Is it legal to arrange music I don&#39;t have rights to if it is never performed? I had the idea to transcribe and arrange the music from the musical Ride the Cyclone for a wind ensemble for my school. I got in contact with the company that owns the license (Broadway Licensing) to ask about being able to do this, and they said I would have to buy rights to the entire musical to do this. However, I know that you can cover songs with a mechanical license that pays royalties to the original owner, however I'm not intending to perform it for profit (or perform it in general, that's still up in the air). Am I within my rights to arrange it as a cover for non-profit? EDIT: I got in contact with one of the creators, and they said for this specific project (arranging a medley), it's fine so long as it's non-profit.
Am I within my rights to arrange it as a cover for non-profit? I'm not sure about that, but I do know that Broadway Licensing isn't the right source for your license. They told you you'd have to license the whole show, but they seem to have forgotten to tell you that if you do that you also have to peform the whole show. From their FAQ: Can I change or cut language in the script? In order to change or remove any language, you must receive prior permission from Broadway Licensing. If you cannot perform the musical without such changes, you should not hold auditions until such permissions have been granted. Please send an email to info@broadwaylicensing.com with the details of the changes you are interested in making. We will respond as quickly as possible. It sounds as though whoever you spoke with didn't really know what they were talking about. The folks over at Music Theatre International seem to have a much better handle on the situation. Their website describes the difference between the licensing model for a theatrical production and that for a single song: Grand Rights vs. Small Rights: The rights that MTI is able to grant under our contracts with the authors are limited to &quot;Grand Rights.&quot; Grand Rights cover the right to present the show, in its entirety, on stage. These rights do not include performance of a single song or medleys (&quot;Small Rights&quot;), videotaping, use of a logo or merchandising. In some instances, MTI has separately negotiated representation of additional rights, but those are administered on a show-by-show basis. &quot;Small Rights&quot; is a term used to cover performances of individual songs in a concert or cabaret-type setting. There are three major agencies that control these rights in the U.S.: SESAC (Society of European Stage Authors and Composers), ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Author and Publishers) and BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc.) Depending upon the songs that are being performed, licenses may be required from one, two or all three of these organizations for a single presentation. Most schools, churches, restaurants and clubs pay an annual fee to obtain a &quot;blanket license&quot; from these licensing agencies that covers the &quot;small rights&quot; use of all music in their respective catalogues for the year. Note that these blanket licenses DO NOT permit dramatic performances of songs. The songs can be performed only in cabaret style. While it is sometimes difficult to draw a distinction between dramatic and non-dramatic performances, a dramatic performance usually involves using a song to tell a story or as part of a story or plot. A blanket license permits neither the use of dialogue from the show nor sets, costumes and/or choreography that invoke the original show. In general, you need permission to make an arrangement and you need permission to perform it. Whether you're making money or not may affect the likelihood of being given permission, and it may affect the amount of the license fee, or it may not. Copyright does not exist to prevent you from making money with other people's compositions; it exists to ensure that the composers get to make money -- or decide for themselves not to -- when you perform their music. Your school may already have a blanket license with for example ASCAP that would cover a public performance of the song. At least now you should have a better idea of where to look for it.
As the question says the "Fugue in A Major" by Shostakovich is not in the public domain. The work was published in 1950, and so would not be PD under US law, and Shostakovich died in 1975, and so his works would not be PD in countries using a life+50, life+70, or longer term. Therefore, simply "making some changes" would be the creation of a derivative work and would be copyright infringement in and of itself, even if that work was not published or distributed. If a relatively short segment of the fuge was used, it might be considered a "fair use" under US copyright law, or perhaps a "fair dealing " in the laws of those countries that recognize this exception to copyright. But that is a very fact-intensive determination; it depends on the amount used, the manner and purpose for which it is used, and the harm, if any, to the market for the original work. One can never be absolutely sure that a use is a fair use until a court rules that it is. A two minute excerpt is fairly substantial, and might well not be held to be a fair use. Of course, you could seek permission from the Shostakovich estate (or whoever owns the copyright on the fugue). They might or might not grant it, and might or might not demand a fee. (As another answers mentions, there may be some question if the works of Shostakovich are protected by copyright under US law.)
Alice has been developing her own enhancements, and they're pretty similar to Bob's. Neither Alice nor Bob has copied the other's enhancements, so neither has violated the other's copyright in the enhancements. Whether that could be proved in court is another matter, of course, but since the original work is licensed under creative commons the question unlikely to arise in court. Would Alice be prevented from coming up with enhancements to her own game if other people could prove they thought of and released the idea first? No. Copyright does not protect ideas. It only protects a particular expression of those ideas from being copied. Theoretically, if two authors come up with identical 500-word descriptions of something and can establish that each did so independently, neither has a claim against the other. The practical problem there, of course, is that it would be impossible to prove such a thing. Could Alice outright claim Bob's "Adapted Material" because he developed it on her original work? Assuming that in publishing his adaptations Bob followed the terms of the creative commons license with respect to the original work, Alice's only claim would be that he copied her adaptations without following the terms of the license. If Bob can show that he did not do so, her claim would fail. In a comment, you wrote: Suppose Alice went ahead and intentionally, somehow provably ripped off Bob's "Adapted Material" because she liked the content so much, does Bob reserve any rights on his adaptation, or is Alice able to commercialize the work that Bob did in extending her original work? If we assume that Bob complied with the license of the original material, we know that he licensed his adaptations under "the identical terms," so Alice would be able to use Bob's adaptations under those terms for non-commercial purposes. Since the assumption here is that Alice provably copied something of Bob's, I think it is fairly clear that she would be liable for damages if she exploited that material commercially without paying royalties.
