Has anyone been reading these posts...?

It has already been stated that clubs and restaurants pay a fee to the rights holders (a blanket fee that is shared amongst all copyright holders on a sliding scale) for live music to be played in their establishments. So you can perform a cover tune out in public without breaking any laws.

Secondly, there are different laws and rights concerning LIVE performance, and recorded works.

And thirdly, as I said, the degree of enforcement is up to the rights societies, and copyright holders. It is a fact that they don't usually restrict people from doing what I and many (including you?) here at SZ do every day. Posting a recording of a cover of a tune on an obscure little forum for arranger users, for no other reason than to show each other their style or work, is of no concern to the copyright holder. But as I said, they DO haver the right to request it be removed if they so choose. And if they did, I would have no problem with compliance.

And once again, everybody (sorry, I should say just the few of you left with some kind of mission to find Dom's actions defensible by any means necessary) are still ignoring the scale of what is happening. Me posting a cover of an obscure Grateful Dead tune on an obscure forum has NOTHING in common with a keyboard manufacturer colluding with another individual to steal the legally copyrighted soundset IN IT'S ENTIRETY (or close enough that it doesn't matter) and the styles of a competitor's product, because his are not competitive.

Putting up the entire Grateful Dead catalog on MP3's for free is FAR closer to the equivalent. And that is illegal.

Period.

I am now done with this topic. Those of you that remain firmly unconvinced that Dom's actions are wrong (and quite possibly illegal) have past the point of any reasoning. Many of us have pointed out the absurdities of your positions, yet you remain adamant. So be it.

As I said earlier, I can only pray that you have sufficient success that when this happens to you, you remember this thread, and your comments. How could you be angry at a thief of YOUR property, when you condoned his theft of another's?