Legal Question in Intellectual Property in New York

Re: Music rights for dance

If you want to remain perfectly within the law, the use of music for the purposes you describe would have to be properly licensed. And providing copies on a CD of your making would not be acceptable without permission.

Re: Music rights for dance

Under the Copyright Law, you can only use copyrighted music (music owned by another person or entity) under what is know as the "Fair Use" doctrine. Generally, that means for your personal use only. Your facts have 2 separate solutions. Technically, to use the music to teach the kids a dance routine for profit, you would have to get a "Public Performance" License. You can get a license from one of the 3 Public Performance Societies, ASCAP, BMI or SESAC, depending on which society was responsible for the music you wanted to play. Those Licenses are generally inexpensive for limited use licenses.

To place the music on a CD, you would have to get a license from the Master Rights Holder and the Publisher. For example, if you wanted to put the song "Killing Me Softly" by the Fugees on your CD, you would need a license from SONY, who put out the Fugees CD and has the Master Rights and you would need a license from Roberta Flack Publishing which administers the Copyright of that particular song.

An exception to this, is if the Song your are using is in the Public Domain and not owned by anyone, for instance, Beethoven's Fifth.

If you need any help, please do not hesitate to contact me