COPYRIGHT AND RECORDINGS
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BBCG guidance on sharing recordings, following copyright law, and the different permissions required for audio and video.
Copyright and Recordings
Please also observe all COPYRIGHT considerations. It is illegal to distribute copies of a commercially-produced recording. According to the copyright law, it is legal to distribute copies of a recording of copyrighted music provided that (a) you own or administer the RECORDING copyright; (b) the tune itself, if still under copyright by someone else, has been recorded before; and (c) you pay the appropriate compulsory license fee.
When distributing recordings of your own band (or someone else's) playing a tune like Woodchoppers' Ball, if you only send it to our group, and the purpose is not to make money but to give other groups something to listen to so they can play the tune, then the chances are slim that anyone will complain. I had a business law professor that told us "there is no crime until someone complains." You have to make your own decisions as to what tunes you want to send out to the group.
BBCG's Official Position
Our official position is we ask everyone to obey the letter of the copyright law. We do not encourage or condone copyright violations of any kind.
If you're a masochist or truly want to know, you can read the law here. It may be dense, but it is quite literally the letter of the law.
YouTube, Video, and Synchronization Licenses
Finally, you can usually find excellent recordings of a tune on YouTube.
We need someone to do some research on this for us, but my impression is that YouTube (owned by Google) has made an arrangement with the copyright powers such that people can post videos of copyrighted music, and YouTube will set up a compensation arrangement with the copyright holders. There may also be some compensation in this for the posters. This is NOT verified, so if someone can do some research on this and let us know for sure, we'll post the results here.
Be aware, permissions to "produce and distribute" audio recordings are DIFFERENT permissions than those required for a video with sound. The latter is a "Synchronization" license, and requires different procedures than for an audio or phonorecording.