Getting permission from artists for parodies

[thatcrazycajun]

To all the other filk artists in my readership  (yeah, I know, I've got a pretty big titanium pair flattering myself to be a colleague of such as filkertom, devospice, wormquartet, lukeski, mdlbear, lemmozine, et al.) who have done song parodies for commercial and/or public use that are not based on the output of that prolific pair, Trad. and Anon., I have what may seem a pretty n00b question: How do you go about getting permission from the authors of the original music?

I am contemplating submitting tracks for the FuMP SideShow, now that I actually find myself in possession of a few recorded tracks that, at least in theory, could be submitted. (Again, stipulated that I don't live in Theory, I live in Atlanta.) I am also contemplating making more recordings on my own, once I can figure out what the hell I need in the way of microphones and other software/hardware. Since both require that I certify having gotten permission from any other copyright holders, I am trying to figure out how to accomplish this. Is it simply a matter of tracking down the actual owner of rights in a database online, such as those run by the U.S. Copyright Office, ASCAP and BMI and then getting a letter to them through the Post Awful? Or e-mail, if the authors are so equipped and their e-dress available? And what about royalties?

Never had to worry about this practical stuff before, but then I never had an outlet for getting recordings out there that didn't depend on the kindness (or eagerness for pay) of other people. And all those of you who have been involved with producing convention compilations who have been gracious enough to include my material (yes, osewalrus and starmalachite, I'm looking at you :-) ), what was involved in rights clearance on your end? If I'm finally going to get serious about getting my own (alleged) music out there, it's long past time I found out this stuff.

Comments

Parody or use of melody

[sdorn.livejournal.com]

There is a fairly important distinction between parody (satirizing the original song), the use of a melody (applying new words to someone else's tune, words that are largely unrelated to the meaning of the original lyrics), and a cover (performing someone else's song). In the first case, at least in the U.S., the Supreme Court's 2 Live Crew decision protects you, and my understanding is that you don't need permission to parody (at least in the United States).

If you intend to use someone else's tunes and words that are not satirizing or commenting on the original, you do need permission to record. If it's a fellow filker, just contact her or him by e-mail. You can often do the same with folk musicians, but for rock stars, you'll have to contact Suits unless you have an entree to the composer. Then you negotiate, beg, promise cookies, or whatever.

If you're covering someone else's work, you don't need permission unless you want to do it without paying the standard mechanical-license fee of BMI and ASCAP (whose details the various album producers would know far better than I).

And, please, folks, if you know I'm wrong in the U.S. context, please holler and correct me!

Re: Parody or use of melody

[sdorn.livejournal.com]

Color me "forgot to re-read the post": "mechanical licenses" have a funny (strange, not ha-ha) and contested meaning online. Quien sabe.

Re: Parody or use of melody

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

So would "I'm a Toad Again" count as a parody of the original, or not? (Just as an example...) After all, my lyrics don't have much to do with the topic of "On the Road Again," by my interpretation.

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

Well, what Sherman said is pretty close to my understanding, but I'd add a couple of things:

The 2 live crew business is ambiguous from both sides of the question. On the one hand, you may have a song that "comments" (and the supreme corpse definition of "comment" is about as clear as their definition of porn), but there is no way to end-around the possibility of being sued and running up legal expenses other than getting advance permission from the owner of the song. From the other side, I have not heard of a case that has tested how far the definition of "comment" might stretch. From my point of view, as a parodist, the test would be, would the song lose a part of its meaning outside the context of the original song? If so, it must be "commenting" in some way on the original. That is my own opinion, not a legal definition. If it wouldn't hurt the song in any way to change the tune, just change the tune. That would kill about 95% of my songs. Oh well.

Most of the folks I know do their license agreements for covers through the Harry Fox agency. One mistake I've heard of parodists making is thinking these agreements include the right to produce a parody. The rights probably do include making minor singing changes and adjustments, such as changing a female point-of-view to male or vice-versa, or maybe even adding a verse, but a totally alternate set of lyrics is not included.

