March 29, 2006, 11:03 p.m. (Message 44899, in reply to message 44898)
Iain, MCPS stands for Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (see www.mcps.co.uk). It is the mechanism for paying royalties to the composers of any tunes still in copyright that are recorded on the CD and is charged based on the number of CDs produced, how long the tune lasts on the recording etc... and whether the composer is a member of the MCPS. MCPS is also closely link to the PRS (Performing Right Society - www.prs.co.uk) who you have to pay a license to if you want to play any music, live or recorded, in public or broadcast any music. Having gone through the MCPS process myself last year, I can tell you that the process of applying only takes a couple of weeks from when you send the form off but good luck filling the forms in in the first place :-) Rgds, Phill Jones
March 30, 2006, 4:56 a.m. (Message 44903, in reply to message 44899)
Thank you Phill. However, is any money actually given to copywrite holders who are not known to these two organisations - in other words, what effort do they go to to pay copyright holders of country dance music and music composed outside the UK? Regards, Iain Boyd Phill Jones <xxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxx.xx.xx> wrote: Iain, MCPS stands for Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (see www.mcps.co.uk). It is the mechanism for paying royalties to the composers of any tunes still in copyright that are recorded on the CD and is charged based on the number of CDs produced, how long the tune lasts on the recording etc... and whether the composer is a member of the MCPS. Send instant messages to your online friends http://au.messenger.yahoo.com
March 30, 2006, 9:26 a.m. (Message 44910, in reply to message 44903)
Iain Boyd wrote: > However, is any money actually given to copywrite holders who are not > known to these two organisations - in other words, what effort do they go > to to pay copyright holders of country dance music and music composed > outside the UK? If the MCPS/PRS is anything like the German equivalent, they don't worry their little heads too much. There are two main sources of income to such an organisation. The one is, e.g., radio, where the broadcasters generally keep track (by computer, these days) of what music was played and royalties can be assigned to the respective composers/lyricists/musicians/publishers on a fairly exact basis. The other involves generic fees that one pays when one holds a public dance, disco or plays background music in a restaurant or shopping mall. The copyright institutions are not about to waste endless man-hours sharing out pennies according to which top-10 hits were piped to the punters in Bob's Bar & Grill, East Podunk, South Dakota (especially because Bob has better things to do with his time than to write them a list, such as frying burgers), so there is generally a flat fee in cases like this. The fee ends up in a big pot, together with additional contributions from, say, the sale of blank cassette tapes and tape recorders, which at least hereabouts carry a levy to cover the uncontrollable sort of copying where people tape music off the air. At the end of the year the money in the pot is divided among the »members« of the copyright institution, such as composers and musicians, according to a complicated scheme that the organisation does not deign to publish in detail, but which generally operates on the Biblical principle of »he who has, shall be given«. The assumption is that if you have contributed a lot to the repertoire of the organisation, and if your stuff is played a lot where the organisation can actually find out about it (on the radio), you deserve a big share of the pot; if your input is rather more insignificant and you are not played on the radio, you get comparatively little. Obviously this means that most of the pot goes to the bigwigs of the trade, and that this arrangement is geared towards keeping the likes of Madonna and Robbie Williams from starvation. If you are a composer of country dance music, your creations are unlikely to end up on Top of the Pops, and since reels, jigs, and strathspeys are, as a rule, fairly short pieces of music you will have to come up with rather a lot with them to be able to compete with the composers of symphonies of more significant length (there is a bias in the distribution scheme that pushes a larger proportion of money towards the composers of classical music, since living specimens apparently deserve a little extra consideration). This means that, at least here in Germany, you would probably have to be Muriel Johnstone to actually recoup the annual GEMA membership fee. For the likes of myself, with two dozen little tunes to my credit and no chance of them ever being played on radio or recorded by a top-selling artist such as, say, Rod Stewart, GEMA membership is generally a non-starter, so we don't bother, hence we don't see any of the money when the pot is distributed at the end of the year. The situation is a bit different with recording artists, who even in the SCD scene are usually members of the MCPS. This is on the one hand due to the fact that the CD manufacturing outfits etc. will gently but firmly nudge you in that direction (they also get a share of the pot at the end of the year), and on the other hand because you will presumably be entitled to some money directly if your stuff gets played on Take the Floor and the BBC does know that it did. The other thing is that the MCPS/PRS (or local equivalent) can only license the use of the music that they are actually officially in charge of. They like to pretend that they do »own« every single interesting tune in the world, but this is not really