Hey guys, I have been looking into starting a music entertainment site and was wondering about a few legal conditions. To start off I was wanting to know if uploading artist's music and having it stream from the site is legal. Sites like pandora, myspace and plenty of others offer streaming music from a variety of artists, but at the same time you still have people getting fined and/or going to jail for pirating music. Another question I have is about music video streaming. Youtube allows it, so I can't imagine that being a problem. (but you never know) Any help on this issue is greatly appreciated.
You have to have permission to stream anything you don't own the copyright to (owning the CD is not owning the rights). It is not legal for you to just start to stream music or music videos - you will need to enter a contract with the rights holder and pay for the right to do so.
Thank you for the quick response. I guess for now the site will have to do without streaming music until I have enough money to go through all of the correct channels to properly do anything. What about the legal issues of posting music videos on tube sites in order to increase traffic to my site? Will the same have to be done, or can I safely post the videos without any legal drawbacks?
You don't want to be the one posting the video to YouTube unless you have the rights. You can use videos others have posted, but not to edit or add your own info and re-upload. Every bar in America is supposed to pay for the right to play music out loud, or played on stage. This is not something that just web sites deal with. Everybody who uses music needs to get rights. When someone makes a little video and adds music from their personal library, that would be infringement unless they get rights. Here is a little example: If I wanted to make a little home movie and add some music. If I was just going to watch it myself and maybe give a copy to my family, I would not bother getting any rights, I would just use whatever I wanted. However, if I was going to post part of it to YouTube, or submit it to any site where the public at large could view it, even if I made no money, I would not do that without securing rights first. Personal and private use is not going to get you in trouble (except in the rarest of circumstances), but unauthorized public use of music you don't own can very easily lead to problems.
Sites like the ones you just named either have limited permissions because they are a major affiliate or reseller and have a custom agreement, or pay a blanket royalty fee to the appropriate agencies like ASCAP/BMI. If you do it, without those agreements or licensing fees in place, you will have legal problems.
Alright guys, I guess that answers most of my questions, thanks for your help. However curiosity is getting the best of me so im wondering if anyone can give me a price range for about how much these fees to the different companies will cost me.
There is no way to answer that, there are too many variables. They could be in the hundreds per month, or thousands..depending on traffic to the site and how large of a catalog you want to make available. Most people try and get a blanket coverage deal, instead of paying per play.