[Trombone-l] Beatles Copyrights

[Charles DePaolo]

Hi James,

You'll first need to get permission to make your arrangements.  You don't 
want to tell them you've already made the arrangements and have been 
trooping around performing them.  During that process the copyright holder 
will inform you of the royalty amounts and payment schedule.  You would want 
to inform the copyright owner of your intention to publish at this time as 
well, for while they might allow you to make an arrangement, they may 
prohibit you from selling it.  This is not as arbitrary as it might first 
appear.  Some copyright holders have exclusive agreements with others (Hal 
Leonard, etc) for the publication of their works, and allowing you to 
publish may well violate that agreement.  Music Express ran into a headache 
like this years ago when they produced an arrangement for brass quintet of 
selections from the James Cameron movie Titanic.

For more on this topic you might check out the Music Publisher's 
Association's Copyright Resource page:

    http://mpa.org/copyright_resource_center/

As to ownership of Beatles tunes--I think most are actually still owned by 
Michael Jackson (oop, aack!).  You would have to contact whatever agency he 
has chosen to represent him in these matters.  This should as simple as 
noting the copyright holder's name on whatever source material you are using 
(sheet music, LP, etc).  If not, the MPA page cited above has some links for 
this kind of research. Good luck!

In Music,
---Charles De Paolo

Owner, Hickeys Music Center (www.hickeys.com)
Owner & Publisher, Ensemble Publications (www.enspub.com)



----- Original Message ----- 
  From: james meador
  To: trombone-l at samford.edu
  Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 10:55 AM
  Subject: Re: [Trombone-l] Trombone-l Digest, Vol 41, Issue 10



  Hey everyone,

  I've arranged some Beatles tunes for trombone quartet that seem to be well 
received, and I would like to consider getting them published.  Does anyone 
know to whom I need to pay royalties to do so?

  Thanks,
  James====================== James N. Meador, Bass Trombone Orquesta 
Sinfónica de Yucatán 011-52-999-221-5845 cell jamesmeador at hotmail.com


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