Effective August 1, 2009, some fees charged by the Copyright Office will change. Fees requiring Congressional approval will go into effect August 1, 2009, if Congress does not take action to disapprove them. Other fees that are set by regulation to be issued by the Copyright Office will change on the same day. Among the fees affected are those having to do with registration and Licensing Division services For detailed information, including the complete new fee schedule, go to the Copyright Office website at www.copyright.gov.

WOODLAND HILLS – Music Reports Inc., the leading provider of music rights administration services in the United States, today announced that it has started accounting to more than 12,000 music publishing administrators representing over 50,000 individual music publishers, on behalf of its digital music service clients. This is the first accounting under the recent agreement on the mechanical licensing of interactive streams and conditional downloads, which was reached by NMPA, RIAA, and DiMA, before the Copyright Royalty Board.

Beginning this month, all U.S. music publishing administrators may log in to password-protected websites at www.musicreports.com to view accountings, download monthly usage reports, and update song ownership information.

Music Reports is unique in its ability to administer this compulsory license which is available to digital music services. The company has issued more than 5 million compulsory licenses to music publishers, in addition to negotiating thousands of voluntary licenses, on behalf of its clients. To manage the accounting and royalty settlement process, Music Reports will leverage the power of SongdexTM, its independent database of music publishing copyright information. The company uses SongdexTM to process over a billion digital transactions per month.

“Our compulsory licensing program has enabled digital music services to get to market quickly with the lowest possible transaction costs. With the launch of our new Web-enabled royalty accounting system, we are establishing a new level of transparency and efficiency in royalty accounting”, said Douglas J. Brainin, President and CEO of Music Reports, Inc.

About Music Reports

Music Reports, Inc. (MRI), located in Woodland Hills, CA, is the leading provider of music rights administration services in the United States. With cutting-edge technology, proprietary systems and applications, and SongdexTM, the world’s only independent database of music publishing copyright information, Music Reports is the most innovative and accomplished rights organization in the music industry.

Music Reports offers a full spectrum of licensing services including copyright research, license fee negotiations, sales data consolidation, music use reporting, royalty accounting and royalty settlement. Music Reports’ clients include the world’s largest television and radio broadcasters, digital music services, background music services, record labels, mobile carriers, and consumer products companies.

Music Reports is a portfolio company of ABRY partners, one of North America’s leading, media-focused private equity investment firms.

Multi-platinum MCA recording artist and award-winning songwriter Josh Turner takes the stage for the premiere of NSAI’s “IT ALL BEGINS WITH A SONG” Performance Series on Wednesday, July 22nd at the Wildhorse Saloon (120 Second Avenue).

“On behalf of all American songwriters NSAI is extremely grateful to Josh for helping launch what will be a permanent series supporting the work we do. NSAI was founded as an advocacy organization for songwriters. In recent years the organization’s work has increased the value of and the respect for songwriters’ copyrights and helped secure the growth of future royalties,” said NSAI President, Grammy-nominated songwriter Steve Bogard.

Named by People magazine as one of Country’s Hottest Stars, Grammy nominated Turner has celebrated back-to-back multi-week #1 radio singles and back-to-back platinum albums, Long Black Train and Your Man, now certified Double Platinum. His current project, Everything Is Fine, was certified Gold in just four weeks. “Another Try,” a duet with Trisha Yearwood, was recently nominated for the Academy of Country Music’s Vocal Event of the Year. Hit singles include “Would You Go With Me,” “Your Man,” “Firecracker,” “Me and God” and “Long Black Train.

Turner, one of the youngest members of the distinguished Grand Ole Opry, was recently the youngest member to be inducted into Nashville’s Walk of Fame. With his passion to support music and the arts, he launched The Josh Turner Fund for the Arts that will award its first scholarship recipient this year. For more on Josh Turner, visit www.joshturner.com.

“I was attending an event focused on intellectual property protection where Josh was passionately speaking about these issues. He was impressive and certainly understood the heart of NSAI’s mission. Josh continues his work by helping assist NSAI in launching this performance series,” said NSAI Executive Director Bart Herbison.

