Can you make a cover of a song without permission?

Once the song is released, anyone can do a cover of it and sell it without asking permission.

theguardian.com - Behind the music: Can artists stop people from covering their songs?

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Last Sunday, David Guetta's When Love Takes Over debuted at No 7 in the charts. Further down, a cover of the song sat at No 22. The cover, which sounds so similar to the original that some people might have mistaken the two, is released by Airi L. I haven't been able to find out that much about this guy (or girl?) apart from that they are Finnish and record hi-energy tracks for workouts.

Though the Guetta track wasn't scheduled for release until later this year, EMI decided to rush it out last Thursday (11 June) after the cover version appeared on the iTunes chart. By the end of the week, Guetta's original had sold 25,000 copies and Airi L's 12,000. But why would 12,000 people download an inferior version of a track (as many people consider it to be)?

There are a couple of reasons. The track was already gaining momentum in clubs across Europe. If you hear a track you like while out clubbing, you're not going to know who the artist is, or even what the track is called, so when you search for it online, you'll probably go for the first version you find (especially if it's so similar). The other reason is that people will download whatever version is available. The internet has made us expect instant gratification. Dance tracks often appear on downloading sites before they're released on iTunes. To the Official Charts Company it doesn't matter what the release date is; if it's available for downloading, they'll track it. This is, of course, not the first time a song has been in the charts with two different artists. Back in the 50s and 60s there would sometimes be up to three artists competing in the charts with the same song. In Australia, there was "The Great Radio Ban of 1970", when big record companies demanded a fee from commercial radio in return for the use of their copyrighted material. Radio refused and all British and Australian records controlled by the majors were dropped from commercial airplay. The ban only lasted for six months, but resulted in independent labels releasing covers of all the big hits with local artists. Many Australians who were around at the time had no idea that In the Summertime was a Mungo Jerry song, they thought it was by the Mixtures. And they thought Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head was a John Farnham original. This leads us to the question: does an artist have any legal rights to prevent someone else releasing a cover of their original before it's even out? As a songwriter, I've always been under the impression that the composer (or their publisher) of a song has to grant the first mechanical licence to sell the song. Once the song is released, anyone can do a cover of it and sell it without asking permission. Since David Guetta is registered as one of the composers of When Love Takes Over, he would have had to grant that licence.

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I asked around and there seems to be some confusion regarding this issue. A publisher said that I was right, a music lawyer said that once it's used commercially, anyone can cover it (if it's played by a radio station, that would count as commercial use), and the PRS said that it was just a matter of courtesy. Last year, I wrote about the problem of holding back the release date for songs in the digital age, as it drives people towards illegal filesharing sites. I mentioned the example of Leona Lewis's cover of Snow Patrol's Run. Someone called Ameritz managed to get into the charts with a similar sounding cover of the same song at the time. And last August Nicki Bliss was at No 50 with I Kissed a Girl the same week Katy Perry entered the charts at No 4. The composers of the songs will get royalties, no matter who sings the song – but the performer only gets royalties if they're the one singing on the recording. Maybe this is a new income stream for cover bands. All Take This have to do is listen to the radio, and as soon as they hear a new Take That song, they can run into the studio, record their own version, and release it before the original is available on iTunes. If the threat of people illegally downloading a track on a torrent site isn't enough of an incentive for labels to release tracks sooner, it appears the threat of someone like Airi L cashing in on all the promotion that's gone into launching a new record is.

theguardian.com - Behind the music: Can artists stop people from covering their songs?

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