Another mistake I've heard of people making is contacting the author or performer directly. Very often, almost always in the case of commercial major-label material, the publication rights are owned by a music publishing company. These are the (expletive deleteds) to contact for legal permission. I think there's a way to find out online via the Harry Fox agency who ostensibly owns publication rights to a song. Last time I looked into this, I found most of the contact info in info for musicians on the CD Baby site. The chances of a music publisher allowing parody rights to someone like you or me are not very high.

The unspoken "under the radar" option also exists. Very often, artists who publish 1000 CDs at a time or less are not considered worth bothering with by the publishing companies. I could give examples of CDs both in and out of filk that contain parodies without notice of legal permission, but I wouldn't do such a thing here because they are all good people and I wouldn't want to stir up trouble. If your CDs will be sold at filk cons, and that's about it, you probably don't have much to worry about. On the other hand, if you think there might be a chance your CD could, say, get airplay by Dr. Demento, my thought is it would be best to stay legal.

[mdlbear]

I have, on occasion, re-used tunes recent enough to still be under copyright. I don't perform them anymore. (Most were done years ago and weren't very good anyway, or so I tell myself.) In any case, I don't feel comfortable performing them.

There are a couple of re-used tunes by Anon and Trad, some of which are good enough to perform and record; there are several on my recent album. You have to be careful about researching them -- some things that sound traditional, aren't.

I've done a couple of real parodies of recent filk songs; I'll worry about those if I ever decide to record them.

Go for it

[a-phoenix-afire.livejournal.com]

http://www-tech.mit.edu/V114/N12/briefs1.12w.html

If you only change a few words, or like George Harrison did, swipe the melody whole without the obligatory nod to the original, you are in fact plagiarizing, but nobody is going to win against "I'm a Toad Again".

When Mr. Yankovich sent up Coolio's number, Coolio was furious. W.A. had asked his permission as a courtesy, but somehow Coolio's refusal didn't make it back to the master parodist. If it had been possible for Coolio to sue, you bet your last dollar he would have.

Mock all you want, they'll bake more. Fair use still applies despite the best efforts of the music industry.

Check out this link and then go write some more like the one you did b4.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weird_Al_Yankovic#Reactions_from_original_artists

Re: Go for it

[darrenzieger.livejournal.com]

Hmm...In the case of the lawsuit against George Harrison over He's So Fine / My Sweet Lord, I've always that the plaintiffs' case was weak, if not completely bogus.

There's just nothing that distinctive about the sets of notes in question - the so-mi-re and so-la-do-la-do patterns are so common as to fall into the public domain (which was in fact the argument offered by Harrison's lawyer).

It certainly wasn't a case of Harrison "swiping" the melody; the similarity between the two songs is coincidental. (I'm not busting your chops here; I've just always been pissed off by this incident).

In the case of the Weird Al song, I think there was no legal issue, because while Coolio may not have personally approved of the parody, I'm pretty sure Yankovic is in the habit of making the proper arrangements with the publishers, which have the right to license the song to whomever they please, when he records a parody. Certainly, he credits the composers of the original material, and they receive their share of the royalties, fair-use principles notwithstanding.

Actually, Coolio has some brass balls being pissed at Weird Al over this, considering that "Gangasta's Paradise" borrows it's chorus from Stevie Wonder's "Pastime Paradise."

Regardless, I don't think there's any issue with "I'm a Toad Again." It may not be a parody of the content of the song, but legally speaking, "parody" covers this sort of deconstruction of a popular tune.

Re: Go for it

[a-phoenix-afire.livejournal.com]

I agree on all counts concerning George. I hear a much stronger resemblance between the two than you seem to (note coincidence absolutely... note AND meter coincidence not so much... note and meter coincidence in both verse and chorus stretching credibility), but I too have always believed it was unintentional and subconscious.

As to Mr. Yankovich, I'm sure he covers all bases too. But even if he were a jerk about it, there would be nothing the parodized could do but tie him up in court, and where there's money involved the lawyers will always favor this methodology no matter how squeaky clean you try to be. A court has to make the call after listening to the two pieces, but they've been pretty clear for a long time on the issue.

Just to point out the obvious, this has been going on in the large commercial public arena since Al Sherman's records in the fifties. Hello mudda, hello fadda... ;-)