RESEARCH: PERMISSION

PERMISSION 

Obtaining permission to use music is usually a little more complicated than people think and it takes several times and attempts before the record label either tell you no, or give you guidelines on how to use the song appropriately without breaking any recording rights. Because there are two different rights in any piece of recorded music this makes it extremely complicated to get permission and these are: 'the rights to the song itself, which is what can be written on sheet music, and the rights to the particular recording.' 

The Songwriter of the song usually has the rights to the song as they have composed it, but they hand most of the responsibility over to the producer as they probably get many inquiries a day asking for permission. A particular recording of the song (what's on the CD) is generally owned by the record company that released the CD. If you want to use a recording of a song, you have to get permission from both the music publisher (to use the song itself) and the record company (to use the recording). 

Sometimes, people choose to make their own recording of a song. If this is what you want to do, then the only permission you would need to obtain is permission to use the song, which you would obtain from the music publisher(s). Many songs can be owned by more than one producer, so whilst one may give you permission, another may not, so it is important to delve deep into who produced the song before inquiring about using it. 

Below is the email confirmation of our group asking for permission to use the song Californication for a non profit A Level project.