In response to Bob Conant's post in 030610 MMDigest about playing
modern tunes in public and the copyright problems there-in:

Getting the music punched and sold (legally) is quite doable, although
somewhat expensive.  What you need is to get what's called a compulsory
mechanical license for the tune you want to use.  (Mechanical in this
case refers old-fashioned records and not mechanical music as a medium
although the law still applies all the same.)

US copyright law allows for a person to do their own version of
a copyrighted song, publish it, and sell it for profit.  The only
requirements are that you register your version with an agency that
handles this kind of thing and pay a fee.  In the US this is the Harry
Fox agency.  The copyright owner gets royalties through Harry Fox and
can't do anything legally to stop you.  This is how you get "covers" of
popular songs by other artists.  This also applies to re-doing a song
as mechanical music.

On a per song basis the fees are quite reasonable, currently 8 cent per
song (for January 1, 2002 to December 31, 2003).  However Harry Fox has
a minimum purchase of $40.00 _per song_.  So, if you have a ten turn
roll it is going to cost you $400.00 just to get started.  Now this IS
expensive but if a roll is sold for $40.00, licensing would work out to
about 80 cents per roll so you would have to sell 500 rolls before you
would ever have to pay more licensing fees.  This also means that you
would need to sell 10 rolls to break even on the licensing.  Of course
there are a lot of other costs involved in publishing a roll, but the
licensing looks possible.

Public performance is another issue though.  It is not covered by the
compulsory mechanical license.  For this you have to get separate
licensing, usually through the copyright holder directly (usually
a record company).  The fees for this are not set in law like the
compulsory mechanical license.  It is more what kind of deal you make
with the copyright holder.

Being that the tune will be played on a mechanical instrument for 25
cent per play, with very limit distribution and virtually zero risk of
illegal copying you might be able to negotiate a reasonable royalty.
My understanding is that most copyright holders (or their copyright
agents) are not unreasonable on these issues.  What they are more
concerned about is illegal public performances and illegal copying.

Bob Conant is very correct that you can get in a lot of trouble if you
get caught routinely playing copyrighted tunes in public (and a lot
more if you are doing it for profit).  My point here is that the law
does allow for this to be done legally and it is possible to do,
although perhaps not profitably.

A note about the info I presented here:  All this is information that
I got off the internet from the US Copyright Office, the Harry Fox
agency, and other web sites about 2 years ago.  Do a web search on
"compulsory mechanical license" and you can get all kind of information
on this subject.  Obviously if you are going pursue a publishing
project you should talk to a lawyer since I am not one.  The standard
disclaimer applies.

Some useful links:

National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA)
  http://www.nmpa.org
The Harry Fox Agency, Inc. (HFA)
  http://www.harryfox.com/
U.S. Copyright Office
  http://www.loc.gov/copyright/
Copyright Office Electronic Registration, Recordation, and Deposit System
  http://www.loc.gov/copyright/cords/

Public Domain Music Works (This site logs just about every song there
is that is truly in the public domain - Requires a fee but still
a pretty cool site.)  http://www.pubdomain.com/

Musically,

Ray Finch
Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA