Repost from a few years ago
"A lot of railroad museums have Christmas trains, and a good number of these events have music either being played at the station on the train or both. It is all too 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 both the song and recording are in the public domain and are safe to use."

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3O3A ... WNNaVZWQ2s

Since this music is public domain you can also burn it to CDs to give to your patrons after their train ride as a gift. I could even help design a label and cover for free with your railroads name on it.

If you want to get through on the law, playing the radio for ambiance music will often be illegal......

ASCAP can license you to play most music in many ways, the fees don't appear to be at first glance, that bad-if you need copyrighted music. But I can't say for sure. Looks like a year license is in the $1000 ish dollar range maybe?

We negotiated with ASCAP for a Christmas music license for an operating railroad museum. The lowest figure I could negotiate was $300 per month for a legally non-profit organization. We said "No thank you." and paid $500 for two cd's of public domain pre-paid royalty music. An arrangement of a public domain song can have a legal copyright of the arrangement.

We got a visit from an ASCAP inspector looking for unlicensed music. He asked me to play "Here Comes Santa Claus." I told him I would love to play that song but could not for two reasons. One was I didn't have a recording and two we did not have a license to play it. He had nothing more to say.

Some lawyers have made a lucrative career of litigating music royalty issues. ASCAP legally can asses you a fee of $300 for each unlicensed performance of a song with a valid copyright. You can get into big money real fast.

Do NOT allow performers to play music on your trains or stations. You can be held liable for for an unlicensed performance. My understanding of the law is that if you have not given permission for them to play, you cannot be held liable for an unlicensed performance. (A few performers do have licenses that will cover what they play but you must confirm their documentation.)

Music composers do work in creating music. They are entitled to get money for their work.

The music I posted is public domaine in both the songs and the recordings. I got them off US military websites ".mil and .gov" and the recordings are from the US military bands making it public domain all around.

A military band could be playing a copyrighted arrangement of a song without notice on the record label.

When I was at Armed Forces Radio Service in New York in 1958 and 1959 all music publishers except one firm waived all copyright royalties for "music for our boys overseas." As a result many copyrighted songs were on AFRS transcription discs that were sent to overseas AFRS stations. So even if you got the music from an old AFRS transcription disc, you are not free of potential copyright liability.

If you want the best protection from potential copyright royalty problems, buy your music from a firm that specializes in supplying royalty-free music. Usually it is recorded overseas, often in England, and all concerned have signed copyright waivers.

A bar owner of my acquaintance was once confronted by a couple of ASCAP dudes who demanded that he pay a licensing fee for allowing musicians to perform in his pub. He told them in no uncertain terms to vacate the premises forthwith or his bouncer would break their legs. That was 10 years ago, and he's never seen anyone from ASCAP since.

There is no reason you couldn't have musicians play their own original or pubic domain music without a license.

In other news, it turns out that "Happy Birthday to You" is now public domain ...

That is why I checked that the music is in the public domaine.

New Hope & Ivyland plays music at their station all year-round (not just during Christmas-time) and I can't recall them ever having any legal issues surrounding this practice.

I know this sounds really peevish, but not all people revere, like, or wish to be serenaded with Christmas music. Just saying, despite an enormous portion of the American populace being Christian, or dipped in it during the holidays, we live in a broader society. I'm NOT SAYING BE POLITICALLY CORRECT. I am saying it's a consideration.
Now, in the holiday spirit of peace, love, and forgiveness, I am ready to be brutalized with responses.

There are several possible reasons for that. They may be using public domain music, they may be using a service like "Muzak", or more likely, they may simply have not been caught yet.

Having the music playing in the station would also likely be seen as less of an issue than having the music be part of the "performance", i.e. Christmas Carols being sung during the trip.

ASCAP does go far and wide to enforce the requirements, and as others have mentioned, they're not above requesting a song in their catalog to see if you'll perform it. Ever wondered why places like Red Robin have their own birthday song rather than singing Happy Birthday? No, it's not because they're just so dang creative. It's because, up until the recent court decision putting it in the public domain, ASCAP could and did charge places for having the staff sing Happy Birthday to customers.

Even if you are Christian (which chapter of the Bible is Frosty and Santa in anyway? First Philodendron was it?) it can become annoying when played over and over, say with a CD set on repeat for ambient music.

On the other hand, if you choose to ride a "Christmas Train" it's pretty reasonable to expect there will be Santa and Elves and carolers and the like. Presumably if that's not what you're looking for, you won't be buying tickets.

On a related tangent. Has any railroad ever done a Hanukkah train? For that matter, do any railroads do a train that has a true Christian theme instead of Santa? Maybe one that incorporates a living nativity set as the destination? Guessing both of those are too touchy for most folks to try.

Answering my own question, with a bit of help from Google... Roaring Camp does a Chanukah Train

http://www.roaringcamp.com/events

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I wonder what the technicalities would be for playing the radio in the station or on the train? For instance anyone in the CT area would know 100.5, and 99.9 (every other song)have switched to Xmas music this month, along with 97.5 WALK on Long Island, I can get that station here too.

For that matter, forget the Xmas music all together, just the radio going. How is this any different than going into stores that have the radio on?