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beyond ArtLess
“Beyond ArtLess" with Chris Gleason, Peter Haberman & Phil Ostrander is a podcast that explores the friendships and the community that exists in and outside of the arts and arts education. In each episode of Beyond ArtLess, one of the hosts reveals his mystery guest to the other two. What comes next is a fun-filled conversation revealing the joy of friendship and the artlessness of the hosts. Unlike most successful classrooms, this show is not well planned and probably not worth your time.
beyond ArtLess
Andrea Pelloquin
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
This week on Beyond Artless, we accidentally made an episode that is actually useful.
We’re talking copyright, music publishing, digital music, arrangements, AI, and a bunch of other things that music educators probably should know more about—but often don’t have time to figure out.
Our guest is Andrea Pelloquin, Executive Director of the Choristers Guild and an attorney specializing in copyright and trademark law. She brings a ton of experience from both the music industry and the legal world, and she helps us make sense of some of the copyright questions that come up in music education every day.
We also talk about public domain music, photocopying, e-print, AI, career changes, and why you might want to think twice before assuming that something you found online is fair game.
And because this is Beyond Artless, we somehow manage to work in bees, spelling bees, porch geese, and a few other things that have absolutely nothing to do with copyright.
Come for the useful information. Stay for the nonsense.
Helpful Links Regarding Copyright
- https://www.tresonamusic.com/
- https://www.bmi.com/
- https://www.arrangeme.com/
- https://www.easysong.com/
- https://schoolmusiclicense.com/
- https://www.choristersguild.org/index.html
- https://nafme.org/resource/united-states-copyright-law-a-guide-for-music-educators/
- https://www.mpa.org/
OPPORTUNITIES:
2027 BEYOND THE NOTE FESTIVALS - A few spots remain!!
https://www.btnmusicfestival.com/festivals/ensembles/kalahari-1
COMMISSION POSSIBLE 2027 W/ ADRIAN SIMS (Closes Sept 15)
https://www.btnmusicfestival.com/education/commission
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FREE MUSIC (Ends Sept 15)
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Hey commuter, welcome back to Beyond Our Listen. We made a terrible mistake this week. We actually recorded an episode with useful information. What? I know that's not what you signed up for, but we're talking copyright, music publishing, AI, digital music, all those things that you should know about, but probably have avoided until now. And somehow, our guest makes it all interesting. She has enough degrees to make the rest of us feel like we should probably go back to school and enough experience in music publishing and law to make us question several things that we've done over the years. So grab a cup of coffee, hide your photocopier, and prepare yourself for a rare beyond artless episode where you might actually learn something. You're welcome. It's hit hot.
SPEAKER_06What?
SPEAKER_05Jesus.
SPEAKER_06Oh my god, he's feisty.
SPEAKER_04What's going on? Did you get done with auditions today? Oh no, just did day one, baby. Day one. How many hours? Eleven. Eleven. It just got good around hour seven. A little lull around nine, and then picked right back up for 10 and 11.
unknownSure did.
SPEAKER_06Is this only your first day of auditions? First and 11 hours?
SPEAKER_04First day. First day, but do you have auditions tomorrow? I threw Jon Stewart under the bus several, you know, I don't know, seasons ago. And he's been really good. He does schedule breaks in there. That's nice. That is nice. Five minutes. Yeah. Yeah. Uh yep. Not allowed to use a bathroom. But other than that, bring a bucket. I didn't get a pass.
SPEAKER_06I schedule breaks, but then the auditions go long and then the breaks disappear. So next year I'm not going to let them go long. I'm just going to keep cutting every student off, and that's where they go. It's going to be great. What could go wrong with that?
SPEAKER_04There is a correlation between how long someone's on the faculty and how short the audition becomes.
SPEAKER_03That's totally true. I have three new faculty, that's exactly right.
SPEAKER_06Oh God. One of my colleagues said, you know, if we just heard him play a full-range chromatic scale and sight read, I bet we would come up with the exact same order and understanding. And I was like, we should try that sometime. No, we shouldn't do that.
SPEAKER_04Chris, Chris, be honest. Favorite flavor and or brand of seltzer. Are they a sponsor now? Because we gotta be careful about this.
SPEAKER_05What do we got? We have no we do have sponsors, but uh no, I I go with the bubbler. Ah, the bubblers. Yeah, the bubblers are nice. Oh, yeah. Sparkling orange mangoes. We got some uh definitely some options here. Look at this. I know we should get sponsored by them. That would be great. Um, hey, I have a very important update for you. I found this out today at the DPI, and that is did you know that there is a trend going on that's all about porch geese? What? Yes. Resin or ceramic or concrete, porch geese. You get a a goose that's a fake one and you put it on your porch. It's a thing. So that other geese will come and also poop on your porch? No, no. My colleague got a porch goose from Walmart. I guess they're on sale, and she knitted or sewed a back, a little backpack today for it, like for the first day of school kind of thing. So um I'm just saying that's a thing. I'm like, excuse me.
SPEAKER_04Huh. Yeah. And this this is the hot news from the Department of Public Instruction. And what's the talking about? Yeah, boy.
SPEAKER_05Excellent. Thank you. That's good, Peter. Yes, that's right. That's the one.
SPEAKER_06I'm really glad that you shared that, Chris. I th I feel like I'm a better person and you haven't wasted anyone's time with that story.
SPEAKER_04Guess who I had my lunch with today? Oh my God, you were so punchy. What's going on up there? No punch. I had my lunch with Miles Gleason today. Oh, friend of show.
SPEAKER_06I hate how much did he eat?
SPEAKER_04Oh, fast. Speed. He was done in two seconds. I had my salad and apple, and I I could have sworn he ate maybe two-thirds of a cow.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_06But faster than your salad and apple.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I'm slow, old slow. Oh, yeah. No, he but he was a marvelous lunch companion and uh it was in good spirits.
