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So I'm working on a song, where the verses are brand new, but the chorus is from an already written piece of music. My question is, what are the rules regarding this? The only two examples I can think of at the top of my head are Garth Brooks, when he recorded a song as his alter-ego Chris Gaines, he did a song called Right Now, that used the chorus of Get Together by The Youngbloods. George Michael did something similar, he recorded a song called Waiting For That Day, which used a little bit of You Cant Always Get What You Want by The Rolling Stones. In both cases, it wasn't sampling, cause they re-recorded it. I did notice that the writing credits for the George Michael song go to himself as well as Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Is it that simple? Do I just give the original writers writing credits?

I think there might be licensing issues as well.

I think this is a question for your attorney. You'd probably have to contact the publishers of the music you want to "co-re-write" and get permission but I'm not totally sure about that.I'm no lawyer but I'd tread lightly here if you are intending to pitch this as an artist or to film-TV. A label, library or publisher would probably be pretty leery of it unless you had a signed agreement from the publisher ahead of time (again, just MO).Why not just write a new, better chorus?Good luck!!Mazz

You have to contact the song writes organization that the artist belongs to and notify them you will be using the music and you have to notify the artist directly. If you will be selling it on CD you have to pay on the estimated amount of CD's that you think you will be selling.

And don't forget that they get 50% of all the publishing rights.

Nov 12, 2008, 7:47am, weapon wrote:You have to contact the song writes organization that the artist belongs to and notify them you will be using the music and you have to notify the artist directly. If you will be selling it on CD you have to pay on the estimated amount of CD's that you think you will be selling.You'll need to contact the performing rights organization that the writer belongs to, not the artist, unless the artist is also the writer.

You cannot re-write any part of an existing song into your own without clearance from the publisher and sometimes from the artist themselves.Even if you give credit for the use of the existing composition, the publisher reserves the right to allow or disallow it. Let's use an exaggerated example.Say that a Death Metal artist that regularly uses profanity and violence in their lyrics wants to build into their hook a piece of music written by a Christian artist.It would be detremental to the career and moral standing of the Christian artist and publisher to allow that to happen.Of course you do have the right as a Death Metal artist to cover such Christian astist's song without altering the composition. But in that case it may be detremental to the Death Metal artist's reputation and moral? standing. HEE-HEEIn most cases the publisher will allow the use if they feel it does not place their writer in bad light and can generate some serious bucks.Hope this helps,Cisko