Originally Posted by: jason.nesbitt

I'm curious as to what the usual reason an artist/publisher wouldn't want to license their songs for instruction here would be? To get paid for not doing anything and to get additional exposure seems like a win win for them to me. Especially when we're talking about artists who many have forgotten about. I have certainly discovered artists on here that I hadn't really listened to before.

2nd question - How do these folks on YouTube get away with teaching all of these songs that you aren't able to? I know publishers are aggressive about those copyright strikes but some of the YouTubers don't seem to be as affected by it as others.

Final question - When you get a license for a song, can you usually count on being able to get a license for another song by the same artist? [br][br]

Thanks!

[br]Jason

Members here have differing, and legitimate takes, on this question. This was my take from industry experience andit too has direct knowledge value. See below, I pasted from another thread:

Licensing songs legally is very, very, very hard. This is what is occuring on this site. Guitar Tricks is entering an agreement with the songs publisher to legally post and teach their content. From that; Guitar Tricks is paying the publisher (ie - the band/song writer) for their work.

You can go to YouTube and get lessons for a band like Led Zeppelin and wonder why some guy can just post up a lesson 'just like that'. They're not paying the band. YouTube does not enforce royalty payments. YouTube's role is to ensure that if a channel posts copywritten material from a published band (ie - Zep), that such YouTube user/channel gets demonitized. The channel does not get paid on that vid. They still get traffic to their channel and then other videos they post they can get paid on because of spillover traffic...as well as other lessons and swag they might be selling.

To be clear though; the band ain't gettin' paid on those videos. Some videos even get taken down. Even if a legit site posts a Led Zep video; it's likely the band is not getting paid. Not cool...unless you're Fender (Play)...then you have the 'muscle' to do it.

Thing is, I had a record label at one time. It was a smaller label but we released about 25 different releases and had some national distribution (ie - Tower and Best Buy). We had a couple of releases that had cover tunes and I had to license all of those songs. It took a very long time, It was hard. I had do the same for a good dozen bands whose songs were being used on a couple of projects.

Some bands/artists don't care as long as they get paid and contract with an intermediary like the Harry Fox Agency to collect and distribute songwiriting royalties. Other bands require more control (like when I had to go to The Metro in Chicago to physically bring a document to Tesla for sign off...I mean they were very cool and hooked me up with special seating etc).

The point being is that even when you see things posted elsewhere, it's not because Guitar Tricks doesn't want to get the song. It's because Guitar Tricks will only post songs legally obtained where, and this is critial, the artist gets paid.

Led Zeppelin are blockers (using this example) and license nothing. It's a legacy of Peter Grant.

Thought I'd add my experience.