Violation of musical copyrights?

[AStepToequality]

I have a website and forum about equality, www.asteptoequality.com . On the music page there is music from other artists that sing about equality. I put their songs available for streaming only, not downloads. Is this violating their copyright laws? www.asteptoequality.com/music is the link to the music section. If it is a violation is there anything I can do without taking it off? (i.e. Copyright 2005 Artist Name) ? I need help!

 

[Drontal]

What is your location? As this may have an impact...

I am not directly employed in law so this is just my opinion from reading rather than advising;

I think that you are putting yourself in a risky position by publicly playing tracks without obtaining permission from the copyright owners...

If you are not actually distributing the tracks by allowing others to make copies then I think that you are unlikely (again, in my opinion) to be dragged to court but I still don't think that the owners of the tracks (artists and/or record companies) would approve without you getting permission from them first.

This is something that helped me come to the above conclusions;

Using the work of others
If you use samples of music by other authors in your work, ensure that you get permission to use the work before you attempt to publish or sell your work. Similarly, if you use loops or samples available via sample collections etc. ensure that these are licensed as free to use, or obtain permission first.
Source: http://copyrightservice.co.uk/protect/p07_music_copyright

Please note, however, that I am considering your website to be "your work" as mentioned in the paragraph above.

Again, your location may have an effect on the guidelines to use, though I don't assume there will be a large difference...?

Hope that helps!

 

[AStepToequality]

Okay, I would get permission. But what are the chances of these bands responding to a small website owner like myself? I will give it a try though.

 

[Drontal]

I think that your best bet is to locate the record companies that are currently distributing the songs.

The first step I would take is to locate current or latest CDs that contain the tracks that you are referring to and from those contact the distributors, etc., that are listed and go from there.

I agree with you that getting them to take a "small website owner" seriously may well be difficult. One aspect that may cause an instant refusal from them is the current climate of people downloading tracks from the net. Although you are not directly doing/encouraging this, I would suspect that the issue is something currently on their concerned minds.

All you can do is write to them in a polite and professional manner, emphasising that you are not allowing the tracks to be downloaded and state why having the tracks on your site is beneficial to them as well as yourself.

You can only try and as you are doing what is requested of you, they can only say no!!

I hope that this helps and I wish you well with it.

Please keep us updated.

N.B. Once again, please note that the above is based on my opinion only (I must work out how to get myself a fancy lil' signature like thelawprofessor, NYClex, et al. that has this stated!!)