A lot of railroad museums have Christmas trains, and a good number of these events have music ether being played at the station on the train or both. It is all to common for a volunteer to just burn a CD of Christmas carols and use this for there event without considering the copyright laws. When playing a piece of music at a event it is considered a performance. Even a recording of an old song that is in the public domain is not safe because the recording its self is copyrighted. To over come this problem I have collected a bunch of recordings that boath the song and recording are in the public domaine and are safe to use.

-Silent Night
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sile ... ral%29.ogg
http://www.music.af.mil/shared/media/do ... 30-039.mp3
-Deck the Halls
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Deck ... and%29.ogg
-Here We Come A-wassailing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S. ... ailing.ogg
-Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S. ... s_Sing.ogg
http://www.music.af.mil/shared/media/do ... 19-003.mp3
-Jingle Bells
http://www.music.af.mil/shared/media/do ... 30-029.mp3
-We Wish You a Merry Christmas
http://www.music.af.mil/shared/media/do ... 30-030.mp3
-God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen (Jazz)
http://www.music.af.mil/shared/media/do ... 30-034.mp3
-Joy to the World
http://www.music.af.mil/shared/media/do ... 19-009.mp3
-O Christmas Tree (Starts out in German)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S. ... enbaum.ogg
-We three kings (Techno...)
http://www.music.af.mil/shared/media/do ... 30-025.mp3
-Mash up of songs
http://www.music.af.mil/shared/media/do ... 15-019.mp3
-This Endris Night
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S. ... _Night.ogg

Understood about burned CD. How about if a railroad or museum purchases a Christmas CD as they able to play it? What if they pipe in Pandora or XM Radio?

No, that is considered a Public Performance "Per the Recording Industry Association of America, playing unlicensed music for commercial advantage or private financial gain and sound recording infringements (including digital copies) can be punishable by up to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines. Repeat offenders can be imprisoned for up to 10 years. Violators can also be held civilly liable for actual damages, lost profits or statutory damages up to $150,000 per song."

Don't think it will happen at your orginazation? See this story
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110 ... ongs.shtml

XM and CD's are for personal use only, that is why retailers scribe to services such as Muzak who deal with the licensing through scriber fees.

More here
http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/scope.html#performance

How about not playing music on the trains. I always found the audio quality horrible and it takes away from the experience. Listen to the music of steel wheels on steel rails instead.

Being burned is not the issue. The issue is you don't have license to use the music in that way (i.e. play it for the public at their commercial establishment.) Buying a CD at the store changes nothing, since store-bought CDs do not include any license for public performance. When you buy a CD or DVD at Walmart, you get an implied license for personal use, which includes anything you want to do personally, and limited rights to play (but not copy) it for friends and family in private.

If you want to do more than personal use, you need to license the music or media for that purpose. Once you do, you are golden. However that type of licensing is often a major pain in the rear. You may end up taking less than your ideal choice because it's easy to license. The above links are free. That's as easy as it gets.

Public domain music is always free, and there are "open licenses" which allow all sorts of free use. Jonathan Coulton is an example of an artist who uses an open license.

If the music is streamed off the internet, e.g. Pandora or Youtube, that changes nothing, its license is still only for personal use, and you still need to obtain a SEPARATE license for any other use. The problem is that Pandora or radio can play absolutely anything, and you may not have a license for the next song they play. You can use streaming services like "Muzak" which do all the licensing for you.

(speaking of Youtube, disregard the liberties people take with copyright there, they "get away with it" for reasons far too complex to discuss here.)

Once you are licensed, you have carte blanche to copy all you want for the purpose of your license. They want you to get the most out of the music you have paid for. This will involve a lot of copying and all this is proper. Imagine how much copying happened during the design of the Olympic opening ceremony! You need to have staff review songs, customize a CD that actually gets stuck in the player and looped, make some backups of it, etc. Yes, burning CDs for this purpose is entirely proper.

Also somewhat off topic, for all you'r YouTube videos and DVDs incompetech has music you can use for free by anyone as long as credit is given http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/

Another wrinkle is ASCAP. http://www.ascap.com/

Think you can get around the problem by having live singers / musicians? Not so fast... The composer is still due royalties if the songs are covered by ASCAP.

Ever wonder why the folks at Red Robin don't sing the traditional version of "Happy Birthday". Yep, it's copyrighted and royalties are due. So they make up their own version to the Hallelujah Chorus or some such.

Doesn't apply to tourist railways? Yes, it does, and they will pay you a visit, especially if you advertise live music. Back when we did live music on every train they'd come and visit and listen to the performance. The musician claimed they would even request he sing a song with known copyrights as a test. Kind of music industry version of "weed weasels" I guess...

ASCAP has inspectors looking for music played without a license. When they find a copyright violation, ASCAP bills the violator $500 for each song played. This is followed by a lawsuit. These have been thoroughly litigated in the past and upheld. Needless to say there has been much litigation over music royalties over the years.

In addition to an ASCAP license you also need a BMI license. Much modern music is licensed by BMI. (BMI was founded about 1940 to compete with the ASCAP monopoly. For about two weeks the only music played on the radio was by Stephen Foster because it was public domain. Under federal anti-trust law ASCAP and BMI licensing fees are set by a judge.)

Another music licensing organization is SESAC. Most of its music is foreign popular songs. In broadcasting I never worried about SESAC because there never was any SESAC music I wanted to play.

Another possibility is to purchase what are called advance royalty recordings. The music usually is public domain but any royalties for the performance arrangements are included in the purchase price. You can obtain these from a background music company other than Muzak.

