The Steel Guitar Forum

I am getting into uncharted waters here and would like to here from the members of the Forum their views on this.
Since starting the Rebel™ and Ricky site, I have had no problems with anybody re copyright laws. I have had a request to put all the clips on the site on CD and possibly sell them. I can put them on a Cd although it would be a laborious task as I would have to convert them all to MP3 to record them, and they could then be loaded into a program like Winamp and played like a jukebox. That is not the problem.
My question is, would it be ethically right to do this? I do not want to make money on this myself but thought if it is ok, and there is an interest, I would do a Cd for anybody wanting one for a $20.00 donation to the Forum.
I would like to hear your views (especially any of the players whose clips are on the site) in regards to this.

Thanks in advance.

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Rebel™
ICQ 614585

http://users.interlinks.net/rebel/steel/steel.html

I applaud your willingness to do this and to help the forum, and hope the legalities (if any) can be worked out.

Assuming this can and will be done, I'd like to see you include the tablature on the CD as well.

Graham,

Stop. The clips on your great website are all copyrighted, and you would be inviting serious legal problems for yourself if you repackaged them and sold them. To license the songs for release you would have to deal with BMI and ASCAP.

Case in point, look what they did to Napster.

Also, this is the reason why Scotty won't release videos of his shows. Too much hassle and expense to get releases for all of the tunes.

But, if Ricky and company sign off, you could sell the tabs.

Drew

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www.newslinkassociates.com
www.drewhoward.com

I don't think it's that cut 'n' dried, Drew.

None of the clips contain any lyrics and are only a small fraction of the song. I think it would be worth asking a copyright attorney. They shouldn't charge you TOO much just to answer that one question. Plus, there are 'for educational purposes' disclaimers that allow sites like Cowpie and others to make copyrighted lyrics or chord charts or tab available. Even with freeware computer software, companies can charge for media, duplication, and shipping even though the copyrighted material they're distributing is free. I think it's worth getting a pro opinion, but it's Graham's decision.

Oh yeah, Graham and Ricky -- Thanks a MILLION for making this historical steel guitar treasure available to us. GREAT IDEA . . . GREAT EXECUTION!

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<small>Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2000 Fessenden S-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S-12 6x6, 1971 Emmons D-10 9x9, 1971 Dobro

There may be another fine distinction in your favor. You would not be "selling" these per se. They would be offered as a "free premium" to folks who donate $20 or more to the Forum. Kinda like a public radio contribution that gets you another damn tote bag. But maybe the Forum would have to be a not-for-profit organization? Again, the lawyer would hafta explain that. But it might work!

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The "Master of Acceptable Tone"
www.jimcohen.com

First of all, thanks for the website.
I know you personally absorb the cost.
You're doing a really great service for the advancement of our instrument.

I'm surprized no one tried to shut you down yet. It makes no sense to shut it down, but sense is not a quality I expect from suits.

Since the site survived this long, I suspect you might have a chance with the CD.

I'd buy it.

BTW, I'm no legal expert.

PS A few of my tabs are posted there. You are welcome to use them. If it brings Forum donations, that's my bonus! <FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Joey Ace on 15 January 2002 at 05:14 PM.]</p></FONT>

Graham:
While you are not including words to the clips you feature, and thus should avoid infringement of the song itself, the sound recording may be copyrighted as well.

I have been reading about the fair use doctrine-"for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship or research..."

One problem is the language of the statue is illustrative rather than absolute.

While fair use may include the above things, it may get sticky when there is money exchanged, no matter who gets it. Frankly, I wouldn't think anyone would give a hoot about what you propose doing because it would be way under the $ radar screen in the music business. Still, there have been A..holes in that business.....

I agree with the others. Get some good advice so you can procede in the education of your online students.

This is a time that being in the steel guitar field is a good thing. Because there are so few of us involved and so little money in question it wouldn't be rational for the "suits" as Joey so appropriately put it to pursue it. However- while I'm way in favor of your idea Graham- realize I wouldn't be the target :~) Jim<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Jim Palenscar on 15 January 2002 at 09:02 PM.]</p></FONT>

Graham,

Personally I think it's great the way it is right now. Clips that I want to hear more often I copied to my hard disk, and the tabs I want to learn I printed, it's perfect. Also clips are added so a cd would never be up to date.
THANKS FOR YOUR GREAT SERVICE!

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Steelin' Greetings
Marco Schouten
Sho-Bud Pro III Custom

Thanks for all the feedback, guys. I would prefer to keep the staus quo viv-a-vis the website, and like Marco says, a Cd wouldn't have all the additions I have yet to add to the site. This all came about as the result of a player having the clips and his hard-drive crashed causing him to lose everything. Same could happen to all of us, I suppose. I think what I will do, is if anyone suffers that fate, get in touch and I will send the files to them in a series of zip files, thus saving them the laborious task of re-downloading them. That also saves me a lot of work in not having to transpose them all to mp3, and should, I hope, continue to have the copyright police leave me alone.
Once again, I thank you all, but think I will leave things as they are for the time being.

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Rebel™
ICQ 614585

http://users.interlinks.net/rebel/steel/steel.html

Most all instructional material I have seen has sometimes full length versions of tunes and always parts of tunes. I think everyone realizes no one is RE-selling for profit. The only time I ever used NAPSTER was for the purposing of learning the chord progression to a TOP 40 tune. I agree with Larry though, I certainly would want legal advice. Just my $.02.