Songwriters, publishers and songwriter-artists hope that the clubs and would-be DJs featured in the Feb. 25 front-page article "Downloaded and Ready to Rock" are obtaining the requisite permissions for the clubs' use of copyrighted songs.
Downloading a song onto a handheld device for personal enjoyment poses one set of copyright issues. Is the peer-to-peer site SoulSeek obtaining permissions to distribute music? The stakes get higher when the downloads are combined into "new" songs and played in public.
Putting parts of a Nine Inch Nails song into a Bee Gees song is called sampling. Any established band that has sampled from another band's work can tell you about the permissions needed. Any radio station, television station or sports arena can tell you about the rights that must be obtained from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers, and BMI when playing or "performing" someone else's music for profit in a public place.
I hope amateur DJs, clubs and music fans are listening, on the off chance that they're not getting their sampling permissions and performing rights licenses or paying the fees to obtain the downloaded music in the first place.
MONICA CORTON
Vice President, Creative Affairs and Licensing
Next Decade Entertainment Inc.
New York
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