Legal Question in Intellectual Property in Missouri

What does one need to legally copy any music on to their profitable website?


Asked on 11/28/10, 8:27 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

Nancy Delain Delain Law Office, PLLC

To legally copy music, you need a license from the copyright holder of each of the segments that are subject to copyright. Those are the sheet music, the lyrics, the performance, and the recording mix.

In many cases, the licensing agent for the copyright holder is one of the two big licensing agencies in the US: BMI (www.bmi.com) and ASCAP (www.ascap.com). Contact them to (a) see which of them holds the licensing rights and (b) obtain the rights to post the music to your website. If one of the licensing agencies does not hold the rights to license the music you wish to use, you should contact the Harry Fox Agency (www.harryfox.com); they handle a lot of music licensing. If Harry Fox can't help you, contact the composer(s) AND the lyricist(s) AND the performer(s) AND the recording engineer(s) to obtain full rights to post the music.

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Answered on 12/03/10, 9:02 pm


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