We are a 15 year old band and have just learned to play “Free Bird”. Can we record us playing it on our cassette deck and sell it to our friends?
Most any popular song on the radio, including “Free Bird”, is still under copyright protection. Therefore you cannot perform or sell the song without paying royalties to the copyright owners. Copyright law does provide that anyone can record and distribute any nondramatic musical work which has previously been recorded and published by paying mechanical royalties to the copyright holder. This is called a Compulsory License which is explained in Circular 73 of the U.S. Copyright Office. Mechanical royalties are around 8 cents for each copy distributed for each song recorded. Go to Google or your favorite search engine and search “mechanical license” and you should be able to find the information you need to obtain a compulsory license and pay the required mechanical royalties so you can sell and distribute your recording.
