Get this, The ROLLING STONES are trying to sue Trump (at least threatening to at this point) to stop him from using their 51 year old song, "You Can't Always Get What You Want" song at his rallies! Sorry, Mick, but if I'm not mistaken, that song is in the public domain now, and it is tough cookies for you.
I hope Trump starts playing it MORE. Trump has more money that Mick and I hope he runs the Stones into the ground with legal costs.
But no matter, he might be better served to play songs by Ted Nugent, I'm sure Ted won't mind one bit and Nugent's music is better anyway.
The Rolling Stones are threatening President Donald Trump with legal action for using their songs at his rallies despite cease-and-desist directives.
www.usatoday.com
Yes it's now Public Domain because of the 50 year rule BUT this would NOT be down to that song being Copyrighted it would be down to Licensing Rights which are held by the song writers ie. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. If a song is Copyrighted then it is unlawful to perform or play that song without the permission of the Copyright holder, this was already a situation in 2016 see below, and so this new situation in 2020 HAS to be about Licensing Rights and Licensing Rights do NOT FALL under Public Domain again see below.
The song IS Copyrighted, Trump used the SAME song during 2016 but his campaign got permission from ASCAP to use it. Now Mick Jagger who co-wrote the song with Keith Richards is going to the BMI, which this will be all about Licensing Rights as the SONG WRITER or CO-SONG WRITER, the song is NOT Copyrighted to Jagger/Richards BUT the song writing LICENSING RIGHTS will be with the song writer and/or song writers which are Jagger/Richards. Song writer and/or song writers CAN REFUSE the Licensing of their song to whoever they want to and this is different from Copyrighted songs which are usually Copyrighted to the record label, in the case of The Rolling Stones that would be Decca Records and in America it would be London Records who for any pre-1979 London recordings the Copyright would be held by UMG.
I don't know the legal details but I think there is a difference between just singing a song in the public domain vs using a recording of that song that was copyrighted.
Actually there is no difference, if you sing a song that has been legitimately officially recorded the BMI CAN come for you and demand that a License fee is paid. It is though more difficult for the BMI to prove unless someone in the venue or bar or whatever tells the BMI that so and so was singing this song etc
I have several friends who own Independent Record Shops and of course the nature of this is that when someone goes in they might want to play a record to see how it sounds or whatever. The BMI know this and so my friends each year have to pay an upfront fee to the BMI to cover whatever costs and they also have to keep a written record of what songs they play in their stores.
The whole situation with the BMI covers literally EVERYTHING including the radio, eg. you have a store or a bar or ANYTHING public that members of the public go into, if you have a radio on that's playing music you could be even liable to pay them a set fee each year for playing the radio.
I don't know the process of how the BMI collect all the Royalty moneys on behalf of EVERY song writer they represent but they do and for eg. the BMI represent tens of THOUSANDS of song writers.
I could get into the whole Mechanical Copyright (which you would need if you were going to record a song that has already been recorded ie. Cover Version) and Performance Copyright (this is you have to get Performance Rights from the Copyright holder of whatever song and that would be permission from the actual Record Label because they own the MAJORITY of song Copyrights) as well but then it gets too complicated if we go there. So I'll just leave it at my above comments.