SPEAKER_05Okay, also in the news, uh from Germany, Halbert Stett, a small organ in eastern Germany, is the headliner of the world's slowest concert. Have you heard about this? It's been playing the same piece of music by uh composer John Cage at a glacial pace for nearly 25 years.
SPEAKER_06It's like one note every year or one beat every year, or something like that. And it's like in the first phrase or something crazy like that.
SPEAKER_05And it it changed to chord uh about a week and a half ago on Wednesday, and there were like 500 people there to hear it change to chord.
SPEAKER_04I mean, it's great. I've heard that Alfred Reed arranged that for band, too. I'm almost positive. It will take 639 years to finish.
SPEAKER_06I am exhausted. We had like four, three days of auditions, and we've got all the ensembles started, and I've dealt with all the students, and you two are just like fresh, like you're just ready to go.
SPEAKER_05Ready to go. Ready to go. Hey, you know what else is ready to go? Our guest. Oh, guest is deathly afraid of bees. In fact, the the guest stepped on a wasp nest uh when she was four, and it wasn't pretty. Um, this guest is was a runner up in the school's spelling bee. Yes, the spelling bee makes a return. Um, and she remembers the word that got her, which is peculiar. I can't even say it. Peculiar. Yeah, you can't even say it's peculiar. You're fun, but you still all the wrong places. It's good. Uh played piano since three and flute since nine.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_05No, no guesses yet. Okay, buckle up, people. She started her career as a music educator in northern Wisconsin, went on to hold management positions with major print publishers, Al Leonard, Alfred, and retailers such as J.W. Pepper and West Music in event management, marketing, and sales. And get this. She's also been involved in legal affairs as well. She worked uh on several nonprofit organizations to market, administer, and administer, and raise funds for programs supporting music educators and students. This person holds a jurisdiction from the University of New Hampshire, Franklin Pierce School of Law, a doctor of education in interdisciplinary leadership from Creighton University. Add these up. Okay, that's two. A Master's of Arts in Industrial Organizational Psychology from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, a Master's in Arts and Business Arts Administration from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a Bachelor's of Music and Education from Milliken University. She is currently the executive director of the Choristors Guild, a nonprofit print music publisher located in Dallas, Texas, with a specialization in copyright and trademark law. That's right. You're uh this is when you both go to jail. Ladies and gentlemen, nothing to see here. It's Andrea Peliquin.
SPEAKER_01Hi, hi, Phil. Hi. Hi. And Peter, I don't know you, but nice to meet you.
SPEAKER_06Nice to meet you, Andrea. So how do you know these two people?
SPEAKER_02Oh, we were just talking about this. I've known Chris for a really long time. And and Phil, I guess I've known you for a really long time too, since your first year at Eau Claire.
SPEAKER_06Yep.
SPEAKER_02Yes. I'm I'm from Eau Claire.
SPEAKER_04See, there you go.
SPEAKER_02And I worked at Shell Lake. I don't know if you're familiar with Shell Lake. And that's that's where I met Phil because I hired Phil.
unknownOops.
SPEAKER_04This is true. So when you're trying to figure out what we're avoidable, we all make mistakes, and that was yours.
SPEAKER_05That did it.
SPEAKER_04No comment.
SPEAKER_05That did it. Right there. So, Andrew, thank you for coming on. It is my pleasure. Unbelievable list of just stuff you've done. And again, having known you since uh the aughts. A while. It's been a been a bit. It's been fun to see you your trajectory and how you've gone, um, these different places. When you look back, what what what what was it restlessness that had you go to these different things? Or what what causes a person to do that many degrees? It still don't do at school.
SPEAKER_02Um well, I mean, I I did the first two, you know, regular music degree, and then waited a few years, taught band, and then uh went back to school and thought I was done. Got my master's, I'm good. Uh doing art music business, or you know, arts management. That's fine. And it was a really long time before I went back. It was 12 years in between there. Um, so I think I I just started getting restless again. Yeah. And I just I love learning things. And I at the time was in a position that wasn't teaching me a lot every day. And so I didn't, I just needed to use my brain more. So I decided I don't have enough student debt yet. So I'd like to pack it on and see what see if I can hit the limit. And I don't think I've hit the limit yet, but I've definitely had to jump through more hoops than most to get.
SPEAKER_05I think going going back for more would be a good idea. I've got a list of questions here, and I I wrote them because I know that these two guys will take a little time to catch up. Now, you've worked for organizations. Let's go back to to Hal Leonard and Alfred, okay? And uh, I mean, and and JW Pepper and so on. Have you seen in in your role and your perspective, have you seen music education world from so many different perspectives? What do you think music educators often don't realize about what happens behind the scenes in publishing and the music industry? What don't they realize?
SPEAKER_02Oh goodness. I mean, I guess the the the first thing, um but and this is the common misconception that publishers and retailers, JW Pepper and publishers, they're not the same thing. Uh a lot of people think that JW Pepper is a publisher. And granted, they used to own a couple small publishers, but they don't anymore. They have a self-publishing arm. Um uh my score, uh, had a blank there for a minute. But so they are not a publisher, they sell the music of all the other publishers. So that's a common misconception that I do see. Um, other things, I don't know, I think another thing is it takes a really long time to produce a piece of music. And when you see something like a pop, a pop piece, you hear something on the radio, uh, and you want to play that for your band, and you're wondering why doesn't any publisher have this yet? Because they just got it too, and now they have to hire an arranger and then they have to go through the whole editing process. And publishers only come out with music a couple times a year. So and so they have to wait for one of those times to come around because it's a whole cycle. Those are, you know, the big the big times, you know, there's a fall release that's usually the big one that people spend their whole summer promoting, and then there's usually a mid-year release, which is generally a smaller release, but to catch like those pop titles that came out in between, or if there's anything lighter for people's pop concerts, that kind of thing. Um, that's the general cycle. But in the world of self-publishing now, so many people, and especially with How Leonard's Arrange Me service, so many people can just whip up an arrangement like that and get it published, you know, on they can publish it themselves on Arrange Me. And so that you know, it makes us as traditional, slower publishers, you know, um, people don't understand. It does, it's a it's a process, it takes a while. So there you go. That's that's a big one, I think.
