This represents the biggest problem facing professional musicians. If a church or any entity wishes to earn a profit from the sale of recorded music, it's unethical to assume they have no responsibility to pay those who created this product. A buyout for these services is a possible solution...but getting paid a couple of hundred dollars to play the gig does not constitute a buyout deal. Any musician who agrees to such an arrangement is at best misguided and at worst giving away the farm.
The other issue is the actual copyright and licensing required. It's rather inexpensive to pay the royalties in advance and a big problem if you get caught not paying before distribution.
The USA is on a short list of industrialized countries that does not pay performance royalties to musicians for the broadcast of their recordings on terrestrial radio stations. This is a multi-billion dollar business that does not pay a penny to the musicians whose music they use to create their demographic user base for advertising. After years of lobbying, we are close to passing this legislation...hopefully the new Congress will not shoot this down.
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Originally Posted by balderdash111
A friend posed a question to me that I thought you might be able to help out with.
He works in a church, and they have semi-regular classical music concerts. They do not have a full time orchestra, obviously, so they hire musicians for one-night shows as needed. The musicians get paid a couple hundred bucks to play and that's it.
So, if the church were to record these performances and sell them to the congregation to raise money, is the expectation that these musicians get paid a cut of sales?
I know that legally the church should ask them to sign a waiver of future royalties, but as a practical matter, what is the expectation?
Thoughts?
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