Question about selling lap steel arrangements

[David DeLoach]

Greetings!

I've been working up a LOT of arrangements for lap steel of published songs (e.g. Beatles, old standards, etc.).

As I'm out of work at the moment, I'm thinking about making videos of me playing these tunes and selling my arrangements on line from my web site.

Now I realize this won't be like the Oklahoma Land Rush with people stampeding to get my arrangements, but I'm wondering if I'll get busted by publishers for selling these arrangements.

I'm thinking I'd just sell each song arrangement individually. The audio would be available on YouTube, and I'd email the PDF of the arrangement after getting paid via PayPal or Venmo or check in the mail.

Here is an example of the quality of my arrangements (scroll down the page a bit to see the transcription)..

https://www.masterguitarists.com/wonder ... d-lapsteel

Any thoughts or experience with this?

Thanks!
David

[Mark Eaton]

No actual personal experience here, but your mention of The Beatles brought to mind an example of a publication where an arrangement of one of their songs was not allowed to be published in a tablature book.

Jerry Douglas and Tut Taylor won Grammys in I believe 1994 for producing The Great Dobro Sessions.

With the success of the album, Stacy Phillips with some help from Curtis Burch was commissioned to transcribe and produce tablature for each of the songs on the album to be published in a book by Mel Bay.

Gene Wooten played the lead on a great version of “Day Tripper.” But no transcription in the book. Phillips wrote the following in the Introduction: “We were unable to include Gene Wooten’s fine rendition of “Day Tripper” because of corporate greed.”

Without googling I recall there was a point in the 1980s where Michael Jackson had acquired the publishing rights to most of the music of The Beatles and then later merged with Sony Corporation.

Maybe in your case it won’t raise any corporate eyebrows to create arrangements of popular songs that aren’t part of the public domain, since what you are proposing is more along the lines of a “cottage industry,” as opposed to Mel Bay, a major publisher of music books.

But in moving forward it’s definitely something to check out.

[Erv Niehaus]

Some years ago Doug Rolfe of Indianapolis, Indiana was interested in putting out a CD of Bill Gaither's gospel songs. He wanted me to write the tab and Albert Svendahl to provide the tracks.
He checked with Bill Gaither and Bill asked him how many copies he was talking about and Doug said: "Maybe 500".
And Bill said: "If that's all you're talking about just go ahead".
He also was interested in doing the same with some Dottie Rambo gospel songs and she basically said the same thing.
However, after she passed away her heirs nixed the deal.
Erv

[Walter Webb]

Put up your arrangements, but instead of charging a fixed price, ask nicely for a "suggested donation" with a PayPal button, if you are that worried. I think you are so far below the corporate radar, the copyright police will never notice or care.

[Ian Rae]

Copyright law is quite clear. You can't sell an arrangement without the rights holder's permission. That's what copyright is.

Royalty fees range from nominal to exorbitant.

[Mike Harris]

The Beatles lawyers have prevented schoolkids from singing one of their songs in a play or some production. At least that was a news story a few years back. They are wickedly litigious. But I would expect a "cease and desist" letter before they get nasty.

[Travis Wilson]

It’s not like you’re going to banking tons of cash off this. Do it anyways and if you get complaints, stop. Probably no one will ever know.

[Walter Webb]

Hey David, I wish that eighth note after the triplet in bar 23 didn't share the top bar, but stood alone with a tail. Nice arrangement. I play it. Got me into Leavitt tuning.

[Jim Fogarty]

Good idea.

If you do it, I just suggest making the videos private (only people you give the url to can view), and just titling them “Lesson 1” or something similar.

[Roger Aycock]

David, years ago I wrote and published a banjo instruction book. I put mostly standards in the book, but I put "arranged by" with my name at the top of the page. I think you would be okay going ahead and doing that. You are copyrighting the arrangement, not the song.

[Mike Harris]

Roger, that will definitely work for tunes that are not copyrighted but it won't work for anything that's copyrighted. I think anything before 1927 is fair game.