These recordings are not cheap. Ninety minutes of music for one railroad museum cost $500. Muzak wanted $420 for one year of music plus a one time charge of $75 to set up a music player.

Another alternative is to purchase a recording of public domain music such as Tchaikovsky's "Nutcraker Suite." These usually are royalty free if they use the original arrangement.

So play safe with your train music to avoid an unpleasant surprise.

And if you're thinking "Dear God, this music licensing stuff is a Gordian knot I'll never unravel", you're absolutely right. That is precisely why old TV shows are slow to come out on DVD, because they don't have the music rights and must painstakingly substitute other music. This is why WKRP in Cincinnati will never come out on DVD, because it can't get rights to the originally used music, rights holders "hold it hostage" by demanding unreasonable fees. This is a defect in the law.

Copyright law was never intended to hinder creative works! Copyright is not a natural right. The People (via the Constitution) have a very specific public purpose: to encourage the development of creative works, to benefit the People (not necessarily producers). To that end, the People grant copy rights to producers, as a practical mechanism, and nothing more. The rights are intended to serve the public interest, and when they do not (WKRP, Happy Birthday, textbooks, search engines), the rights should yield to the public purpose. Otherwise the whole point of copyright is lost.

As Fred says, the license to the song ("Ring of Fire" by June Carter) is separate from the license to the particular performance/recording ("Ring of Fire" by Johnny Cash). If you sing it live, you still owe money to June Carter. Copyright automatically exists for every work made on or after 1923, unless the producer specifically licenses it for free use, or casts it into the public domain intentionally. Any usable recording will be younger than 1923, so you have to look for that free license, even if the song is in the public domain.

What does this mean to railway preservation? First, there are a lot of battles being waged for copyright (big producers don't want to give an inch, even when it's in their interest to do so, because they fear losing it all.) Don't get in the middle of those battles. Play it safe and clean, now, more than ever, because the battle is hotter, and compliance is easier. (smaller producers know there is a strong need for public domain recordings, so they are making them. Again, OP, but that doesn't even scratch the surface of what's out there.)

Second, if victories are achieved conclusively, USE THEM. I am sick of hearing railroad museum libraries say how they can't scan books because of "copyright". Google won that for us. Get scanning so we can find stuff. As you well know, an asset that can't be found is effectively lost from the collection. You think of that in terms of things which are misfiled, but it applies to things you can't find in the first place, too.

In my corner of the universe, when the guys from ASCAP or BMI show up, they come across as a bunch of thugs, making all sorts of dire threats against venues. Some owners hear "lawsuit," cave in and write a check. I know several venue managers who told these clowns to get the hell out of their place, and they left quickly, trailing threats. In every case, they were never seen or heard from again.

As well they should.

That is why.

As well THEY should.

Look, I'm not an advocate of this game, but this is how it works. Lawyering is about who flinches first. And if nobody flinches all the way to verdict, THEN it's about the facts, but this is a rather expensive road for both parties. It is only financially prudent to follow any other road. A great deal of legal work can be brought to completion easily and cheaply through intimidation, so it is an obvious opener. And yes, you can deal it right back to them, most bullies are cowards too. You often find lawyers who are fair-minded (tips hat to the IRS) and that's great, but expecting a counterparty to treat you that way is a silly thing to do.

Oh yeah, and lawyers change stripes, a lot. Whatever gets the deal done.

So what if your local FM station is playing over the PA in the station platform area?

Good news, robertmacdowell: the First Season of WKRP in Cincinnati is indeed on DVD. However, many of the copyrighted songs were replaced by others.

ASCAP/BMI covers that, too. Sorry.

I knew a bar that had the entire gamut of licenses. For the radio in the morning and afternoon, for recorded music in the evenings, for live music weekends and for dance lessons. And yes, you need a license to play the radio as your background music. I seem to recall his fee was something like a grand or two a year--I never heard exactly. The ironic thing was most of the live music was "traditional" folk music, well outside ASCAP reach. And this was just a corner bar in a residential neighborhood that didn't assess cover charges, not a concert hall or nightclub.

Go to a real, full-fledged music festival, and one of the duties are loggers that actually jot down the tunes and songs performed for ASCAP/BMI/etc. purposes. Even a free-admission fest like the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Some festivals even check the union membership of the musicians, in order to divert the proper dues to the union or unions (which pays into medical plans, life insurance, legal assistance, etc.). Even houses of worship actually have to reckon with this in some cases, depending on the music being played.

I've seen the contracts for performers and groups at some semi-major music venues. The average person's mind would boggle at the bureaucracy involved, but it's really no different from the weirdness we deal with, just with music and copyright law rather than state boiler law, FRA track standards, the EPA, state utility regulations, etc.

We're not going to settle the debate over the preposterous twists and turns that copyright laws have been perverted into of late thanks in no small part to the Mouse-Eared Borg. It's more important just to know that such perversions exist, that they have at least some basis in a world totally alien to that of the universal-sharing mindset of the internet, and that consideration should be given accordingly. Are they going to come after the Hoot & Toot Railroad just because someone had, once, an FM radio playing that championship game so no one was left unaware of the score, or because they were playing the weekly bluegrass show that day? Probably not. If you play a Mitch Miller carol singalong, the Vince Guaraldi music from "A Charlie Brown Christmas," or the soundtrack from "The Polar Express" between trains every year? They'll catch up with you eventually.

Granted, some of the collection methods used by BMI and ASCAP may seem a bit heavy handed, but I know some people on the "other side of the line" (to borrow a line from a song written and performed by one of these artists). Commercial music is a business that has its ups and downs, and royalty payments when songs are re-recorded or performed can help songwriters through the lean periods.