Recording records to CD'S for sale.

[juanie]

Is it ok to sell CD's that have been made from old records pressed in the 1950's thur 1970's? Is there copy write laws? How do I get permission to sell if possible?

[copley]

In a word 'NO'. Check the internet for details on copyright laws.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright

[soulster]

It doesn't matter what format you master from, in the United States, if the recordings in question are not in the public domain, meaning that if they are under copyright protection, you have to pay licensing fees to the owner of the recordings, and royalties to the publisher. It's the only way to do it legally. This, of course, means that you need capital. Perhaps you could find some investors to help you if you can convince them that you can make a profit that will bring returns on their investment.

Most of the major labels are quite strict about the number of units you can guarantee you can sell to make the licence deal worthwhile for them. If it's a private owner, you may have to deal with lawyers and some pretty shady people. Warning, private owners can be more outrageous in their asking fees, and are known to be quite flaky.

If you plan to mass-market your product, it is in your best interest to use quality sources and professional mastering. No one wants to buy bad sounding CDs. Then, you have to decide what you are going to put on your CD. If you have any aspirations of becoming a reissue label like, say, Varese Vintage or Shout! Factory, you have to consider adding tired and well-worn songs that the average listener wants in addition to your two or three rare, hard-to find songs. If you have the chops to master yourself, great. Otherwise, you must consider paying some bucks for a pro who specializes in reissues. And, they will probably want to work with actual masters or good dubs of them. Then you're back to dealing with the labels. Oh, then there are marketing and distribution, taxes, profit markup, packaging, manufacturing...are the costs adding up? You could indeed master from vinyl, or other CDs. Many labels do it. But, can you do it, and make it sound like the music came from a master tape?


Getting discouraged? Sorry! But, if you can get the financial backing, have patience, and know your audience, you may have a shot.

What you need to do is figure out a niche. What can you do to get people to part with their hard-earned dollars to buy your product?

There are many, many books you will find in the book store or on rhe 'net that will outline exactly what you need to do to get started. A couple of major books are "This Business Of Music", and "What You'd better Know About the Music Business". One of them was written by Kachif. Yes, that Kachif!

[daddyacey]

Yep ,what soulster said .........Plus the fact that the "reissue" market is being serviced quite well by outfits like FunkyTown ,Reel Music ,Vinyl Masterpiece and Sound Stage Direct , with good selections of rare and out of print material ,with remastering from the master tapes and nice booklets and information. They gotta have some kind of good finance as backing to pull off a quality product like that. There is still a lot of records out there that are out of print and are wanted by a lot of people ,but the rights are tied up legally or the source tapes are lost in somebodys basement or have been destroyed. Clean vinyl sources of those recordings that could be digitally "cleaned" ,with quality ,are the best items that you could do something with , legally , with some dollars. Download only ,rights might be worth looking into. [[??) You avoid the CD manufacturing part and cost and could offer the booklet as a pdf. I'm still very much into vinyl but ,I'd breakdown and download a record thats impossible to find or that costs $50 and up when you do find one.

Keep researching ,go for it.

[pshark]

I think all he wants to do is record records to cds and sell them on ebay, which is illegal.
Judging by his other posts he's just using this forum for his own self interest.
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[paladin]

Well done Pshark.....

Kdub

[juanie]

Thank you everyone! juanie
Special thanks to Pshark. Yes I do sell on ebay. I am new at it and I really appreciate this forum. It helps me to do things right. Thanks again