PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Songwriting Copyright question.

If I write an original melody and lyrics can i publish it on a CD or some monetized platform using my voice and B.I.B. 'real tracks'?

In other words, are the "real tracks" performances copyrighted themselves?

Thanks.

Dave

You can do what you say, use RealTracks in an original song. Copyright will not be an issue but I recall some of those online services might recognize the sounds and think it’s a violation. There’s another thread on this within the last year.

Yep.

Only PG Music can give you written permission to re-publish their original work.

Interestingly, the end user license makes no mention of this one way or the other; it neither allow nor restricts this use.

Of course, if such use were restricted, there wouldn't be much point to BIAB existing.

Conflicting responses:

"Yep". Yep what, if I may ask...

Do I need "written permission from PG"? Or not?

"Copyright will not be an issue"... Or will it?

Thanks for the responses but I'm no further toward an answer at this point...

Dave

I agree with Matt Finley and GuitarHacker. You can put out what you want from RealBand/BIAB without providing credit to the tracks you have used. There's no gray area here. That's what the tool is for.

I was sure there was an FAQ someplace that talked about this, of course when I went looking for it I couldn't find it.

It is perfectly ok to release your original song using BIAB as your band, many, many people have done that.

https://www.pgmusic.com/salesfaq1.htm#22

Are songs that I create with Band-in-a-Box copyrighted?
The arrangements made by Band-in-a-Box are yours, and your songs may be used freely as long as they don't infringe upon the intellectual property rights of others.

--------

This applies to the MIDI sounds and RealTracks/RealDrums within your BB creation (so, the entire song!) - you're good to go! No need to credit Band-in-a-Box or RealTracks Artists when publishing your work.

I should have said YEP and NOPE to your two questions....I can see how answering the first one by itself can be confusing.

You are allowed to use this software to create original songs and copyright them in your name. You don't have to include PG as a co-writer or share any credits with any of the track artists who recorded the real tracks. As long as you bought the software from PG and have the license that goes along with it, you are free to use the software for personal and commercial ventures. I have music being used commercially that was written using PG real tracks. I don't have to do anything other than to sign a statement with my publisher or music library which represents my music, that I alone, control all the rights to the music. Which, I do.

If however, you listen to one of the style demos and like it and decide to use it exactly like it is, that is a copyright infraction. Simply change a few aspects of the demo and rearrange the chords and it's all good. Besides that, I find that demo's often sound quite different when they are placed in your DAW and you simply change the key and tempo, and the demo's are often NOT in a usable song format. But... it's not a good idea to use the demo for anything other than learning privately.

Hope that clarifies it a bit better.

Thanks for the clarity. This community is very helpful!

Dave

Nonsense. The license does not protect you. It doesn’t say a word one way or the other. I can think of a dozen reasons why PGM’s lawyers left such language out of the EULA. None are worth discussing here.

Callie’s response, OTOH, does grant the permissions you are looking for.

It is always advisable to seek the advice of a lawyer who deals with the music industry to answer any type of legal questions.

Having said that, myself and thousands of other people have published songs that were created using BIAB software. As far as I know there have been no lawsuits as a result of those actions.

The issues of copyright are about as complex as it gets and no forum has the expertise to guarantee all your questions will be answered correctly.

As with most things, nothing normally happens unless there is money involved. Make a song with BIAB that generates millions in revenue and things could get pretty complicated.

Billy

Man! You need to read the PG Music Inc. License Agreement. Content you create belongs to you. If you didn't buy it, there's rules for transferring ownership, but the (purchased) license makes it legal for you to use.

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You need to understand the question. It’s whether you can use the BIAB samples in your content. Those samples are the IP of PG Music. This is most definitely NOT addressed in the copy of the ELUA that you posted.

It is addressed by Callie’s comment in this thread as I have already noted.

Pay attention and keep up.

Otherwise, it’s still January.

I have beem using BIAB for many years, and got over 75 copyrights for songs using it. I never ran into any issues UNTIL I released an Album using TuneCore as my distributer. I COULD NOT Monitize my songs on FaceBook or YouTube because the songs containes "Samples" or music cliose to samples... I was NOT given a chance to disbute their clames, so my music is not on Facebook. Any Thoughts or Helpful suggestions on how I can rectify this???

A few things:

Never post directly to Facebook—if your music is not on their pre approved list, they can take you down for no apparent reason. Trying to rectify a takedown is damned near impossible and very expensive. I post on YouTube and other sites and link to FB instead—FB leaves these alone since pointers do not expose them to Copyright issues—never had a takedown. YouTube takedown notices are much easier to deal with, especially when it involves Russian and Brazilian piracy troll/bots.

