MP3's on website: who shall I pay?

[hitman]

I'm building a website that will contain general texts and graphics, and page where users will be able to download around 10 full MP3 songs. The list of songs will change every week to offer a variety of downloads.
This list of MP3's is quite short, but the user will be able to get a wider variety of songs with this weekly update.

Before uploading them, I'd like to know if I should pay any society to be able to give away these songs to the public.

 

[cyberoptik]

What type of songs? Copyrighted songs of current artists? Or unsigned bands?

 

[hitman]

Copyrighted songs from various charts of current artists from different countries

 

[primacomputer]

There's no way to pay anything now, just pay pay your bail bondsmen after you get arrested

 

[dax]

There's no way to pay anything now, just pay pay your bail bondsmen after you get arrested

LOL! Good one. :D

 

[FanCube]

If you simply added 10 new Mp3´s to your website each week from well known bands would you probably have to pay per download and be forced to use a licensing system like the ones used at sites like iTunes. If you where offering free downloads would the costs be huge, besides that do I not think you even would be able to get a contract with any music label.

Think you would have much better luck by providing MP3´s from unassigned and upcoming bands wanting to promote their music.

 

[dsforsaken]

Would it b ok to have previews of signed bands songs like 10 seconds long?

 

[primacomputer]

It depends on what they were used for, but it's certainly possible that short clips could fall under fair use if used the right way.

 

[unknowngiver]

It is illigal offcourse to put COPYRIGHTED songs in ur website :p

 

[KPR]

Heres a few sites that might help for getting licenses to do this

http://www.ascap.com/index.html
http://www.ccli.com/

 

[dsforsaken]

sounds alittle to risky and complicated to me, lol

 

[jberryhill]

I'd like to know if I should pay any society to be able to give away these songs to the public.

In the US, you should check with the RIAA and ASCAP. RIAA licenses rights in sound recordings for a very large catalog, and ASCAP licenses the underlying performance rights to the musical compositions themselves.

But the answer would depend on which country you are in, which you didn't state.

It is illigal offcourse to put COPYRIGHTED songs in ur website

Uh, no... it is illegal to do it without permission of the copyright owner or its agent. This person is asking from whom he should obtain permission.

The point of licensing societies is to solve the problem of "there are a million recordings by thousands of artists, how do I track down and pay each one?" Organizations like the RIAA and ASCAP basically act as a clearinghouse to collect checks from licensees and pay checks to licensors, according to various formulas instead of working out a zillion individual licenses.

The likelihood of a license for allowing downloads, as opposed to streaming content, is probably slim.