The good book, "Business of Music", comes at the end of this note. But
first two other related points.

In the last digest Dan Wilson suggests using the same strategy which S. K.
Goodman uses sucessfully to obtain tacit permission to use a composition
on an audio recording without paying royalties to the Harry Fox Office,
using that strategy in order to obtain permission from a copyright holder
to make an arrangement of a copyrighted composition.  I'm not sure that
will work.  The situations are different.

Under the compulsory license provision Goodman has the right to use a
compostion once any other user has been granted the same right; the only
question involved is the amount of the fee, if any.  But the composer of a
tune (or the author of a work) has the absolute right to permit, deny, or
control any and all use of his creation.  Granting the right of use to one
arranger or adapter or reprinter does not permit any other further use.
Therefore, it seems to me dangerous to assume that silence in this case
implies consent, though it would in Goodman's case. (Not speaking as a
lawyer here).

Regarding the Harry Fox office's interest or lack thereof in collecting
royalties on small runs of recordings, which was mentioned several digests
back, the late Merrick Price told me once of his experience in calling the
Fox office about royalties on the recordings of the Seabreeze Wurlitzer
165 which he was having issued.  Some distance into the conversation he
mentioned the small number of copies he expected to have issued, and the
office terminated the call by saying, "Get out here. If that's all the
copies you expect to sell, we aren't interested. It isn't worth our time
to even check your tune list against our files."

Now -- the good book.  Two books, actually, by Sidney Shemel and M.
William Krasilowsky, published by Billboard Pub. Co. in 1967 and 1971.
They come highly recommended for their help on the ins-and-outs of the
music trade and on the law of music copyright.  The titles are "This
Business of Music" and "More About This Business of Music."  Has anyone
here used them and found them helpful in answering some of the questions
being discussed here lately?  I have not, though I have been intending to
do that.

Matthew Caulfield