VH Led Zepplin Sue Nightclub Over Cover Songs

[GuitarGuru]

Just found this on the net and thought it was interesting.
Idiots...

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/02/24/200714.php

[alex10]

Van Halen? Sueing somone? never!

[GuitarGuru]

alex you just made me laugh really hard....
thanks.

[alex10]

I try

[kennydoe]

this'll crack you up too

gotta love irony.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjPAEPFaxoM

[Darin]

Originally Posted by kennydoe

this'll crack you up too

gotta love irony.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjPAEPFaxoM

HAHAHAHA

[Darin]

I'm also aware that you are supposed to obtain a license to play covers in your live set.

Is this true?

[Batchimp RG]

When I played in Italy about 14 years ago, we had to fill out official forms at the end of the club gig....P I A beurocracy!

[moebius]

That story is almost a year old. I wonder what happened with it.

[elcid]

Both bands reunited and got their money that way instead.

[David McCarroll]

Originally Posted by Chimp RG

When I played in Italy about 14 years ago, we had to fill out official forms at the end of the club gig....P I A beurocracy!

No, it's not - the original artist makes their living, good or bad, out of royalties based on the number of times their material is played, either on radio, or by a covers band - each country supposedly has a watchdog agency which theoretically keeps a tally of the number of tiimes a track is played (in Australia it's called APRA - Australian Perfoming Rights Association, or something very close to that).

Put yourself in the postion of one of the songwriters whose material you are covering - I am 100% sure you would want to receive any royalties owing from performance of your material, eh?

[projectjem]

i'd be chuffd that people would be covering my songs, as long as they weren't betta then i was, then i would be guted.

[jt93]

actually, all business that play music in the us pay ascap (or riaa) a yearly fee to do so. this covers bands playing covers as well as the radio / cd playing over the places sound system. one coffe shop i frequently play open mics at has gone to an 'all originals/ no covers' policy because of this.

[David McCarroll]

It's only fair - any professional musician/songwriter earns their living from royalties, basically, and if anyone on Jemsite is doing so, I'm absolutely sure they'd agree that the licencing fee and associated beauraucracy (sic) is simply the cost of performing someone else's music - get over it.

While there have been huge debates on this forum regarding Chibanez copies, and whether Ibanez should be doing something about them, isn't this really just another facet of the same debate - covering a song really amounts to a form of plagiarism, we all do it, but ultimately the intellectual property contained within the piece belongs to the original composer, and they deserve to be rewarded.

[rickcard71]

Ba$tard$! I guess you can never have enough. They started out doing covers in the beginning.