MMario,
thanks for the clarification. like i said, i have never actually filed mechanical licenses and i'm not sure of all the technical details. i appreciate the information.

pavane, you are right. you do have to be careful of what's public domain and what isn't. in the US the Library of Congress will do a copyright search for you....for a fee of course!

Uncle Dave, i misunderstood your original posting and what you were trying to do. now that i re-read it, i can see you weren't asking for permission but trying to pay the songwriter directly. sorry if i came across as trying to tell you what you already knew.

i'm wondering how much of those mechanical license fees actually end up going to the songwriter anyway (especially smaller run recordings or lesser known writers). i guess that's a different topic.

thanks everybody!

wyllow :)