SPEAKER_05So I'm I I'm asking for a friend, and and that is if if if someone like uh I don't know, named Phil, were to take a I don't know, uh tune from Disney and um and make an arrangement for uh I don't know, kind of ensemble, maybe a trombone choir or something, would uh so let's talk copyright here. I mean let's let's get into this because I think there is a lot of confusion. Yeah, and obviously I didn't even go. How many years is he gonna get?
SPEAKER_06How like the what how many years does he get from the city?
SPEAKER_05Yes, let's start with jail time, but then let's back up and just like what are some things that people just need to that maybe get wrong all the time that you could at least just say.
SPEAKER_02Well, okay, so we're going with the Phil example here.
SPEAKER_05So I just hypothetically.
SPEAKER_02And that's fine because Disney is is very serious about their copyrights. We'll put it that way. Um so you wouldn't want to mess with the mouse. So the first thing, so if you even think about wanting to do a pop song of of any sort or something that's clearly copyrighted, you gotta get permission first. Don't even start arranging it. Just don't get permission first, and that can take forever. But it really can, uh depending on where you're writing. So um has to do with who administers those print rights, who has permission to basically sub-license. So, for instance, Disney, how Leonard does Disney's uh print rights because these big publishers sometimes they don't want to take the time to figure out the print music industry because we are very different with the types of licenses that we offer and the types of usages. Um, so you would want to get permission first. So in this case, I would write Hal Leonard, I'd go there. They have a lovely copyright request form on their website. You just pick the license you want, you fill out the information and you send it. Um and actually in this case, I do believe Hal Leonard goes through Traysona for arrangement license, but that could be wrong. Anyway, um, it's all on their website though, and unlike other publishers as well, um, there should be licensing information on their website. When in doubt, you could go on to BMI Songview. They have a really robust database and you just put in a song name and it'll tell you who owns it. And like even if it's with a couple different places, uh, but even but then it's still kind of difficult to figure out who has the administration rights, you know, the who does the print piece because Songview will tell you who really owns it, like Disney. Okay, but if I write to Disney, that's gonna take a while. So who really just does print? So that's the trickier part. And so you have to kind of look look around and um I would, you know, these days using Chat GPT or or Claude or any of the the AI bots out there, it's much easier to search this stuff these days. So you could just put into Chat GPT who licenses print music for Disney. And I bet it would say Hal Leonard, because it searches all the websites and it finds that for you. Years ago, I mean, maybe even just a couple of years ago, you had to do all that research yourself. But yeah. So anyway, get permission. Then once you have that permission, you gotta figure out well, first of all, you have to figure out what you're gonna do with it. You can't just I mean, you can, you can make an arrangement. Of course, you know there's fair use. So if you're gonna use it for just your own educational uses, you're not gonna sell it, you're not gonna distribute it at all, you're gonna use it in your classroom for like an example or something, that would generally fall under fair use. Generally, and everything is is um up to perception by whomever, because fair use is really just a defense to copyright infringement. It's it's not like something you can be proactive with.
SPEAKER_06Phil fair use O'Sdrain knows all about it.
SPEAKER_02Oh, does he know?
SPEAKER_06Just kidding, I'm just kidding.
SPEAKER_02But so I mean, depending on what you want to use it for, if you're gonna perform it publicly though, and it's gonna be recorded anywhere and go online anywhere, you definitely want to get a license. Um, because I mean, especially marching bands, show choirs, any of that stuff that gets wide public view and gets shared all over the place, especially, you know, by eager parents wanting to be proud of their kids and share their stuff online. All bad. So yes, I am I am the bringer of gloom and doom. But um you can get licenses for these things if you do the right, you know, go through the right steps, it's probably gonna cost you a little money, depending on which publisher you're going with. Um, but once, but and you'll have to tell them what you want to do with it. I want to make an arrangement for my trombone choir, and we're gonna perform it at this particular event. Great. Okay. So depending on what the piece is, sometimes the publishers have to contact the actual publisher and say, is this okay if I do this? Is this arrangement okay? Um I know certain artists even want to have that kind of control over their songs. So the publisher, that publisher may have to reach out to that artist. Um, because I know I can't think of an example right now, but I know uh in the places I've worked, there have been a few that we've had to reach out to those specific like reps for that particular writer and say, is this okay? Another thing that we look at, or other other publishers as well, do we already have something like that in our catalog that you could just buy instead? And it you're basically going to be replacing our piece because we're probably not gonna let you do that then. We'd we'd say, Would you please buy this piece instead? It's almost exactly the same thing that you want to make. So that's another thing. We look at that. Do what, or if we don't have it in our catalog, would we prefer to make the arrangement of it? We hadn't thought about that. That's actually a really good idea. So we're gonna say no to you and we're gonna do an arrangement of it. You know, that that doesn't happen as much, but maybe they had plans to do it down the road. Maybe it's coming in the next season and you don't know that. Um, so there's all that kind of stuff that goes on behind the scenes to determine if you can have a license for it or not. Uh, but once you get the license, then you can make the arrangement and just follow that arrangement to to the T. And the only thing that gets you the license for, though, is to actually make the arrangement because then you have all that other stuff, like you need a performance license. Are you gonna make a recording of it? Because then you need uh a sync license or a mechanical license, like, oh my god, I know it's crazy. It's like it's crazy. There's so many things to think about. Aren't you glad you asked me that question, Chris?
SPEAKER_05What do you have to say for yourself, Phil?
SPEAKER_02Phil.
SPEAKER_05Shame on you, Phil.
SPEAKER_02I'm glad you asked before you did it. Yep.
