Thread: Altered music

Let me start off by saying that I'm not in the habit of selling or giving away individual songs/CDs/compilations - but what about altered music?

Music that has been shortened/lengthened or fused with other songs/pieces for use with with specific choreos I've put together or for improved numbers? How are these afected by copyright laws? Like to know as I really am kind of naive in this area...

I have struggled with that myself, and I purchased multiple mp3 copies of the song I edited and gave to others, if they did not have it already. While that is a violation of the licensing agreements (you can't transfer the license that comes with a download), that was the best I could come up with.

As I understand it, this would fall under the same jurisdiction as DJ remixing and sampling. At some point, an excerpt becomes legally equivalent to the whole song. If you are trying to distribute your edited versions for profit or as your own artistically valid remixes without first obtaining proper licensing, it would definitely be a copyright violation. I imagine if you purchased a legal copy of a song, edited it, and then gave a copy of your edits to a student who also owned a legal version of the same song you started from, it would be challenging to justify why they were taking you to court when you are two small fish and just barely outside fair use, but technically they would have grounds to pursue the matter.