Does a funeral home need a license to record or play old songs?
I heard that these songs are in the public domain and no license is needed because no one holds a copyright on them. A. While it is true that most songs written before the early part of the Twentieth Century would be in the public domain, that does not mean that every recording of those songs are also in the public domain. For example, the song “Silent Night” may be in the public domain and anyone can perform it and record their own version without a license. However, that does not give me a right to record “Silent Night” as sung by Andy Williams on to a DVD. Andy Williams holds the copyright to his version of “Silent Night” and I cannot record it to a DVD without his permission.
