Legal Question in Entertainment Law in Illinois

Re: Music

Collect royalties from whom? And for what? Are you the songwriter or the performer? Who holds the copyright? Who uploaded the video?

In the U.S., music royalties are generally collected by BMI and ASCAP and distributed to the artists and songwriters. YouTube has entered into a number of deals with music publishers to allow performance of music in their libraries. Is your publisher one of those?

If you uploaded a video, you need to check out the terms and conditions that you agreed to when you became a member of YouTube.

In short, this is not a question that can be answered without a whole lot of information.

David Staub, Illinois Business Attorney