What type of license should I purchase?

[JenniferBowman]

I have been a Taxi member for about a year and I have learned so much from these forums. Thanks to all who take the time to help each other out!

I am primarily a pianist and I am working on some Christmas arrangements that are non public domain. In many of the Taxi listings it says something lIke “ must own or control master.”

I have purchased licenses to arrange non public domain songs for print but I am unsure which license to purchase if I am going to submit for sync or if that is something the publisher pays for and does?

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

[hummingbird]

If the listing says they are looking for cover instrumental or cover song arrangements, then they will do the licencing.

[Susanstunes]

I have been a Taxi member for about a year and I have learned so much from these forums. Thanks to all who take the time to help each other out!

I am primarily a pianist and I am working on some Christmas arrangements that are non public domain. In many of the Taxi listings it says something lIke “ must own or control master.”

I have purchased licenses to arrange non public domain songs for print but I am unsure which license to purchase if I am going to submit for sync or if that is something the publisher pays for and does?

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

Hi Jennifer- If I understand your question correctly, you are discussing "must own or control master" which is on every listing I believe.
It means that you have the rights to your song, i.e. copyright.
To my knowledge, there is nothing to purchase, as in a license. Unless you decide to register your copyright with the government, which does cost $35, depending on if you do one at a time. But the end user- the client asking for the music from Taxi- wants to be able to use the music easily without having to clear it somewhere else or find out you actually are not the owner (or sole owner) of the copyright.
I'm sure others could explain it a bit more succinctly!

Susan

www.susanhillmanmusic.com

[RPaul]

I have been a Taxi member for about a year and I have learned so much from these forums. Thanks to all who take the time to help each other out!

I am primarily a pianist and I am working on some Christmas arrangements that are non public domain. In many of the Taxi listings it says something lIke “ must own or control master.”

I have purchased licenses to arrange non public domain songs for print but I am unsure which license to purchase if I am going to submit for sync or if that is something the publisher pays for and does?

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

Okay, I should probably preface this with, "I'm not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice."

The "master" is the recording, not the song itself. So, if you are recording your own master, you would own the master. If you have collaborators on the recording you would either co-own the masters with those collaborators or need to work out some arrangement in that regard (e.g. you could do work-for-hire arrangement with them, where you pay them to do their parts in exchange for giving up any interest in the master).

As for the non-public domain song you are recording, technically you'd need a mechanical license for the song to embed it in a recording. In practice, if you're only recording it for a submission, and it's not getting distributed publicly, I'm not sure you'd need to worry about it -- the library would definitely need to cover any needed licenses if they take your song and get placements. They'd be getting sync licenses for placements in film, TV, etc. If you were to distribute your recording to the public (e.g. via CD Baby, Tunecore, et al to Apple, Amazon, Spotify, et al), you'd definitely need a mechanical license. I know CD Baby can handle those for you on cover songs, though only for the songs that go through them. If you also wanted to sell CDs at shows, put your song on Bandcamp, etc., then you'd need to get a separate mechanical license to cover those uses.

Rick

[JenniferBowman]

Thanks everyone for your responses! Yes I am working on some holiday arrangements some will be Piano solo, some with a singer. So as I understand your responses all we have to do at this point is worry about making a good recording. If I decide to make a CD to sell then I would purchase that mechanical license.

Many thanks! All the terms can be confusing!