Royalties and Licensing

[keggss23]

Posted: 5/17/05 at 2:18pm

I am trying to put together a musical review for a local community theater, but I am so confused on how to get licensing for individual songs. I know about MTI, etc. but I can't seem to find anything about indivudual songs - not an entire show.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[OnTheAisle]

Posted: 5/17/05 at 2:22pm

ewwww - this is a sticky situation... I'm sure there are extremely knowledgeable people on the boards who can give you a comprehensive answer.. my experience with this occurred years ago (rules may have changed), but my recollection was that royalties needed to be paid through each licensing agency (Tams, MTI, Samuel French) based on the show - it used to be discouraged (the argument being that that is why there are "published" revues... maybe things have changed, but my only advice would be to be extremely careful with this...

[AvenueQPat]

Posted: 5/17/05 at 2:31pm

Hi There!

If you want to do selections with "no costumes,sets, or dialogue" you can secure a Blanket Liscence from Ascap, BMI, or SESAC depending on which numbers you want to use. The liscence can cover you for a single performance or for an entire year and you get full access to their repetoire.

If you want to do a Musical Revue with Costumes, Staging, and things like that you must negotiate for each song either individually with the company that owns rights to the shows (MTI, Tams-Witmark, etc.) or Directly with the copyright holders. If you go to ASCAP's website and do a search for a song you can normally get the Publisher information there who is normally the copyright holder or can get you in touch with them.

Hope this helps - any question email me.

ALSO - MTI does have concert selections, speak with a represenative about it when you call them.

[zbigner]

Posted: 5/17/05 at 2:33pm

You might want to contact ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC, the organizations that handle songwriter royalties. If you are performing individual songs rather than a whole show, you will most likely be licensed through them rather than a group like MTI. Of course, the copyright holder gets to decide how their work is used, so they could make you license through the groups that handle entire shows.

I have not dealt with them personally, but I have heard from others that the groups I named are easy to work with and provide good information on there web sites.

Hope this helps,

Zack

[keggss23]

Posted: 5/17/05 at 6:27pm

Thank you so much you guys!! I have been banging my head against the wall!!!!