves (and no-one is earning money out of it) they are threatened with legal action.

It just seems hypocritical to me.

And the irony is, is that Prince probably makes more money through free promotion on these websites rather than loses money due to copyright infringement.

Please Prince stop this ridiculous attack on your OWN fans!!!!

I'd love Prince under some cover

purplejosh said:

Your post is a little misleading . . . you talk about Prince covering music live, but then you talk about fans posting images online. They're two completely different things.

Prince pays for the right to cover songs during his concerts - just like every other artist pays that fee.

I can go to any concert I want, and I can watch & listen - that's it. I can't record anything and post online. People who do take pictures or recordings - that's illegal - but what is just plain stupid is trying to justify posting them online.

People think that just because it's the "Internet" that all rules and laws go out the window.

Se7en said:

Actually, in the United States there's an exception to copyright laws that allows "live performers" to copy other's work - so long as the work isn't recorded in any way.

This is how Teachers can be in a classroom and recite pages of a copyrighted book without the author suing.

To add to what langeblue wrote, I think ASCAP comes to play in this matter, too. I have friends who are musicians and they can't do covers at venues that don't pay annual ASCAP fees. However, they're free to play cover songs in venues that do pay ASCAP fees.

I don't think it's a matter of getting permission to do a cover live, as long as the venue has paid its ASCAP fees. Theoretically, an artist/composer gets a small royalty every time his or her song is covered, but in reality the artists often don't get squat.

Some of my performer friends have told me that ASCAP has been known to send "spies" into venues that aren't paying ASCAP members to make sure that the musicians don't play any cover songs. If they do slip in a few cover songs, the ASCAP spies levy hefty fines on the venue.

It's a given that venues that make most of their money from live performances are paying ASCAP members; however, places like a neighborhood coffeehouse, etc., may not have paid these fees since they're pretty hefty.
[Edited 11/11/07 13:54pm]

PicassoFace said:

interesting, thanks.