RE: do Christmas carolers infringe copyright?

See 17 U.S.C. 17 110(4). Most Christmas caroling type performing groups, not paid, no direct or indirect commercial advantage, no admission charge, etc. would appear to qualify as a noninfringing performance.

Carl Johnson

Original Message-----
From: owner-cni-copyright[_at_]cni.org [mailto:owner-cni-copyright[_at_]cni.org]On Behalf Of Timothy Phillips
Sent: Wednesday, September 20, 2000 6:45 PM To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: do Christmas carolers infringe copyright?

Some well-known Christmas music is in the public domain, but not all of it. If a church choir sings "I wonder as I wander" by John Jacob Niles (1892-1980) in church, it is within its rights in the U.S. under 17 U.S.C 110(3). (I don't know about the U.K.) But if the choir goes caroling, this provision would no longer seem to apply. On its face, caroling looks to me to be a public performance. If the carolers recieve cookies and cocoa, it begins to look like a performance for profit.

Has a church ever been billed for a license when its choir sang copyrighted music when caroling ?

Has a shopping mall ever been billed for a license if it allowed strolling carolers to perform unlicensed copyrighted Christmas music within its space ?

This condition may create a commercial advantage, i.e., promoting commercial products, thus may not qualify. If however the choral group is part of the Salvation Army donation box, then I think section 110 (4) would apply. Carl Johnson

Tim Phillips
<hrothgar[_at_]telepath.com> Received on Wed Sep 27 2000 - 16:58:11 GMT