Question for musicians

Random curious question:
How do "cover songs" work financially ?

For example, Audio Adrenaline does Edgar Winter's "Free Ride". 
They obviously have to have permission. Do they have to share a percentage of their income for that song with Winter ?
How does it work (financially) if an artist wants to cover a song   ?

In order to cover a song, you'll need to get permission from the copyright holder to do so and yes, some percentage will get paid to the copyright holder.  I'm pretty sure the amount is negotiated between the copyright holder and the one wanting to do the cover.

For us lesser known bands, we don't have to get permission from the owner.  We can file for permission through the Harry Fox Agency for a mechanical license if we intend to produce less than a certain amount of CDs.  It helps to get permission, but it can be a lot more expensive that way.  If I ever do a cover tune, I will go with the mechanical license if I cannot get permission.

If you are doing a parody of a song I don't believe you need permission at all.  You may still need to share some royalties with the original song write

Parodies, according to the Apologetix gang, require no permission and no royalties/payments. This is taken from their site:
"in 1994, in a case involving 2 Live Crew's parody of "Oh Pretty Woman" by Roy Orbison, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that parodies can be a "fair use" of an original song, requiring no permission or royalties."

That's not to say there isn't some collaberations at times. In Weird Al's case, he has the freedom to follow the 1994 ruling, but prefers to consult the artists as a courtesy. Al has even left songs off of albums cuz the labels didn't want their artist's song to be parodied. But he has every right to "do what he wants" as long as it's a parody.

As for a straight across cover, it's really interesting what you guys said. I never knew how they worked, and now I'm more educated   - Thanks !

Guilty/Forgiven wrote:

Parodies, according to the Apologetix gang, require no permission and no royalties/payments. This is taken from their site:
"in 1994, in a case involving 2 Live Crew's parody of "Oh Pretty Woman" by Roy Orbison, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that parodies can be a "fair use" of an original song, requiring no permission or royalties."

That's not to say there isn't some collaberations at times. In Weird Al's case, he has the freedom to follow the 1994 ruling, but prefers to consult the artists as a courtesy. Al has even left songs off of albums cuz the labels didn't want their artist's song to be parodied. But he has every right to "do what he wants" as long as it's a parody.

As for a straight across cover, it's really interesting what you guys said. I never knew how they worked, and now I'm more educated   - Thanks !

The reason I had heard about the parody thing was a local radio dj team did a parody recording of a Kiss song and were being sued by the bands management for copyright infringement.  They wanted to fight, but couldn't afford the legal representation to fight the bands large legal machine.  Pretty sad when lawyers will sue someone even when they know technically they don't have a legal leg to stand on....it's kind of like a form of extortion.

Here is the song by the way.

Oh, there's no way they have a chance. Parodies are protected under law. They can threaten all they want.

Guilty/Forgiven wrote:

Oh, there's no way they have a chance. Parodies are protected under law. They can threaten all they want.

And the DJ knew that, he just wasn't excited about possibly loosing his house just to have to afford the ridiculous legal fees to fight them. He said if the legal fees cost even just a few thousand dollars it would eat up all the meager profit from a dozen of his parody albums.

Smart DJ !

Guilty/Forgiven wrote:

Parodies, according to the Apologetix gang, require no permission and no royalties/payments. This is taken from their site:
"in 1994, in a case involving 2 Live Crew's parody of "Oh Pretty Woman" by Roy Orbison, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that parodies can be a "fair use" of an original song, requiring no permission or royalties."

That's not to say there isn't some collaberations at times. In Weird Al's case, he has the freedom to follow the 1994 ruling, but prefers to consult the artists as a courtesy. Al has even left songs off of albums cuz the labels didn't want their artist's song to be parodied. But he has every right to "do what he wants" as long as it's a parody.

As for a straight across cover, it's really interesting what you guys said. I never knew how they worked, and now I'm more educated   - Thanks !

Proof that Al has a little bit of class.