SPEAKER_04Well, I'm sure I'm sure he is too. Yeah, it's been nice knowing you guys, and uh, you know, I'm sure hopefully you'll come and say something nice about me as sentencing. Because if Phil's gonna make an arrangement, it's gonna be of Disney tunes.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02The the safest thing you can do, the safest thing you can do, public domain. Pick public domain or pick you know, pick something that's that's got their uh that the original source. Don't use a current copyrighted arrangement of that public domain piece because those harmonies and all of that, that's still protected. It's just the underlying tune, the original source is what you need to use. The original Gregorian change. We're running, we run into this a lot at Chorus Guild because we have a lot of um arrangements of hymns and and just old folk tunes and that kind of stuff. But the a lot of those hymns were still copyrighted. Or, you know, they you have to research even things that you think are probably in public domain, you gotta look it up just to make sure.
SPEAKER_06So, Andrea, I mean, the last 20 years in the publishing world has been crazy. Self-publishing, um eprint, uh the JW Pepper component or just digital sharing of files, uh, even from composers I buy directly from, it comes to me digitally. And it's got all this stuff on it and I follow the rules and stuff. But like, how has that changed the landscape for you all in this business?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's a really interesting time because on one hand, we have some very technical customers who want digital, they want everything, want to do everything on their iPad, and they want to be able to, they don't even want to print anything anymore. They they want nothing. Or we have just the Yesterday we had people order CDs to go with their, you know. So, you know, we're talking right now about finally stopping the sale of CDs at the end of this year because we just have to do it, you know, and and people just have to figure it out. But it's it's a crazy time where you just have to have everything. You have to have everything from the CDs to the digital. And what I am seeing is that digital is becoming much more popular, much more popular. A lot of people are using iPads now. Um, down here, I'm in a choir down here, and uh several of the the section leaders and even my director that uses an iPad, you know, the full-size one where you can fit a whole piece of music on there. Um, and it's just become a second second nature thing. Like people would much rather run around with their iPad. But that technically, now this is an interesting point. Technically, making a copy of your print music and putting it on your iPad is making a copy. And if you don't have permission to make that copy, technically that's not legal. Technically, uh-huh. We that's the one we all do this, so then it's right, okay. You don't think every the publishers have the the people who own the copyrights have the right to decide if they're gonna do anything about that. You know, do they want to allow people who have purchased a piece of music to make one copy for their own use as long as they're not using both of them at the same time? And at Coruster's Guild, that's what we've decided to do because we want to be friendly to our customers, but we all and we want to trust them and say, we know you're not gonna share this to a million people, you're gonna make this and it's gonna be for you. If we get to the point where I find out that's not the case, then we may have to rethink that. But the important thing is when it comes down to it, are you making a copy to avoid purchasing something? Then that's really where the rubber meets the road. I mean, and it and it really comes down to what is your level of risk. I mean, what you're doing, I mean, you're taking a risk when you don't do things correctly, but is somebody really gonna come after you about it? That's up to you. I mean, you gotta risk, uh, who knows? Some publishers will, some won't, some have the capacity to do it, and some don't. Um it's really like Walt Disney, don't mess with the don't mess with Walt Disney, Marvel, any of those movie studios, don't do it. There are bots everywhere that are crawling the internet now looking for this. I when I was when I was well, and this is this is I want to say this is a new thing. Right now, right. Yeah. So people love it when I give presentations. Yeah, I bet they do farther and farther down in their seats.
SPEAKER_05That's right.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Never play music ever again. So the question I'm gonna look at it. Don't even look at it. Don't even look at it.
SPEAKER_02The bots will know.
SPEAKER_05The bots will know. They're coming after you. Um I hear people asking a lot about live streaming like a public middle school choir concert because parents can't, grandparents can't get there and so on. So where is the where is the if they don't keep it, they don't charge to get in, they don't keep it online?
SPEAKER_02Like is that those are great questions. And this is this is actually a presentation I give a lot because I bet you do. This one, this is this has become so much, so much more popular because at you know, during the pandemic, we all started doing this, and now people are just oh, it's easy. Let's just keep doing this. It's fine, and it's a great way to share your content, but you gotta get the license. The exemption for performance, performance, the performance exemption covers in-person concerts that you don't pay for, that you know, or that you don't pay anyone to perform. You can get you can get ticket revenue, but you have to donate it, it has to go to a cause, it can't be used to pay anybody. Um, you know, there's there are certain stipulations, but that's only for the in-person part of it. When you stream it beyond those doors, that's something totally different. So you need a license. You need a license. And when you stream things, hang on, you need two licenses. You need the performance license because that's the actual streaming, the live performance. That's the you're performing the music on the video. Now that's normally covered by whatever building you're in. They have an ASCAP license or they have a BMI license for just general music that's being played in the facility. So that you're generally covered there. But you also need then, because that stream is probably gonna result in a video, right? That's gonna sit on the site. So that's where you need that synchronization license to make that video. And that's the thing that you have to contact the publisher for. And some there are there are services out there, uh like easy song licensing licensing. I know Tresona is another one that can do this, um, where they will do those licenses for you. You give them your concert list and say, I'm gonna do this here. What do I need to pay? And they'll reach out and get all the licensing for you. There's also a new service called, or it's not even new anymore, School Music License. Um, it's run through the same people that do one license and owned by GIA, that's their parent company. Um, but school music license has some licensing options where you get you report your usage just like you do at a church, and they'll cover your licenses for certain activities. And it only works for publishers that have signed on to the service as well. So it only covers those publishers. But I think people are realizing that this is not something, this is something that we're gonna keep doing. The streaming is good, but it's also administratively prohibitive. Like, who's gonna do this? Nobody's gonna do this. So we have to make it easier if we want people to actually obey the law and do it.
SPEAKER_05So what if you just play really crappy music? I mean, like really crappy stuff where people are like, you know what, we'll pay you.
SPEAKER_01Public domain, stick with public domain.
SPEAKER_05I'm I like this.
