Legallity of playing guitar?

im not very knowledgable about the subject but for the first few i believe it is compeltely legal. As far as selling CDs of covers, i believe you need permission from the song owner.

Anyone wanna add, cuz im probably wrong

I actually just talked to the editor of guitar one magazine not too long ago, and too my surprise, sites like mxtabs.net, and sites that carry tabs are quite illegal.

Such magazines pay a LOT of money for the rights to right out the music, while the people would never waste time in going after these places, technically its illegal.. yea.

How people record parodies and covers is they get/pay for rights to do so.

Like Weird Al, he has to pay to get the rights to all the songs he does.

I don't know about playing, I think for public performances your supposed to get permission, but that rule is basically completely uninforced. If you go to amateur performances at bars or something, you'll often hear covers.

See...i am wrong lol......With what you said, Im guessing sheet music (that you buy from music shops) is legal??? :S

Sheet music at music stores are (normally) quite legal. These generally come directly from the publisher. Maybe you remember the Olga thing from long ago? They wanted to tab out just about every song ever recorded and place it on Olga for everyone to get. The were forced to go undercover by the publishers.

As for performance, you ARE supposed to pay royalties every time you play a cover in public. Of course, just about nobody does, but don't get caught: it'll cost you an arm and a leg. And no, you don't really need permission to perform them... just as long as you pay the rights...

Venues with live music have to pay a licensing fee to the rights organizations. They've even got forms that can be downloaded and sent in with a check.

Once a venue has gotten a license from BMI/ASCAP/SESAC, it covers performance of any tune in their catalog (they each cover millions of tunes)

Performers don't need to worry about it - the deep pockets in the event of a lawsuit are in the venue owner's pants, not yours.

Bassically it's all legal until you get paid.

Not true - profit motive is only one thing that courts take into account if it comes down to lawsuits.

For instance, if I take a digital image of sheet music and distribute it online, I'm clearly violating copyright, even though I'm not getting paid.

Besides your profit motive, there are a few other major factors that seem to decide things - whether it's for personal use or public, how easy it is for you to identify the copyright holder (and how much effort you put into it), the scale of the distribution, and whether or not your project is likely to reduce the income of the copyright holder.

Then there's purpose... some things are specifically protected, like journalism, criticism, and parody.

Weird Al probably pays royalties, just because there's a lot of money at stake. If he didn't, though, he might be able to use parody as his defense. Maybe it'd work, maybe it wouldn't.

The sad thing with all legal questions is that law is often not black and white. Ask a lawyer a question about anything, and the answer will begin "Well, it depends...."

I've seen a Weird Al interview where he talks about his parodies. He does get permission from the artists. Whether he pays or just gets an okay, I'm not sure.

Aside - when he approached Kurt Cobain about doing a Nirvana cover, Kirt asked if it was going to be about food! lol