Tickets go on sale May 30, 2009 and are available for purchase at www.ticketmaster.com as well as the Wildhorse Retail Store or by calling 615.902.8211. General Admission tickets are $20, Reserved Seating tickets are $35, and there are a limited number of $75 tickets available that include a Meet & Greet with Josh Turner. Doors open at 6:00 p.m. The show begins at 7:30 p.m.

About NSAI: The Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) is the world’s largest not-for-profit songwriters’ trade organization. Established in 1967, the membership of more than 5,000 spans the United States and seven international countries. For over 40 years, NSAI has been dedicated to protecting the rights of and serving aspiring and professional songwriters in all genres of music. For more information, visit www.nashvillesongwriters.com.

About Wildhorse Saloon: The Wildhorse® Saloon turned a three-level historic warehouse into a 66,000 square foot live music and dance destination. The Wildhorse is simultaneously a restaurant, bar, concert site, dance venue and television studio. Annually, more than 1.5 million music fans stampede to the Wildhorse to have a great meal, catch the hottest concerts and learn the newest dance steps. Over a normal year the Wildhorse uses around 3000 gallons of BBQ sauce and about 2 million pickle slices in our famous fried pickle recipe. As for shirts, they have sold around 50,000 and we can’t leave out our bottles of beer, over 10 million bottles have been sold. We have been involved in over 4000 television shows and tapings. The Wildhorse is the largest per capita restaurant in all of Tennessee and also has the largest television screen in Music City. The Wildhorse® Saloon is owned by Gaylord Entertainment (NYSE: GET), a leading hospitality and entertainment company based in Nashville, Tenn. For more information, visit www.WildhorseSaloon.com.

Deadline of the 14th Annual USA Songwriting Competition is fast approaching. Winning songs of the Competition will receive airplay on a nationally syndicated radio program “Acoustic Café” as well as XM Satellite Radio. This is the first Songwriting Competition that gives airplay to the winning songs, giving deserving bands, songwriters the recognition and exposure they deserve. Entrants stand to win a grand prize of over US$50,000 in cash and music gear from sponsors such as Sony, D’Addario Strings, Ibanez Guitars, Audio-Technica, IK Multimedia, Cakewalk and more, making this the largest prize package for any annual songwriting competition.

Many USA Songwriting Competition winners in the past have received recording and publishing contracts, have their songs placed on the charts as well as having their songs placed on film and television. 2008 Overall Grand Prize Winner Jordan Zevon was signed to New West Records and appeared on TV program “Late Night With David Letterman”. 2007 Overall Grand Prize Winner Ari Gold had his winning song “Where The Music Takes You” hit #10 on the Billboard Dance Charts. 2005 First Prize winner (Pop) Kate Voegele was signed to Myspace/Interscope Records the year after she won and had her song at #68 on the Billboard Hot 100 Charts. Darrell Scott, winner of the country category of the 2005 USA Song writing Competition had his winning song cut by award winning country singer Faith Hill. Judges include A&R managers from record labels such as Warner, Capitol Records, Universal, BMG/SONY Music.

Sponsors include Sony, Audio-Technica, Ibanez Guitars, D’Addario Strings, New Music Weekly, Cakewalk, Sonicbids and Sam Ash Music Stores. Songs may be entered in 15 different categories including Pop, Rock/Alternative, R&B and Country. Entries are accepted from now through May 29, 2009.

For more information, visit: http://www.songwriting.net

BMI showcases in New York, Nashville, Los Angeles and other cities across the country and throughout Europe offer an exciting opportunity to monitor new musical trends and see what’s happening at the grass-roots level. Please contact your local BMI Writer/Publisher office for details about showcases in your area or visit the events section of our website. The upcoming showcase lineup includes:

Nashville
May 4, 11, 25 - 8 off 8th at the Mercy Lounge (1 Cannery Row)
May 12 - Grammy Block Party at Owen Bradley Park
May 18 - Road To Bonnaroo at the Mercy Lounge (1 Cannery Row)

Whether you call it sampling, borrowing or stealing, the only thing for certain about the fair-use “rule” is that it doesn’t exist.

