On May 12, 2005, at 7:52 PM, John Howell wrote:
At 1:34 PM -0500 5/11/05, Jim Williamson wrote:The standard policy, in the past, was that you could write 1 and 1 only
custom chart for 1 band without getting pemission. If you sold a second copy
to someone, that would be considered unauthorised publishing.
Jim, I'm always willing to learn something new, but that sounds like pure, unadulterated urban legend, like so many opinions regarding copyright law. The "standard policy"? Whose? Under which provision of the copyright law? And how far in the past? For the past quarter century it certainly hasn't been the case. And the provision of the law that's involved is not the right to publish, but the right to prepare a derivative work. And that right is reserved to the copyright owner without any provision for making one derivative work for one band. (Except, of course, for making an arrangement for recording, but that very narrow permission does NOT extend to live performance.) As you point out later in your post, it certainly doesn't apply to John Williams, and I wouldn't advise going up against Irving Berlin Music, either.
As far as I could tell, Jim wasn't talking about law, but about publisher's willingness to allow someone else to arrange one of their works. And his experience seemed to agree with mine, too. Things have changed in attitudes among publishers in the last 20 years or so. When I first started doing this, I dutifully called up publishers asking for permission to arrange, and when they found out that I was writing one arrangement for one band, they politely told me to go ahead and stop bothering them, but don't sell any copies of it. The only outright refusal I got was from the Gershwins.
Nowadays the response ranges from the reasonable (Quincy Jones' guy said go ahead for free for any tune in their library, but send a note saying what I am doing, Warner Bros. wanted about $100 and told me not to sell the arrangement) to the outrageous (the publishers of April In Paris wanted $1000 for ONE tune (!) and Valando, handling Sondheim's music, wanted 10% of the concert gross for permission to write ONE arrangement! And then he wanted me to send HIM the arrangement so that HE could sell it!)
Christopher
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