Greetings:

Wow, an Anne Price - Eric Levine - Steve Suffet bootleg!

Honestly, I don't really care if anyone is recording me for non-commercial purposes. But I agree that even if the CDs are given away for free there are some serious issues at hand. Anne Price, for example, sang one song by Woody Guthrie and another in which Hans Eckardt Wenzel put Guthrie's words to music. Both Wenzel and the Guthrie estate should first grant permission for those recordings, and then they should get paid for each copy sold. Anne needs to give permission to use her performance. Eric sang a song by Sis Cunningham and another which I do not recall. I sang one jointly composed by Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, and another which I wrote to the tune of of a song originally written by the Almanac Singers. At the end we sang a song by Woody Guthrie which was written to a tune Woody borrowed from Huddie Ledbetter.

Put simply, there are lots of authorizations required before that CD can legitimately be distributed.

On the other hand, if we are talking about four or five copies that will truly be sold at cost, there will most likely be no problem encountered. But there is still some risk, no matter how small. The bottom line is that for the record I am not giving my permission at this time, although I will not do anything to stop "Radio Audience."

By the way, the permission to broadcast most of those songs comes from ASCAP or BMI. I am certain WFDU subscribes to both. In the case of my own song, The Ballad of Gary Rader, I belong to neither ASCAP nor BMI. However, by performing that song on WFDU Traditions, I granted WFDU an implied license to broadcast the song. If someone wants to put that song -- or any of my songs -- on a CD, I will be happy to work with him or her to make the process as simple and inexpensive as possible. And that's said by someone who actually earned $76.50 in royalties last year!

--- Steve