R&M,

Every musician does covers as they build their skill and their fan base. It is what most venues want and how you learn to do what you do. Most hit writers learned how to write hit songs by performing covers of hit songs. Perform away.

The recording for money has been chronicled here. If you were to do something, press up thousands of copies, release it to radio, hire a publicity team to promote it, spend a LOT of money, you might have an issue. As it is, most local and smaller releases don't print or sell many copies so there really is no issue. The 9.1 cent per copy sold is only when pressing 1000 copies and since almost no one presses that many any more, again, it is rarely an issue.

The "copyright infringement lawsuits" are actually quite insane as people are suing left and right over pretty much everything. Everyone seems to have become lawyers thinking they can "sue someone and get rich" on chord progressions, words or phrases. They can't. The "Led Zepplin" Stairway to Heaven" lawsuit has just proven that. An obscure long forgotten musician, who DIES, has a friend who thinks a hugely famous song was "stolen" from the very obscure musician. But the actual progression is over 300 years old so THAT guy is probably the one who stole it.

Many of us who have to keep an eye on this find ourselves in continuous frustration with all this "someone stole my song..someone's gonna steal my song....my song my song..." CRAP!!

Most songs are not remotely copyrightable, sound like hundreds or thousands of other songs and ideas. It is nonsense. And you can't copyright a progression, a title, an idea. Much ado about nothing. And another impediment to people getting songs heard. No industry person will take a CHANCE of listening to something from someone they don't know. But they keep on spending money on copyrights.

Play what you want. If you are in a position to have something HEARD by a lot of people, pay attention to it. Other than that, enjoy yourself.

MAB