Peggy,
Let me give you a "real world"example of how this sort of thing can go wrong. In the 80's the first African American woman, Vanessa Williams, became Miss America. A few months later, some pictures of her end up in Penthouse Magazine. These were "art pictures" that she had done as a young model, for a photographer working on his portfolio. His "DEMOS."
They were nude, and while most of them were in shadow, the one that really got attention, was her in very suggestive poses with another woman. While today, this mioght be a career BOOST to some actresses, back then it was MAJOR NO-NO!
The Miss America pagent went CRAZY and forced her to give up her crown. While she is now a very successful actress and singer, it took her YEARS to get her career back on track. All because a greedy photographer wanted to show off his "demo" photographs to a publisher. And the thing is that SHE DID NOT EVEN RECEIVE ANY MONEY FOR IT. He owned the photos and she was "work for hire."
So before you present ANYTHING to a radio station, you need to get permission.
But that takes us BACK to what RADIO is there for. It is there to SELL advertising, and PROMOTE ARTISTS, not SONGS. Songs are non-entities, until there is an artist attached to it. There is a BIG REASON I have tried to continue to insist on WRITING WITH ARTISTS. This is another one of those REASONS.
Now, you will probably ask, what about the Internet? Since almost no money is earned from the Internet, (Remember those MILLIONS of streams you need to make minimum wage, not the best income maker.) It is mostly considered a PROMOTIONAL endeavor. And since you would be putting them mostly on sites like this, which cater to other songwriters, there should be no problem. You are DEMONSTRATING your writing talents, your abilities. That is the PURPOSE of the "DEMOS" That is why we do them.
So basically it is pretty simple. If you are using the songs to DEMONSTRATE what you do, Internet web sites, workshops, educational purposes, or even to GIVE AWAY to friends, family, etc. That is fine. If you are going for "COMMERCIAL purposes", the sales of CD's, Commercial radio, television, motion pictures, etc. You have to get PERMISSION, on this.
This has actually created some more problems in that so many people are pitching for "film and television." If songs are used in "commercial productions" the money you pay the studio, singers, etc. goes up. A song on major productions, can bring in thousands of dollars, a major motion picture can be hundreds of thousands. To have done a demo for $200-$1500, the studio would have to be renumerated for that, in other words, you could owe MORE money to the studio after the recording. Which is ANOTHER problem on songs for "film and television." Writers pitch these songs, thinking they own it all but actually they DON'T own things outright. The studio still shares in the "sound recording" of that song. I have known many people that had songs up for television or motion pictures and couldn't get a release from the studio or the singers, and the song being dropped from the production.
The BUSINESS OF MUSIC can be VERY COMPLICATED. I don't know if you are hearing about the "Consent Decree" element that has just come down from the Department of Justice, but essentially that is going to prevent writers in one PRO from writing with someone in another PRO. From things like that, to "self inflicted wounds" like PRO's shutting down live music venues for licencing fees, thereby eliminating places for new people to play, the music industry is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Most of this stuff means no money anyway, so why do we have to be involved in endless regulations, written by people who have NO EXPERIENCE in what we do?
Oh well, hope this has not depressed you too much Peggy. But as I read over what you had written, I started thinking "There is a LOT of things that could go wrong here. I need to point them out. The bottom line though, is that you are probably going to find out that radio is not going to play your songs anyway, so it might all be "much ado about nothing."
Good luck.
MAB
Like
1 liked
Larry Killam likes this.