Music for Dance schools

[amikesel]

What is the name of your state? Pennsylvania

I am considering starting a small business and would like to understand the copy right laws that may come into play in this situation. What I would be doing is cutting/editing music down to a certain time so that dance schools could use it for their recitals and competitions. Would I have to get permission from ASCAP/BMI for each track I cut?

From what I understand (which could definitely be wrong) the schools pay ASCAP/BMI to use any music they want for their performances, but would that permission give me, a separate business, the permissions to do the following?

pull a track off a CD
cut it down to close to 2 minutes by fading it out or
cutting portions of the song out and seamlessly fading back in for the end.
Putting that track back onto a CD for them to use at the performance..

If there are fees for myself involved can you give me a rough estimate of about how much it might be?

It almost seems like I would just need the same rights that a DJ has…..


Thanks in advance

 

[zappy]

let me take a stab at this.

If you hired a DJ for your recitals, no problem, the dj can do anything with the music, its a live performance.

If you edited the music and used it for YOUR OWN recitals,even if its on the road, that usually is not a problem.

The problem is if you wanted to sell the cd's, then you would have to get permission. Usually a mechanical license from the Harry Fox Agency. in New York City