No Copyright protects expressions of ideas but not ideas. A song with the words if a poem set to music would generally require the permission of the owner of the copyrighted poem. An instrumental score “inspired by a poem” would not remotely be using the same expression, or a derivative of, the poem. Titles are not subject to copyright and there are many books with identical titles. Try “The Gathering Storm” as a book title.
Their code, their rules A copyright holder is free to offer their work under none, one or many licences. They can, at the same time, use their own work however they see fit without regard to the licences they have given/sold to others (except, they can only give one person an exclusive licence). As an analogy, let’s say I own a fleet of cars. I can drive my cars anytime I want. I can let Jim drive my cars anytime he wants for free. I can let Mary drive a specific car on Thursdays and only within 10km of the depot. I can let Joe drive my cars providing he pays me $50 a day. And I’m not going to let Fred drive them at all because Fred’s a jerk. Each of those is a different licence.
The name can not be copyrighted, but they don't own the rights to the songs and they are telling you they will perform them. They don't want to put it in writing that they are performing songs they legally can't.
No If YT#1 gets a license from artist A, that permits YT#1 to do whatever copying and reuse is stated in the license. It might be narrow or very broad. Usually such a license will only grant permission to the person who asked. Unless the license also grants permission to YT#2, or to some broader group which includes YT#2, YT#2 cannot claim any rights under such a license. Assuming that the license does not include him or her, YT#2 has the same rights as any member of the public would, but no more. In general, pitch raising a piece of music is a way of creating a derivative work. In the US, under 17 USC 106 one needs permission from the copyright owner to create a derivative work. Otherwise doing so is copyright infringement. The laws of other countries, and the Berne Copyright Convention have similar provisions on this point. Creating a derivative work requires permission in all countries that I know about. &quot;Piggybacking&quot; is not a thing in copyright law. A copyright owner can give permission (usually called a license) to any person or group of persons that the owner pleases. The permission does not extend to anyone else. This is true in all countries. I should be clear that YT#2 needs permission from both YT#1, and from A. The way the question is worded I have been assuming that YT#2 had permission from YT#1, but a comment from grovkin made it clear that I needed to be more explicit about this. It is possible for a license to permit a person to pass on the license to others. For example, all CC licenses and all copyleft and most open source licenses do this, and others could. But the license must explicitly grant such permission. The one way in which a person might create a derivative work without permission and without it being infringement is if an exception to copyright applies. In the US the main exception to copyright is fair use. See Is this copyright infringement? Is it fair use? What if I don&#39;t make any money off it? for more detail on fair use. Fair use decisions are made on a case by case basis, and generally depend on the detailed facts of the ase. But based on the limited info in the question, this would not qualify. It seems to use the whole piece of music, which tends to weigh against fair use. The new work does not seem to be transformative, that is, it seems to serve the same general purpose as the original. The new work might harm the economic value of the original, or might if many people did this. The original is creative, not factual. All of those weigh against fair use. Different countries have very different exceptions to copyright, and I do not know all of them. But the use described in the question does not seem to fit any that I know of. In any case, an exception to copyright applies to anyone, and does not depend on another person's license. It is thus never a form of &quot;piggybacking&quot;. By the way, the question describes pitch raising ads &quot;illegal&quot;. Making an unauthorized derivative work gives the copyright owner grounds to sue. If the owner does sue, and wins, s/he might be awarded money damages, and the court might issue an injunction ordering the infringer not to infringe again. But it would not normally be treated as a crime, and law enforcement would not be involved. In the US, only bulk copyright infringement, carried out as a business, is usually prosecuted (for example a factory churning out unauthorized music CDs).
20th Century Fox have a trademark on "Simpsons." They have trademarks on "Bart Simpson", on "D'oh", on "Duff Beer". I would assume that they take their trademarks seriously. What you can't do is to use someone else's trademark to make people believe your commercial product is related to theirs. It's quite reasonable to assume that someone seeing your book in a store would think it is written by the makers of The Simpsons show and therefore buy it. Even if you say that isn't your intention, it is what would happen. I'd try coming up with some different titles, maybe "How to write animated TV shows" with "Example: The Simpsons" (well, you are the writer so you should come up with something better), and take them to a lawyer. And then contact the makers of the show (again asking the lawyer for advice how to do this) because even if your lawyer says the title is fine, that doesn't mean you can't be sued.