Sorry to dig this old thread up, but it caught my eye...
Quote:
Originally Posted by bugbrain_04  Can anyone help me here? (snip) I can't find the publisher of the composition, ...
~Josh~ |
From one who has done exactly what you want to do. ME.
The publisher is the key.
A publisher (as far as I understand how this all works) cannot deny you a license (and a license is what you're requesting) for a published work.
Once a work has been published (and there's nothing to say, one way or the other, whether that tune has been formally published)
it's available for anyone to use, rework, extend... in other words, "cover" etc
Copyright is another matter entirely. By obtaining the Pub license you're clear. And forget that complete BS from Nintendo because... well, it's BS!
Now... is it possible a tune is copyrighted, and released and unpublished? Never heard of that happening before... but you never know... it certainly sounds like a legal "in-limbo" kind of mess.
Related Story: We wanted to cover George Harrison's "Something"... man, what a minefield. We got no joy from the contact info available at bmi.com. We tried and tried to get responses from various possible handlers of the estate. In the end, we ended up talking to (and I mean no offence by saying this) someone over email who "sounded" like a 14 year old kid. As far as we could determine, HE was the person to speak to but he had no clue what he was doing.
Anyway, cut a long story short, we didn't pay anyone, despite our best efforts. We kept all the correspondence (if you can call it that) and went ahead regardless.
Why? Because it's a published work and it cannot be denied a license (despite us not being able to obtain one in a physical sense).
Hope this gives you some pointers...
Ruzz