TuneCore is a Russian company. Among other things, they operate piracy troll/bots. These often get in the way of the business of TuneCore customers.

TuneCore has an office in New York. The contact info is on their web site.

I charge 1/3 the going rate of a music attorney to deal with such issues and part of my service is to know when an attorney is the better call. Telling you that posting directly to FaceBook is a bad idea… That’s free.

This is not a TuneCore issue. You will find similar language on the contracts for all the distributors, including Distrokid, CDBaby, etc.

Remember that anybody can put their own music up on YouTube and Facebook. You don't need TuneCore. If you get the views, you can monetize it. You only need a distributor for Spotify and streaming services. What they alone can provide for YouTube is their ContentID service, which means that if anybody uses your music in their YouTube videos--you'll be paid.

ContentID is not about copyright. It actually has nothing to do with whether your music is original and whether you have the legal rights to use any software you use. It's just that whoever registers the content first --owns it. If somebody gets a copy of your song and registers it with ContentID, then they get the money when you later put your own song up on YouTube. Of course there is a process where you can dispute this.

What Tunecore means by "samples" is the kind of stuff bedroom producers download from sites like Splice. A very specific drum pattern on a certain drum set. A female vocalist singing "Oh baby!' A guitar playing a specific solo. Some bedroom producers just download a lot of stuff and assemble their songs that way. They may not record anything themselves. Put stuff created by others into Ableton and Acid. This kind of thing can create big issues for ContentID. What if that sample--which the producer has the rights to--was used first by Rihanna? That's a headache. To not have to deal with a million disputes like this, YouTube just created ContentID, and the distributors do not want music that's made from samples downloaded from Splice, because they don't want problems dealing with YouTube. In fact they don't want songs that even have one sample downloaded from Splice.

Almost all pop music is made from virtual instruments that are made from samples--a virtual piano, a guitar, a violin, a drum machine. Of course you can play a piano part from a virtual instrument that's made from samples. That is not what distributors mean by "samples." Where it gets complicated is when you have something that is a pattern that is recognizable and might as well be a sample. For example, a distinctive preset on a synth. I always try to mess around with anything I use, so it's unique to me.

Which leads us to Band-in-a-Box. Could it trigger ContentID? It's unlikely, because the algorithm generates unique results from the same chord progressions, and the more complex your chord progressions, the more unique it gets. But IMHO Band-in-a-box is a gray area if all you use is Band-in--a-Box. This is not a legal issue, because nobody knows what will trigger ContentID. It's a computer, not a court where you debate fair use or anything. But if it goes wrong, you will have violated your contract with Tunecore.

I personally don't think that BIAB is samples in the way they are asking, but I still mess around with it to be sure. For example, on the song I'm currently working on, I have an audio track that's a drum part from BIAB. I've converted that to MIDI, put a different drum set on it and changed the patterns to mesh better with my song. At this point, I don't think there's any chance it will trigger ContentID. It's no different than if I made it with EZDrummer.

If you use a sample from Splice in a track that gets ContentID from Tunecore, it will probably be okay. But if it triggers ContentID because somebody used it first--then you may be tossed off TuneCore. With BIAB, nobody can say for sure. My songs are 90% played or programmed by me, with help from software like BIAB and EZKeys.

BIAB tracks are fine for Spotify, Apple, Amazon and the rest. Social media is more complicated, because it's not about whether you have the legal rights to use the music commercially. It's about ContentID.

But again, you can put your music up on YouTube and monetize it. Probably the worst thing that would happen is you'd get a notice from them that the computer has tagged your music as being created by somebody else. Maybe they used the same chords on the same BIAB Style. Then you can dispute it.

Posting your opinions as some sort of legal advice is a really bad idea if you are not an attorney.


You really haven’t a clue. Sorry but someone has to tell you.

Tiger, I appreciate you taking the time to post your thoughts on this important issue. Personally I would make rather listen to someone who speaks English rather than an attorney who speaks legalese. Your answer is much more practical. I would also add that there is a huge difference between practical real world advice and theoretical "what could happen if' advice you get from an attorney. I've seen people waste so much money on attorneys needlessly, typically motivated by fear.

FYI, I was also told by Ember at PG Music that there is no copyright issue. So just because it's not clearly mentioned in the licensing agreement, that fact that multiple employees over probably a long period of time are making this claim does weigh in on this importantly. PG music will ultimately be the one to be sued more likely, than any individual making music.