SPEAKER_06I like this. I gotta write this down Chris. Okay, really.
SPEAKER_01Crappy music or not, somebody still owns it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, well, that's a good point.
SPEAKER_02But it's it's gotten really complicated. And I, you know, my heart goes out to people. And if I was ever gonna start my own business, maybe it would be something like that to help schools and help just help the general public try to figure this out and do the licensing for them. Because I I think there's that is a great model. You know, here, give me your concert program and I'm gonna I'm gonna work with all the publishers, and then I'll tell you how much it is. Because synchronization licenses can be any price. There's not a uh mandate like mechanical licenses, the government gives you the rate for those. And I think right now it's up to like 13.1 cents a track or a file in this case, you know, if you're gonna rip, rip us, you know, make a recording and a practice track, so to speak, and you want to share it with all your students. When people ask us to do that, we say, okay, how many people are you gonna share it with? That's what we're gonna charge you for 13.1 cents per email address you send it to, or something like that. Because you're just gonna be one file, but how many times are you gonna share it? So we have to kind of rearrange how we're doing that because the law says per track or per CD made, or you know, nobody makes those anymore. So we have to adjust. So, but mechanical licenses are the only ones that are regulated at a certain price. Synchronization licenses, arrangement licenses, you know, all those other ones. Every publisher can do something different if they want. Most of us kind of stay within the same range just because nobody, if if we were too extreme one way or the other, nobody would use it. Um but it's it's a crazy thing. So but so all that all that to say, plan ahead and think about what your uses are gonna be. And you know, and perhaps this is a great opportunity to teach a student the ins and outs of licensing and what you need to do as a teacher to make sure that you're compliant and have one of your students do it. I mean, they don't I would love to have a student from a you know school contact me and fill out all the stuff. My teacher's having me do this as an exercise, and like, great, let's talk. Because I think that's an awesome idea. And and I think it's it's not a difficult concept, and you just fill out a form, and but you gotta plan ahead. And that's the thing that you know, we still get some folks, oh, I'm live streaming this at my church this weekend, or I did it last weekend and I just realized I needed to get this license, you know. I'm like, oh, okay, well, we're small enough where we can probably turn that around, but the other publishers, the bigger ones, they get so many requests. I mean, it's just it's hard. And you have to go through each one because they're all a little bit different. Yeah, it's very interesting.
SPEAKER_05Has this gotten more complex, like historically, you know, over the last 50 years, or has it always been there and we just are naive?
SPEAKER_02Um, I think it's, you know, the the DMCA, the Digital Millennial Copyright Act, that one got more involved with the streaming. So that created um I, you know, other other options for sharing music. But most of these licenses have been around the whole time. It's just we haven't needed them. We weren't streaming, we were just making that one recording for our archives, which totally is fine. That's allowable. You can make one recording and put it in your library or for evaluation purposes. But, you know, when you know, and if you wanted to burn a CD for a fundraiser, you know, you go through Harry Fox and you get your mechanical licenses for all your tracks, and that's fine. That one used to be what we did, but we really didn't need all these other synchronization and streaming and all this stuff. So, yeah, it's gotten more complicated, yes and no, but I think our uses have also gotten more complicated.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, they've gone up so and now a message from our sponsors. Anyone can sell you an instrument. A true music partner helps you build something bigger. At Hyde Music, they support the educators, families, performers, and advocates who keep music thriving. For nearly 80 years, their family-owned, musician-operated team has provided instruments, rentals, repairs, educational resources, and creative solutions with personal service every step of the way. Expect more than a transaction. Expect a partner. Learn more at HideMusic.com or visit Hyde Music in Appleton, Green Bay, Madison, Ashkosh, and Stevens Point. Grand Tours Incorporated is a trusted leader in designing custom international group concert tours for student and adult music ensembles, setting the standard for traveling with purpose.
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SPEAKER_06Visit Grand Tours Online at Grand Tours Inc.com. That's Grand ToursINC.com. To learn more about their services and request an international tour design specifically for your ensemble. Can't get enough of me? Not sick of me yet? Complete your master's degree in music education with me at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. We offer a hybrid degree plan so you can keep teaching and getting paid and still have an in-person cohort in the summers to enrich your experience and learn a lot from others as well. Already have your masters. Ship those beautiful children off to Moorhead. We want your music majors, your non-majors, good kids, bad kids, smart kids, and everything in between. Music scholarships here are available for all students with an annual deadline for February 1st. Info about all these options and more can be found at Concordiacollege.edu slash music. That's Concordiacollege.edu slash music. Or just contact me and I'll take care of it. The wait is over. Yeah. Digital. How did you how did you make this transition from being a teacher into this world of publishing? Or was it or was it the law side you went to first? Like how how did that work?
SPEAKER_02No, the law has been the that's the last one I did. That that came during the pandemic, but I've always been interested in it. So um, yeah, so I taught and then went back to school for nonprofit management because I thought I'm just gonna like work at a theater or at or at a performing arts center or something and run education programs, which I did for a while. But then I was never planning to do publishing ever. Uh it just kind of fell in my lap where I had to, I was basically uh with it at when I was at Shell Lake, I had to make a choice. And it was either gonna be having to move back to Eau Claire to work for the university. That was when it was still part of the university, um, or and just come up in the summer. But I owned a house in Shell Lake, so that was complicated. Um, or just move to a totally different job entirely because I wasn't gonna drive back and forth. Um and then this job at JW Pepper in Minneapolis when they were still there just kind of fell in my lap because of uh I was trying to get a sponsorship from them for our show choir camp for folders. And and um Michelle, Michelle Gutaski at the time, yeah, uh came up and and we started talking, and she needed someone to help with with marketing and events, and I needed to make a decision about a job. So all of a sudden I went to work for her and I moved to Minneapolis and never looked back. But that's where my interest in copyright came, though, because I wasn't even really interested in it, didn't know anything about it when I was teaching. I'm sure I made plenty of not so licensed arrangements of things.