No matter how creative songwriters and composers are, inevitably there comes a time when they want to use a small part of someone else’s song in their own work. Perhaps it is to pay tribute to another writer or work or because what they have created themselves just seems to cry out for a piece of the other song. Whether it’s called sampling, borrowing or stealing, can a writer legally use a few bars of music or some lyrics from another copyrighted song and incorporate them into his or her own, or does the taker need permission from the publisher of the borrowed work?

Using a portion of a copyrighted work without having to get permission first is called “fair use.” Probably more than anything else in the copyright law, fair use is the concept that creators have struggled with: What can I take? How much? When do I need to get permission? What will happen if I take more than I am allowed? Who decides what kind of use is fair?

The first thing that you should know about fair use is that the generally believed “rule” that you can take from 3 to 5 bars of a song without permission is just urban legend. There is nothing in the law that says that. Presumably that idea came from the fact that, with the average song being 3 minutes long, 3 or 5 bars is negligible and many negligible uses are fair ones. But it isn’t a legal rule and, depending upon the work from which the 5 bars were taken—and which 5 bars they were—it might not be fair. So don’t use that as a guide.

Fair use is really only a defense to a claim for copyright infringement. There is no body from whom you can get a ruling in advance as to whether a use is fair or not, and unless the copyright owner (publisher) is very accommodating, you and it will probably disagree. That leaves you having to make a decision on your own (perhaps with the advice of a lawyer) as to whether you’ve crossed the line into unfair usage; if you use part of the work and the copyright owner discovers it, decides the use was not fair and sues you, you will have to defend yourself by arguing to the court that you made fair use of the material. The judge or jury will decide if you did or not.

So what will the court look at when having to decide if a use is fair?

The law doesn’t actually say what is or isn’t fair use. Because the answer can vary so much, all that Congress could do was create guidelines and let judges apply them to the facts of every new case. So the Copyright Act recites a four-part test that judges can use to decide fair use lawsuits. Although that doesn’t help you much, it is good to know what those guidelines are.

The four “factors” of fair use are:

* The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or for non-profit educational purposes (Why are you taking another’s work, what are you doing with what you are taking and are you looking to make money from your end product that includes the taken work?)
* The nature of the copyrighted work (What kind of work are you taking from? Is it comprised of facts or is it a creative work? Is it published or unpublished?)
* The amount (quantity) and substantiality (quality) of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole (How much did you take and was it a core portion of the borrowed work?)
* The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work (Will your work reduce the ability of the copyright owner of the taken work to market it or to get the expected price for a license or sale of it that would have likely been obtained had your work not included the taken material?)

As you can see, many considerations go into a determination of fair use and it is not easy to figure out at the time you are taking something whether you can. Generally, uses for teaching, research, news reporting, comment and criticism are allowed fair use by the courts, assuming the amount used is minimal and insubstantial. Other kinds of uses may or may not be: Taking from fact-based works would likely be more tolerated than taking from fictional (created) works, and taking from someone’s unpublished work would probably never be fair use. Parodists are given somewhat more leeway to take from the parodied work if the resulting parody is “transformative,” but not everyone agrees what that means.

So what can you do?

The easiest way to protect yourself is to contact the publisher of the work you want to take from and get written permission to do so. Quote or transcribe exactly what you want to use and how you intend to incorporate it into your work and ask for a gratis license to use the material.

If you choose not to seek or are denied permission (or the publisher wants a fee that you are unwilling to pay), you can consult a copyright lawyer to get an opinion as to whether he or she thinks the use is fair, but that is just an educated analysis, not a guarantee of what a judge would say if it ever came to that. If you do decide to use a portion of a copyrighted work without permission, try to make it as small and inconsequential as possible. The more you take, or the more important what you take is to the whole work from which it’s taken, the less likely it is that your use will be seen to be fair.

How can you avoid getting tangled in the fair-use web at all? Drop the idea that you need to put someone else’s work into yours; you don’t. It probably will be just as good if you create something entirely original. Then if it becomes a hit, you won’t be singing the fair-use blues.

By Gary Roth