I chiming in with my own experience. But since I'm also an instructor I'm making the disclaimer/cavaet that I'm only speaking from my personal experience. Some of that might relate to what GT goes through, I don't know. But I don't want anyone to mistakenly think I'm speaking for GT.

In the 80s I worked at a radio station that had formal FCC & ASCAP licensing. Since the 90s, through current day, I've worked in studios that publish, record license music. I've also played in the orchestra pit for a lot of Broadway musicals & seen some of the licensing process involved there as well.

I can corroborate everything Jeff said is accurate. It's a very complex process with a lot of people involved, lots of moving parts. And the more money there is on the table, the higher the stakes are, the more people & lawyers are involved, the tighter to the vest the whole process is played by every one involved.

Originally Posted by: jason.nesbittI'm curious as to what the usual reason an artist/publisher wouldn't want to license their songs for instruction here would be?[/quote]

There are quite a few, but most of them come down to money.

Some artists are already represented by certain publishers, management companies, etc. that are in charge of what gets licensed, how it gets licensed & to who, under what terms, etc. Some of these entities have exclusive deals, are getting paid in certain ways, already have contracts that forbid certain other types of deals.

Some of it might simply be a failure to come to terms on the amount of money or license/contract details. And because these are private deals, they are opaque. Meaning it's a contract between 2 parties that you, me, GT, the world at large has no business knowing the details about.

Some artists don't even own their music. They've sold it to a publisher or manager. And if licensing for lessons isn't on the radar of the current owner, then they aren't aware of the potential. Online lessons is still a relatively new business.

Originally Posted by: jason.nesbittTo get paid for not doing anything and to get additional exposure seems like a win win for them to me.[/quote]

But it's not "not doing anything". Any business deal has to be actively managed. And for a lot of popular music there are already a lot of people involved in the process that have a say, get a percentage, or have to legally be involved. Which makes it very difficult, even if everyone in the process is on the same page.

For example, consider, there's a company that wants to license some songs by a band. They are willing to pay for the license & the band wants to earn the money. Sounds easy, right? No so fast. :)

Potential sticking points:

1. Amount of money.

2. Length of contract.

3. Ways the music can be used by the performance company.

4. Disagreements between the band members about any of the above.

5. Disagreements between the band & their managers, publishers about any of the above.

6. Licenses already granted that don't allow the current proposal.

[quote=jason.nesbitt]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.

I'm guessing that most of the YouTubers doing that aren't making enough money to make it worth the effort of the artist or publishers going after them to make them stop, or retrieve a percentage. Lawyer fees are expensive. :)

Before I worked as an instructor for GT I worked on a project getting permission to do some covers of jazz standards. Getting a license for the *audio* was an easy, almost automatic process.

1. Contact Harry Fox Agency.

2. Select songs.

3. Pay money.

Then I tried to get a license to produce *video* performances of those songs. I quickly found out there is no automatic quick process for that. No standardized system exists. So I contacted a couple of publishers & an entertainment lawyer to find out how to do it.

I learned that *video* is different because the only way it was done up to that point was to sign individual contracts for each song from each publisher granting mechanical reproduction licenses for TV & movies. Which usually meant big money & lots of lawyers.

Now this was all before the widespread use of the internet & YouTube. So I'm sure a lot has changed. In fact I know a few years ago I followed the story of YouTube striking a deal with the big music publishers (Sony, Warner, Universal, etc.) granting some kind of a blanket license & a way of paying the publishers (& the artists as a result) when some YT account uploads copyright protected material. I think a lot of that was due to Apple iTunes & Spotify also changing the business landscape.

But I think most of that was just a practical way of trying to capitalize on the new digital world since they knew it wasn't going away. Might as well make something on it!

So, there may be some new processes & models that will come more well known or into play. But right now, it's still an opaque process of many private parties trying to negotiate what they can, when they can.

[quote=jason.nesbitt]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?

No. It depends on the contract details. It also depends on the contract of the songs. Some songs in an artist's catalog might be co-written by other people, or originally signed by different publishing deals. Or owned by different companies. It's complicated. :)