When the T-Tones released their cd for purchase, they had to pay certain fees to obtain the copyright for all songs included & CAPA helped them to pay for this. The T-Tones researched the process for this and contacted the agencies responsible for each copyright, obtained written permission (for a certain number of discs to be made) and payed the exorbitant fees required to do this. Then, they were able to sell the discs for purchase (and CAPA assisted them in the process – and I think they only covered costs and didn’t make any profit). They were in complete compliance with all copyright laws for each song on the disc. It took a very long time to go through this process (which, in addition to the fees, is why I suspect most people try to bypass the laws). Before that, I know the Muses did the same thing for one of their recordings which they released for purchase. Also, both were recorded in a studio, but I don’t know if that has any bearing on the law (or if it is a blanket law for all recordings – regardless of whether or not they are created in a studio).
As far as YouTube is concerned, I don’t know if they have gone through the process for each video containing copy-written material or not. I suspect not, but I also suspect their lawyers have looked into the matter and have come to some legal solution so that they are not constantly sued by the agencies. However, I don’t know for certain what they do. Hope this helps explain some of it. It can be very confusing. It’s especially frustrating when you just want to see a video of a performance of people you know and are not looking to sell bootleg copies and make a lot of money. It would be nice if the laws were written to accommodate that, rather than focus on the illegal actions of others.

The A Cappella groups performances are technically covered under what’s called fair use. the groups have cited the original author, and aren’t demeaning the character or integrity of the original work. CAPA can make money off the event because the money raised goes to a non-profit organization (the school) and is for educational purposes (purchases for the Fine Arts department). The legality of YouTube having those copyrighted works up is still questionable because they are a commercial for-profit company. There have been lawsuits where some artists want their works pulled from YouTube. VIACOM was suing YouTube for $1B because YouTube was posting their TV shows. WSPN cannot post the copyrighted works because they aren’t intended for educational use, and we are not a non-profit organization. After further investigation we determined that we were infringing copyright, and promptly had to remove the videos. We apologize that we can’t post the videos.

I’m confused about this. If these videos don’t comply with copyright laws, why is CAPA able to make profit off these same performances? And why can YouTube, with virtually thousands of videos of a cappella performances, post cover songs on the internet without violating these copyright laws?