Harry Fox v. Other Licensing Options

[Fluter]

hello all!

Our upcoming CD will have 2 standards on it, with the rest original melodies.

I'm told I do not have to go through the Harry Fox clearinghouse to get a license, that I can go through the Library of Congress much less expensively.

Does anybody know if this is true?

If so how do I do that?

Most humble grateful thanks in advance!

[Mark Kleinhaut]

The Library of Congress does not issue mechanical licenses, but it could be a helpful resouce (though there are easier ways) to find out who holds the publishing rights to a particular tune. You'd then have to negotiate a license with the publisher(s), but the thing is that mechanical licenses are done at statutory rates, so it's highly unlikely that you would save anything really.

You're talking two tunes, right? If the tunes are 5 minutes or less your going to pay abut $85 each for a 1,000 CD pressing. How much is your time worth to try and shave that down?

Harry Fox can licences can be obtained on-line in minutes at www.songfile.com

[Fluter]

Thank you so much.

Actually the number I'm getting from HFA is closer to $200 per song, but that's going over 5 minutes.

I could tell everybody just to take 1/2 a solo... :-)

Seriously, I really appreciate this. I'm going HFA.

Peace&music

[graypencil]

I thought Mark's $85 sounded a bit light per song, so I just checked my HFA license for "You and the Night in the Music" from my Convergence Zone CD

it came to $183 for :05:35 track for a 2000 unit pressing ...

[Jeff Albert]

I thought Mark's $85 sounded a bit light per song, so I just checked my HFA license for "You and the Night in the Music" from my Convergence Zone CD

it came to $183 for :05:35 track for a 2000 unit pressing ...

Right, that's about $.09 per tune times 2000. If the tune were only 5 minutes, and you only made 1000...$85.

[Fluter]

Thanks to all -- thought you might like a follow up.

Eventually Harry Fox (HFA) charged my credit card over $200 for a mechnanical license for a Duke Ellington tune, but the license never arrived. (Possibly it came as junk mail and was deleted by my junk mail filter.)

I called HFA, and emailed HFA, and called, and called, and emailed.... I was ignored. So I had American Express put in a dispute for the charge. I also sent another email to HFA which basically claimed that I was a bigger record company than I am, in hopes of maybe getting their attention.

In the meantime I followed the procedure set down in U.S. law. I wrote a letter to Famous Music Corp., holder of the Ellington publishing, using the specific language required by law, and sent it certified mail as also required by law. (An easy source for the details is cdbaby.com, but the LIbrary of Congress documents also tell you what to do, it's just less user-friendly.)

Ultimately I did get a call from someone at HFA. He explained that they are just overwhelmed by volume of requests. Weeks later I also received the license, finally. My credit card has not be charged, last I looked.

So, I'm kinda in limbo here, but it's OK. IF HFA charges my card, I'm OK. Otherwise I will need to send money each month (by the 20th) to Famous Music Corp. for each CD we distribute (free and sales). My plan is to automate this with my bank's free online service; I can tell the bank to send some nominal amount, perhaps $1, once a month, every month, by check, to ensure I am in compliance with the law. (Our CD pressing is 2000. Our distribution may be a handful of CDs per month. So $1 a month may be generous some months.)

Per CDbaby.com's advice, I also asserted the right to online sales through iTunes. So we will be offering this tune, and Conference of the Birds by Dave Holland, as an online sale. (By the way HFA does not handle Holland's music at all, near as I can tell.) The Jimi Hendrix estate asserts that download rights are not available, and since I don't want to tussle with those lawyers, that song will not be offered as a download. But I do believe they are wrong about that, based upon my research. (We are recording 3 songs not written by ourselves in the band.)

Hope this is interesting to you dealing with this!