phunkspace wrote:
As long as you aren't doing widespread distro, you don't have to worry too much about being prosecuted for recording other people's songs.
If bychance you do get "caught," all that's going to happen is that you will get a letter in the mail from a lawyer representing the party that owns the rights to the song, ordering you to stop selling/producing any recordings with the copyrighted material on it. I would not sweat it at this level.
Yeah, last time I talked to Bucket down in Ithaca, he was laughing at how Too Short Notice had asked for permission to perform a Toasters song. He was saying how unlikely it was they'd actually make any money off it and even if they did, how difficult it'd be to actually shake them down for it.
I never got to see that letter The Verbs got, but band names have practical problems. Catch 22 for years had to add "NJ" to their stuff because of that and I recall Steven Parker's old band having to decline a show offer in Albany, because kids there were angry they were using the same name as a popular local hardcore band. Not to mention the liklihood that kids would have showed up for a local hardcore band and seen a poppy Syracuse ska band instead. Oh, that would have gone over well.