SPEAKER_06Bots are listening, bots are listening.
SPEAKER_02I know that I'm not gonna say the names, but I didn't even know that was wrong because my, you know, my classes never taught me any of that stuff. There's only so much you can teach in a music ed program, um, which is why when I started at Pepper, we wanted to do some college outreach. And so I said, you know, I'm gonna start learning about this copyright stuff, and I'm gonna start telling college students about it. And that's where it all started. So I researched a little bit and I ran around to colleges in our area, in our service area, and I presented and presented. I loved it. It was so much fun talking to college students because they didn't know. And they're and I still remember there was one down in Georgia that I that I went to, and you could you could see the director seriously like slinking down, and I talked about making copies or something, or something, and a student the students turned around and stared at him. And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. But you know, even directors may not know all this stuff. We can't know everything, so that's where I got interested in it, and so from there on, I just started doing presentations and just learning what I could along the way, but I never really wanted to make a career in it until the pandemic hit because I was back at Pepper at that point. Um, several things later came back and I was doing events. And during the pandemic, people, you know, we all started sharing music because we were all teaching online. We started, and publishers were like, Yeah, go ahead, it's fine. Just for now, that's fine. We're not even gonna worry about it. But then the pandemic stopped, and people kept sharing music online, got used to it, and uh and it just started being something that really started getting on getting under my skin because all this all this preaching I was doing for at Pepper, making videos, doing webinars, all this stuff about it, no one seemed to care. And it really started to bother me. So I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna go to law school. If I get a degree in this, maybe somebody will listen to me. I don't know if that's done it or not, but at least I have a little bit more, a little more credentials.
SPEAKER_06Chris got lots of degrees, no one's listening to him. That's not a good one.
SPEAKER_05Amen. Preach. Is there anything you learned in law school that went against something you had talked about? Like, was there an aha? You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02Like you thought with relation to copyright? Well, I don't know.
SPEAKER_05I mean, like I think a lot of times teachers, I mean busy teachers, right? Yeah. I mean, studying law. I mean, you're right. There is just only so much time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And so you think you understand a certain level of this, but then you go.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I learned that it was even more complex than I knew. Um, because in my world it was only print music. I only did music. And when I was in law school, then I learned about all the other kinds of copyright, you know, like photographs and paintings and choreography and all this different kind of art that I really never thought about before. Visual art is a whole different deal. There's moral rights, there's all this other stuff. Um, it was fascinating to me. Um, so I really enjoyed that and loved learning about trademarks and all that, but I had to learn about all the other, you know, law stuff too.
SPEAKER_05So if we're we're worried about teachers making an arrangement, you know what I mean? Like, how do we square the circle of AI, which goes out and steals everything?
SPEAKER_02Now that's a whole nother thing. And copyright law is really trying to adapt, you know. But the copyright office has said at this point, and and this will continue to develop, it has to, um, that anything that is generated by a machine cannot be copyrighted. And so that, you know, if for instance, like a photograph, if you generated something you told um, well, you can even do a song. You told um Chat GPT or whatever, or Suno, I guess that's the the songwriting one, uh, write me a song in the style of this and blah, blah, blah. And it and you don't give it much of a prompt. You just told it to do that and it generates a song. You cannot copyright that. That was not your work. If, however, um you were to write a song, put it into one of these things and ask for its opinion and maybe have it tweak a few things here or there, that might have more applicability to being protected by copyright because it's it's still a very fine line. When you register a copyright, you have to tell it what percentage or just guess me, what part of it was made by a non-human and what part was made by you. And then the office will decide. Because right now there's still no like black and white, 50%, 50%. There's none. It's still just a case-by-case basis because the law is everything is still developing, it's crazy. And then these large language, the LLMs, the, you know, what do we do with with that stuff? Is it infringement to train but not use verbatim? Is it, you know, there's there have been several really important cases out there that have gone both ways, you know, all over the place. It's the Wild West. Um, and some people are following these really carefully. Um, I mean, I'm in favor for some sort of licensing if you're gonna use that stuff to train or just use it in general. But it's gonna be really hard to license every single piece. So, what about like a blanket license? I mean, there's lots of different models flowing around right now. Nobody has decided about anything, but I know that the big companies like TikTok and some of these others have reached out to the big publishers and made deals. You know, like, okay, you can use our stuff, but we're gonna pay you this whole big pot of money to do it so you can pay your writers. So it's gonna be something that keeps developing. But for teachers, to bring it all back to teachers, you know, kids, we want to encourage them to compose and and do this stuff, but just know that it's not gonna be protected by copyright and someone else will probably steal some of their things. I mean, that's the nature of being an artist, right? You you you look at you're inspired by other things, by things that other people do, whether it's visual art, whether it's music, you know, we all hear things and we like, oh, but then that goes back to, you know, there's certain other cases in copyright where somebody just heard something and then they use it in another song. George Harrison is a famous case about that, um, where he was found guilty of infringement just by osmosis, so to speak, uh, where he was just around the song enough where it just got in his head and he used it in one of his songs. Uh, that's crazy to me. That's crazy. But you just have to uh so the law has to adapt. It really does. It has to evolve and adapt, but it's gonna be a while before that happens because technology is changing so fast we can't keep up with it. And copyright law was behind the times before AI even showed up. And now, because we haven't had an an overall, you know, um adjustment of copyright since nineteen seventy six. Really, we've had little band-aids put on it here and there. That was a great year.
