Unable to contact songwriters

[foursouls]

We (4 people - still alive) had a 4-track studio back in the late 60's/early 70's - In addition to using it to record our own material - there were people who came in with a song or 2 that they had written and wanted to record. We proceeded with a few of them and produced the recording with the songwriters singing their own songs and we supplied the music track arrangements etc.

We recently uncovered the old 1/2 inch tapes and digitized all of them.

We have tried to track down the missing songwriters - no luck.

Question is - can we submit these songs to TAXI ? I think we know the answer (no) - but any ideas on how to handle this - seems like a shame to just let these songs evaporate....

John

[jazzstan]

The risk of them saying "no" is small, but the BIG unknown is have they already licensed the music elsewhere. Did your search include BMI, ASCAP, etc??

[guitarhacker]

the answer to that question.... could you submit it to TAXI? Absolutely Not!

Not without written permission of the writers. If you are not a writer on a song, you have no legal right to do that anyway.

nothing is worse in this business then to submit a song which you do not have 100% clear permission to submit, it gets forwarded, the producer likes it and wants to use it, and the real owner shows up and says no, or comes out of the woodwork after the fact and files a lawsuit against the user of the song and you.

Word gets around fast and no one will even talk to you again.....career over.

[Casey H]

Your post didn't indicate if YOU were a songwriter on these tracks.

You can't submit these tracks anywhere unless (1) You were a co-writer (not just a producer) and (2) You have the permission of the other writers.

If #1 is true, you might try harder to locate them-- internet searches, social media, etc. But 50 years is a long, long time!

Best,
Casey