Q: A member of my band wrote some songs copywrote them before joining the band. we played them as a band recorded them
as a band both audio and video and put them in the public domain. the songwriter has now left the band and says we cant use them do we still have a right to use them as long as we give him the credit as song writer. we are not making any money off of them.
A:
You can use the songs by obtaining a compulsory license. Once phonorecords of a musical work have been publicly distributed in the United States with the copyright owner’s consent, anyone else may, under certain circumstances and subject to limited conditions, obtain a “compulsory license” to make and distribute phonorecords of the work without express permission from the copyright owner.
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