SPEAKER_04Speaking of nineteen seventy six, um Phil? I I the whole discussion is both fascinating and terrifying. I know I think I'm no, no, I think I'm one of those band directors that's uh or you know musicians who's sort of shrinking in the back of my seat. Um you know uh that you make a photocopy of a student who's absolutely broke. Uh you want they need to learn that piece of music and you just hand it to them. But there's you're you're doing a disservice to someone else, you know. And I don't it it's when when you're doing it, it's not so bad until you're that artist who wrote that piece of music. Yeah. And then that person who really is relying on that for their livelihood, you've shut down their avenue um to make a living and support themselves or their family or anybody else. So it it's just a it's an incredible lesson and and one that I think we all need to know. My question is this. So um Wow we're gonna get there. We'll get there. No, I I've been very I've been very quiet slash guilty over here in my little my little window. I'm a first year teacher um and I'm going to work in a you know in a district where there's been absolutely no um work on licensing or mechanical or streaming or anything um what am I gonna need to budget in my first year teaching you know to create a setup? I mean do you have any ballpark or what it's gonna be or is everybody a little bit different?
SPEAKER_02It depends and depends on usage. It depends on what you want to do. If if you're gonna stream all your concerts and and you're gonna I mean honestly everyone is different. The only rate that's truly set is that mechanical rate. But most people if you're gonna stream you don't even need that because I mean the only time you would need um a mechanical is when you're gonna make like a practice track or something. But you know let me I'm trying to think you know for instance this is on our website we charge $35 per song to put it up on on your website for a year.
SPEAKER_04Right. Okay.
SPEAKER_02And that's a piece of choral music that's a short one that's like a one one choral octavo for extended pieces it's 50 bucks like for a longer like a one of our little prepackaged musicals a children's musical it's a longer work 50 bucks for the year. That's one song. So you look at your concert what do you got and the other publishers are probably in that ballpark. I don't know they could be you want a budget for more just in case because everybody changes their rates you know but so think about that and plan several months ahead I mean I know that's hard I mean I've I've been there you don't know what your kids are going to be able to play. You don't know but just as soon as you do know reach out and start that process because just having started the process doesn't necessarily get you any protection. You get protection when they've given you the license and if they don't respond in enough time that doesn't matter because you didn't get that license even if you put an put the the the request in three months ago nobody's gotten to you yet but then it so then it becomes a question of risk like if somebody comes after you for that you know you have us you can say you know I I tried you know I did all these things I I applied I mean you have you can make an argument but you know and yeah yeah it's it's a lot and so new teachers yeah this is like the wild west and new teachers really need training on this so where can they find that training?
SPEAKER_05Like how what would you recommend? What's a resource?
SPEAKER_02Well NAF NAFME has great resources they really do. Um and the Music Publishers association has an amazing curriculum that was developed by um several people Kathy Fernandes at Pepper was one of the writers of the curriculum and it's it's basically a curriculum for college students and I've actually used it with several college presentations um that goes through it's for music ed students. So I would definitely check that out mpa.org they have lots of great resources they also have information on there about making arrangements um they have forms and different things that you can do because that organization is their whole their whole uh mission is to educate people about copyright because we protect the publishers and make sure that people are doing what they're supposed to but we want people to buy our music so that's the thing you know publishing has that's a fine line where we want people to do the right thing but we don't want to make it so difficult that no one's gonna buy our stuff you know so we have to it's really up to the publishers with what you're gonna do and how you're gonna enforce it.
SPEAKER_06Funniest copyright story maybe that's Nazi moron funniest copyright story that you have had to deal with that is just hilarious.
SPEAKER_02Oh you're asking me I don't have any funny copyright stories.
SPEAKER_06I just apparently have been breaking the law for about 35 years.
SPEAKER_02Oh no no no well I mean here's a funny here's a thing oh lord here's a thing that I learned that I was like are you kidding me is one of those things. Okay so you know we go on these these trips with our kids right we put them on a bus and we show a bunch of videos on the bus. Did you know you need a license to show those videos I did I heard that yes yes you do and there are so the bus company can get a license that's a because you're performing they're they're performing the videos so you can get a license to display or show those videos on your bus or the school can get a license for that but how many times have we all gone on trips and just played videos on the bus because you know I just read videos are made they're meant to be they're meant to be used in the your home in front of your small family. If you're using a video on the bus that's showing it to a big audience and that's not how it was intended to be used. That one surprised me and I I gotta say I'm still a little on the fence with that one. But don't quote me on that and I do have to make a disclaimer none of this is legal advice always talk to a lawyer about your own specific situation. I am this is educational purposes only nobody sue me.
SPEAKER_05Thank you. There you go. And speaking of suing can I can I sue Peter yes um your name I don't have anything I got this my name and suing okay this is not going to be good. Your name is Andrea Pelican but what do you know about penguins? That's right we're gonna do five questions about penguins and here we go I thought you were gonna ask me about pelicans come on I know lots about pelicans. Pelicans no we're going penguins and this is uh here we go here we go okay and boys you can play along too scientists can sometimes locate penguin colonies from space by looking for a giant arrows made of carefully arranged rocks B massive stains of penguin poop visible on satellite images C thousands of tiny tuxedos reflecting sunlight or D a colony wide Wi-Fi signal called waddle net okay those are hilarious I I think I'm gonna have to go with C, the tuxedos.
SPEAKER_06Tiny tuxedos gentleman I'm gonna go with a gigantic amount of poop that's visible from that was my second choice.
SPEAKER_04I'll go for wobble.net or whatever it was wobble waddle netwi signal.
SPEAKER_05It was the poop letter B that's right Peter Wow that's that's interesting we've got a thing yeah yeah uh okay we got we got more of these a group of penguins in the water is sometimes called uh a raft b parade c floating tuxedo convention d extremely suspicious amount of birds I I don't know about any of those um but why not uh uh I really like the tuxedo one but I think I'm gonna go with the raft I don't know I would I'm terrible at this I'm gonna go with the parade raft is correct letter A very well done this it's good uh see fun some penguins can shoot their poops surprisingly far because oh my god wow this is they have evolved powerful muscles to launch it away from their nests b they are trying to communicate with neighbors c they are practicing for the Antarctic Olympics or D nobody has ever told them that it's inappropriate none of those should be right none of those should be right I think it's the communicating with their neighbors it's gotta be the neighbors they're trying to tell them something uh no it's a they evolve powerful muscles to launch it away from their nest only two more penguins can recognize their mate or chick in a colony containing thousands of other birds by a smell b their unique vocal call c the color of their feet or D which one owes them money hmm it was what were the the A and B it was one was smell what was smell and then vocal call is B.
