[Organizers] ASCAP and BMI

[Jeff Kaufman via Organizers]

On Wed, Jun 15, 2016 at 2:29 PM, Amy Carroll via Organizers
<organizers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
>
> Do not think that because it's a traditional dance form that the
> music is all public domain.  A huge amount of contradance
> repertoire is copyrighted material.  If you think otherwise, I
> suggest paging through any of the Portland Collection books
> (common contradance repertoire) and looking for the copyright
> symbol.

While most tunes played for contra dances are copyrighted, very few of
those are covered by ASCAP or BMI.  Those agencies can only give you a
license for the music they manage the rights for.

Nearly all contra dance music, however, is written by people who would
like their music to be played at dances and don't want to limit that,
so unless someone has asked that others not play their tunes I
wouldn't worry about infringement there.

(For making CDs, though, you definitely need to write to people, offer
to pay them, and her permission.)

>
> Thing is, if you want the artists who hold the copyright getting paid,
> you have to submit set lists to ascap and bmi.  That is the troublesome
> part, and you can ask the artists to give one to you if they want. It
> doesn't change what you owe ASCAP and BMI  it just means they
> have to redistribute the funds.
>

Even if you do this, no money will go to the large majority of contra
dance tune authors who don't participate in ASCAP/BMI.

Jeff