the case. You can get out of paying GEMA fees for a function where you only play strictly your own arrangements of traditional music (where »traditional« means the composer has been pushing up the daisies for more than 70 years) and/or your own compositions (if you're not yourself a member), but as the presumption is that they own everything of consequence you have to prove to them that you played not even a single one they control (and don't let them catch you play »Happy Birthday«, which is a mainstay of the MCPS/PRS repertoire). So you send in a list of tunes, and they will usually try to claim a bunch of them even so, on the off-chance. I've had interesting run-ins with GEMA where they would make believe they owned the copyright on various tunes written by Niel Gow, William Marshall or J. Scott Skinner, all of whom easily fulfil the 70-years-dead requirement; normally you query these and you never hear back from them. And speaking of background music in shopping malls, etc., there are people who specialise in composing »elevator music« who make a point of *not* being MCPS members so it is cheaper for the shopping mall operators to play their stuff because they do not have to pay for a MCPS license -- they pay the composers directly and save the overhead. Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau, Frankfurt, Germany ..................... xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx The viability of standards is inversely proportional to the number of people on the committee. -- James Warner
March 30, 2006, 5:33 p.m. (Message 44923, in reply to message 44910)
This is all very interesting. But I had heard that Happy Birthday, the tune, is no longer protected by copyright, though the words still are. Is that incorrect? Perhaps true in the US? Beth Kingsley Washington, DC
March 30, 2006, 9:49 a.m. (Message 44913, in reply to message 44903)
Iain, It is up to individual composers/artists to register with MCPS and provide lists of all their work. Other countries have there own organisations (eg Compass in Singapore) and registering with one should ensure that you receive royalties worldwide as they liaise with each other. There are all sorts of pitfalls from the producers point of view, firstly you have to make sure that the tunes you want to record are allowed to be recorded (strangely some composers will not give permission, if you then do record and sell the music, you are in breach of copyright). You then have to list the tune name, composer, publisher, arranger and time each tune (so an 8 x 32 piece would be likely to have 4 tunes). It normally takes 2-3 weeks for the licence to come through, and only when you have the licence will (reputable) companies produce the CDs, and only the number for which you have paid (it is licenced per CD). The CD Replicators have to fit you in their schedule which can also take a couple of weeks, so when you add on the time post production time (the time it takes after the recording to produce the master CD) it can easily take a couple of months. Happy Dancing Sue Petyt www.suepetyt.me.uk Skype Sue Petyt
March 30, 2006, 7:04 p.m. (Message 44924, in reply to message 44898)
I have just almost finished a CD from our Strathspey group's concert last November and I can add something to the copyright nightmare. We looked at all the tunes that were less than 70 years old. About 10. I contacted the composers, that was an interesting feat. Several said fine, one said yes but please pay me, 2 said fine but according to proper licensing procedures. We then contacted Harry Fox Agency who takes care of the American rights and they have a huge database where you can find tunes registered with them. There is a formula for how many CD copies you make, how many minutes long the set is. For me it worked out to be about $90-$110 per tune. For the UK composers we had to contact MCPS who were not interested in dealing with Americans. However in one instance we contacted the composer who called MCPS and asked them to register the tune with Harry Fox so payment could be made. MCPS obliged and we will be paying Harry Fox. I do plan to contact a few composers after all this is finished and see if they actually received money. It has taken a few months and I did not do the leg work, someone else who's business is internet research took over that part and they put in a lot of hours. Hopefully when we make another CD the process will be easier. In the process of checking out tunes I have turned up quite a number of supposed traditional tunes that have a live composer. The most notable one being Tam Lin composed by Davey Arthur from Donegal. Sylvia Miskoe Concord, NH USA
March 31, 2006, 8:40 a.m. (Message 44935, in reply to message 44924)
On 30/03/2006 19:04, xxxxxxx@xxx.xxx wrote: > he most notable one being Tam Lin composed by Davey > Arthur from Donegal. I have the composer of that tune down as "F. Furey". Can't remember where I got that from. Alan
March 31, 2006, 8:53 a.m. (Message 44936, in reply to message 44935)
Alan Paterson wrote: > I have the composer of that tune down as "F. Furey". Can't remember > where I got that from. I seem to remember they used to be on stage together. It's probably easy to mix up. Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau, Frankfurt, Germany ..................... xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx Maybe my definition of "Open" is different than OSF's. -- Tom LaStrange
March 31, 2006, 10:47 a.m. (Message 44937, in reply to message 44935)
According to my copy of Free Spirit by Sound Company Tam Lin is the last in a group of Irish Reels and it is given as Arthur/Furey:Finbar Furey Polygram Music Publishing Ltd which , I think is where the confusion comes from. Margaret