SPEAKER_02Oh I want to say it's B because I saw I saw happy feet and they all had a song.
SPEAKER_05They did that's right very good happy feet which is copyrighted people but it is correct that's B do we have to pay mechanical rates because we have to pay a mechanical license for that now okay here's five last one penguins some penguins swallow stones primarily because a the stones may help with buoyancy or digestion b they are secretly building an internal rock collection c Antarctica doesn't have enough chewing gum or D they enjoy confusing scientists you're the worst AI creator ever.
SPEAKER_02I I I think it I think it has to be A, but I don't remember what A was I remember thinking that was the better of all buoyancy and digestion.
SPEAKER_04Yeah because that is also in happy feet the guy the one the ones remember him they were all giving him stones all right who knew how accurate that was they never said why over those are great those are fun oh that's like on what is that show wait wait don't tell me they they do the we're gonna ask you questions I'm not admitting that I might have uh uh taken that concept from wait wait you can be inspired by anything because you can't copyright an idea thank god I'm inspired by Phil see you can do something see you can do things Phil there's a lot you can do that's uh we didn't even get into the good stuff that you can do anyway it's not what this show's about no that's not what this show's about this isn't a feel good show well I definitely didn't make that happen so uh Andrew I have to say I'm super impressed uh not with uh Chris's speed round at all but with the fact that that um uh you are a like an incredible role model for you know what young people are gonna have to do in their careers now which is pivot like crazy you've pivoted like a gazillion times well but all around the same thing right like yeah well I think there's an element of helping people in your pivot and just helping people in different ways and um but also this idea of uh uh insatiable sort of thirst for learning new stuff yeah um and so those two things are just an incredible circle to your career it's really remarkable well thank you I mean it all I'm I'm of a mind where you just gotta go where go where life takes you and if you're not happy with what you're doing you're probably not gonna get happier by doing the same thing.
SPEAKER_02So if you don't see a future in what you're doing you should find where you should be you know so that's kind of why I've done what I've done.
SPEAKER_06Just keep going to places that's a whole podcast we could go down that road the whole podcast.
SPEAKER_02That was my second master's I I studied that stuff organizational psychology.
SPEAKER_06It's good stuff time well spent I think so Andrea it's great to meet you at the end so great to meet you too great Eau Claire alum and uh I didn't go to Eau Claire but from oh you didn't I thought you met them at Eau Claire I took lessons at Eau Claire when I was in high school oh and you grew up in Eau Claire but I grew up in Eau Claire yes Eau Claire Memorial close enough Andrea thank you so much for your time we uh just uh very much appreciated and uh yes keep keep educating us because good Lord well and if anyone wants any copyright presentations in their class let us know let me know I do them all the time so put it in the show notes yeah thanks all right thanks for thanks for hiring me at Shollick 22 years ago not not revealing any of the stupid I did 22 years ago when I worked there's you were in concert band camp that Chris was too come on all right thanks everybody Christopher that's really good information to know I'm just like I see blue and red lights outside Peter's window because they're headed to your house the SWAT team going to jail oh my goodness gracious I just thought if I'd thought the side of the van says J.W.
SPEAKER_04Pepper and I don't know I that's still blue okay crazy. But I mean it's really good to know it's really good to know all that it actually is I mean because oh man if I was a first year teacher you better believe I want to stream my stuff. I want people in the community to know what the heck I'm up to and not everybody can make a concert. It's integral you have to stream.
SPEAKER_06We stream every concert we pay we pay thousands of dollars a year. I think last year's bill was $1000 because we stream every one of our concerts and uh we'll have $1400 people in the chairs but we'll have another 2,000 like IP addresses. I mean we can't not but it's not cheap. And we it's not me that has to also manage that it's completely somebody else. Like they don't have that when you're in 512 or K twel small town northern Wisconsin. So I it's uh that's a tough call. But it makes sense. It really makes sense.
SPEAKER_04Does it well I think there's ways of mitigating it too. I mean uh you don't have to do the collected works of you know Taylor Swift on every concert. You can do some Bach and you can do some Mozart and you can do some there's ways around it you can do some stuff in the in the public domain.
SPEAKER_05Trevor Burrus Well the thing is it's risk but if there's no money at the end of that tunnel there's a lot less of cease and assist orders coming your way for doing trying to do the right thing but that's I'll be honest I hesitated not because I wouldn't want to just talk to Andrea because she's an amazing person but the concept of bringing on a copyright person because the goal is not to bring anxiety to people because they have enough of it anyway. It's the first taste nice work Christopher Yep no problem here to help but I mean you gotta know like I'd rather know in the front end of things rather than you know you make some arrangement of some Disney thing. And I know of people that have gotten you know what I mean? Yeah so you don't want to be on that end of stuff.
SPEAKER_06So it's like do some homework read up on it and uh being something a live stream but then making sure you're not posting things on social media and other things after the fact is done and there's a lot of stuff you can be very careful about doing and knowing that you're that's the remember when Chris and I worked for Disney I mean when Chris played those melodies it was so unintelligible that there would be no way of recognizing the tune to begin with. The mouse had no idea what he was playing tuba and melody definitely wasn't copyrighted. Those don't go together all sound right around low D saw those white polyester pants and that pors that Susaphone on your tiger ray if I didn't have at least two quarter rests per measure I was struggling.
SPEAKER_05So that's true. That's very true. Thank you. I appreciate that. Okay hey um I don't think we have anything else tonight. Okay. Love that Beyond Artless is sponsored by Beyond the Notes Music Festival. Our mission is to create and provide profound learning and social experiences through music that go beyond the notes. Visit BTN musicfestival dot com to learn more
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